In 2024 Family’s Roger Chapman and Poli Palmer recalled the making of sixth album Bandstand, featuring a new member in John Wetton. Vocalist Chapman explained one of the most obscure lines in one of the band’s best-loved songs, Burlesque.
“We weren’t trying to sound different – we just were different,” vocalist Roger Chapman says of his former group, Family. And while never a vehicle for double concept albums or displays of flashy virtuosity, they were one of the first and among the most open-minded of the late-60 progressive rock groups, mixing songcraft with a multitude of styles from jazz to soul to heavier rock forms, to folk, classical and Eastern influences.
When John Palmer joined, he was known by his school nickname ‘Poli’ to differentiate him from guitarist John ‘Charlie’ Whitney (guitar) and bassist John ‘Willy’ Weider. So when John Wetton replaced Weider in 1971, a new tag was required. Wetton refused to reveal his middle name – but his bandmates found it out by looking at his passport. “So we called him ‘Kenneth’ and he hated it!” Palmer laughs.
“Besides his obviously serious capabilities as a bass player, John Wetton was a very warm, really nice chap,” says Chapman. “A great musician, a really good singer, and he played a bit of fiddle. He suited Family down to the ground.”
Bandstand, Family’s sixth album, was recorded in the summer of 1972 at Olympic Studios in London and co-produced by the band and George Chkiantz. “George had been involved with Family right from Doll’s House, as a tape op,” Chapman explains. “He became like a sixth member.”
Burlesque, the first single from Bandstand, was released with the album in September 1972 and reached No.13. One of Family’s best-loved songs, it’s based on Wetton and drummer Rob Townsend’s strutting, funky groove, with Chapman’s voice snaking around the spaces and answering Whitney’s guitar lines – some of which Palmer doubles up on synth.
It sounds like it might have been born from a jam, but, like the majority of the songs on the album, was composed by Whitney and Chapman. The lyrics describe the singer ‘heading out west, down to The Burlesque’ in search of good times; a companion to Sat’d’y Night Barfly from 1971’s Fearless album).
The titular Burlesque was a club, situated in a converted shop in Leicester and run by a friend of the group. “In about ’66, ’67, we’d get a gig in Blackpool or Preston, or even Newcastle, then go back and do the all-nighter there,” says Chapman. “It was serious stuff. Even on nights off I’d go down there, get stoned, have a dance, spend the night socialising.”
One of the song’s more mysterious lines is: ‘Got all my cards in one shoe.’ What does it mean? “I played chemin de fer as an amateur gambler,” Chapman explains, referring to a form of the game better known as baccarat. “The dealer has what they call a shoe, and he’d collect all the cards and put them in it. So it means ‘I’ve got everything.’ I’ve often wondered if other people knew what the fuck I was talking about!”
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