Music / The Move

The Move were a British Invasion band formed in Birmingham, England in late 1965. As they were all veterans of local “Brummie” acts, they took their name from the fact that they had ‘’moved’’ from other bands to found a new one. Roy Wood was the band’s leader and primary songwriter for most of their existence.

The band's genesis occurred with guitarist Trevor Burton (formerly of The Mayfair Set) and bassist Chris "Ace" Kefford (formerly of The Vikings). Following a local performance by Davy Jones and the Lower Third (for which both men were audience members), said group's frontman (later to be known as David Bowie) approached the pair to suggest that they form a "supergroup" of personnel alongside notable figures from other Birmingham (or "Brumbeat") bands of the period. Heeding his recommendation, Burton and Kefford promptly hired Roy Wood (formerly of Mike Sheridan and the Nightriders) and collectively determined that the nascent group's music would be modelled on the harder blues-rock and garage rock stylings of contemporaries The Who. The group's founding lineup was subsequently completed upon the hiring of veteran Birmingham vocalist Carl Wayne and drummer Bev Bevan (formerly, as with Kefford, of The Vikings).

Debuting live in January 1966, The Move initially specialized in covers of both burgeoning west-coast groups of the period (such as The Byrds) and '50s rock 'n roll standards. The group would only gain noticeable popularity, however, following the hiring of Moody Blues manager Tony Secunda, who devised a rowdy, hard-edged public image for the band (extending to their live act, which routinely featured smoke, flash bombs and Carl Wayne decimating T Vs with an axe; they also wore brightly colored suit jackets that made them look like a cross between gangsters and Lupin III) and signed them to their earliest recording contract. The Move's earliest single, the Wood-penned psychedelic track "Night of Fear", appeared in December 1966 and rapidly became a moderate chart success, prompting Wood to explore more elaborately-produced material in future. Nonetheless, the band's relationship with Secunda became increasingly strained owing to his dubious promotional methods, culminating in a case in which then-UK prime minister Harold Wilson successfully sued the group for libel shortly prior to the release of their most successful and well-known single, "Flowers in the Rain". As per the suit's conditions, the songwriting royalties for "Flowers" were subsequently confiscated and donated to charity, incensing the band and catalyzing Secunda's dismissal. In the ensuing months, the theatricality of the group's live shows began to diminish, although they would continue to witness chart success with more pop-oriented singles such as "Fire Brigade", climaxing in the release of their first studio album (technically a collection of previously-released singles) in 1968.

Unfortunately, The Move soon began a period of turbulence and disintegration with the departure of "Ace" Kefford, owing to fatigue and declining mental health. Although the group continued as a four-piece with Burton doubling on both guitar and bass, subsequent singles (primarily penned by Roy Wood) witnessed declining sales, with the group only salvaged from dissolution by the abrupt success of the psychedelic pop track "Blackberry Way" (featuring a harpsichord part courtesy of eventual ELO keyboardist Richard Tandy) in 1969, earning The Move their first no. 1 hit in the UK. Nonetheless, Trevor Burton, frustrated at the group's increasingly pop-oriented direction, departed shortly afterwards; bassist Rick Price would occupy his role for much of the group's remaining history. Following the recording of the studio album Shazam, an amalgam of psychedelia and hard rock featuring audibly-more elaborate production, Carl Wayne, perceiving himself as sidelined by Wood's increasingly outlandish live costumes and mounting insistence on assuming lead vocal duties, likewise exited the group early in 1970. With Wood the sole prominent songwriter and vocalist remaining within the group, up-and-coming Birmingham guitarist and singer-songwriter Jeff Lynne, formerly of The Idle Race, was added as a second creative lead, albeit on the condition that he and Wood collaborate on a proposed band amalgamating Beatles-esque rock with classical baroque-influenced orchestrations.

Now a four-piece consisting of Wood, Lynne, Bevan and Price, The Move increasingly gravitated further from their garage and freakbeat roots towards elaborately-produced art rock, with the ensuing studio album Looking On dominated by long-form, ornately-instrumented hard rock and heavy psychedelic tracks contributed by both Wood and Lynne. By 1971, Rick Price had departed and Wood and Lynne commenced production on the previously-mentioned project, which, owing to its amalgam of rock and classical elements, was ultimately dubbed the Electric Light Orchestra. Contrary to rumour, The Move was not dissolved during this period, but was retained as a side project and repository for Wood and Lynne's more commercially-oriented material; the album Message from the Country, recorded contemporaneously with ELO's debut, was dominated by roots rock and '50s pastiches, as opposed to the portentous orchestral experiments of its "sibling" album. Owing to the subsequent workload and Wood's creative restlessness, however, tensions rapidly escalated between Wood and Lynne, culminating in the former finally dissolving his partnership with Lynne in 1972 to form the experimental glam rock band Wizzard. Aided by The Move's sole remaining founding member Bev Bevan, Lynne would subsequently dissolve The Move altogether and dedicated himself full-time to ELO, which would, within a few short years, morph into one of the most commercially-successful rock groups of the decade. While retaining a cult following across the following decades, The Move's most prominent lineup would never "officially" reunite, although Bev Bevan and Trevor Burton would form a smaller-scale touring incarnation in the mid-2000s.

Lineup (founding members in bold):

• Bev Bevan – drums (1965–71)
• Trevor Burton – guitar, bass (1965–69)
• Ace Kefford – bass (1965–68)
• Jeff Lynne – guitar, keyboards, lead and backing vocals (1969–71)
• Rick Price – bass (1969–71; died 2022)
• Carl Wayne – vocals (1965–69; died 2004)
• Roy Wood – guitar, keyboards, lead and backing vocals, bass, recorder, assorted other instruments (1965–71)

Studio albums:

• Move (1968)
• Shazam (1969)
• Looking On (1970)
• Message from the Country (1971)

Tropes associated with The Move include:

• Darker and Edgier: "Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited" from Shazam, a heavier, more ominous remake of "Cherry Blossom Clinic" from the band's debut.
• Epic Rocking: The band did a lot of this from Shazam onward.
• Lyrical Dissonance: "Blackberry Way," a number 1 hit in Britain, has a cheerfully stomping melody and downer lyrics.
• Mood Whiplash: A trip through the band’s singles from 1966 onward guarantees this.
• Older Than They Think: See Rock Me, Amadeus!, below. The band invoked this trope in 1966, before The Beatles or succeeding progressive rock artists even thought of incorporating classical elements. ELO was a natural progression for the band.
• Progressive Rock: Their later albums dabble in this, and could be considered some of the earliest examples of the genre.
• Psychedelic Rock: Much of their earlier material is this.
• Revolving Door Band: Seven members in little more than five years.
• Rock Me, Amadeus!: The riff for the band's first hit, "Night of Fear," is based on Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.
• Sanity Slippage: "Cherry Blossom Clinic", "Disturbance"
• Something Blues: "Turkish Tram Conductor Blues"
• Step Up to the Microphone: Drummer Bev Bevan sings lead on both a cover of "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart" on the debut album and "Ben Crawley Steel Company", an album track from Message from the Country, utilizing a distinct "bullfrog" baritone that would later become the bass voice on ELO's three-part harmonies.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: "Night of Fear"