I'll be honest: when this batch came in, I had never heard of Ten Years After. Four of their records landed in the same week — a first pressing of Undead, their self-titled debut, Watt, and Rock & Roll Music to the World — and I almost filed them away before doing my research. British blues rock, late sixties, Deram label. I figured I'd look them up later.
I looked them up immediately after I put the needle on Undead.
Who Are Ten Years After?
Ten Years After were a British blues-rock quartet from Nottingham, formed in 1966 around guitarist and vocalist Alvin Lee — a player of almost absurd technical ability who could make a guitar sound like it was simultaneously on fire and completely at ease. The other three members — Chick Churchill on keys, Leo Lyons on bass, and Ric Lee on drums — were no slouches either, but the band was always, in a fundamental way, about Alvin Lee's hands.
They came up through the same London club circuit that produced Clapton, Beck, and Page, playing sweaty residencies at places like the Marquee and Klooks Kleek. By 1968 they had two albums out on Deram — the self-titled debut and the live Undead — and a reputation as one of the tightest live acts in Britain. Then, on August 17, 1969, around 400,000 people saw them play at a farm in upstate New York, and everything changed.
The guitar work on Undead is a reminder that speed and feeling don't have to be enemies — Alvin Lee had both in quantities that most players can't manage separately.
The Album: Undead (1968)
Recorded live at Klooks Kleek in London on May 14, 1968 — exactly 58 years ago today, as it happens — Undead is a five-track live album that runs just under 40 minutes and leaves absolutely nothing on the table. The tracklist is spare: side one gives you "I May Be Wrong, But I Won't Be Wrong Always" and a sprawling, elastic take on "At the Woodchoppers' Ball." Side two is "Spider in My Web," a medley of Gershwin's "Summertime" and Ric Lee's "Shantung Cabbage," and then the closer.
The closer is "I'm Going Home." More on that in a moment.
What strikes you first about this record is how live it sounds — not in the processed, reverb-padded way that a lot of 1968 live albums sound, but genuinely present, like the band is in the room with you. The Deram engineers caught something real that night at Klooks Kleek. The vinyl I have grades VG+ on the record, with a worn sleeve (that psychedelic four-faces cover takes hits) — but the music plays clean and loud.
Ten Years After — Undead
1968 · Deram DES 18016 · First UK pressing · VG+ / V (record excellent, sleeve worn) · $37.99
The Woodstock Moment
Here's where it clicked for me. When I searched the band, practically the first thing that came up was a clip from the 1970 Woodstock film: Alvin Lee, in a red Gibson ES-335 covered in peace symbols, playing "I'm Going Home" at approximately the speed of thought to a crowd of 400,000 people. The performance became one of the iconic images of the entire festival. If you've seen the Woodstock movie, you've seen this moment — you may not have known who the band was, but you've seen it.
That same "I'm Going Home" — the very track that closes Undead, recorded in a small London jazz club the year before Woodstock — ended up on Side 4 of the Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More triple LP (Cotillion, 1970), right after Santana's "Soul Sacrifice." It runs nine minutes and twenty seconds, and it earned its place among Hendrix and The Who and CSNY. The song was already fully formed in 1968. Woodstock just let the world hear it.
Putting the Needle Down
Here's a clip from this very copy — "I'm Going Home," side 2 of the first pressing:
The Rest of the Collection
The same week brought in three more Ten Years After titles. Each one is a different chapter in the band's story, and all four are in the shop right now.
Ten Years After — Ten Years After (Self-Titled)
The debut. Recorded before Undead but in some ways a quieter, more exploratory record — the band finding its voice in the studio, which is a different exercise than finding it in front of a live crowd. This copy grades VG/VG; honest wear, plays fine.
Ten Years After — Watt
Watt came out in 1970 as TYA's fifth album — by this point they'd also put out Stonedhenge and Ssssh in 1969, the latter released the same month as Woodstock. It's the one that tends to get overlooked in the catalog, which is a shame, because it's a focused, relatively concise record that shows the band had more range than the hard-charging live reputation suggested. This is another first pressing, and the VG+/VG+ grade means it's the cleanest copy of the four.
Ten Years After — Rock & Roll Music to the World
By 1972 the band had moved to Columbia and the sound had shifted — less raw club blues, more polished hard rock. The title track has a momentum to it that you'd recognize instantly if you heard it, even if you've never consciously listened to Ten Years After. A VG+/VG+ copy at this price is a solid entry point if you're just getting started with the catalog.
All four are live in the store now. If you pick up Undead and want to know what comes after, the self-titled and Watt make a natural follow-on. If you just want the cleanest copy or the easiest entry point, Rock & Roll Music to the World is hard to beat at the auction price.
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