Edgar Broughton Band – The Edgar Broughton Band(1971)

Biography
The band started their career as a blues group under the name of The Edgar Broughton Blues Band, playing to a small following in the region around their hometown of Warwick. However, when the band began to lean towards the emerging psychedelic movement, dropping the ‘Blues’ from their name as well as their music, Victor Unitt left. In 1968, the Edgar Broughton Band moved to Notting Hill Gate, London, seeking a recording contract and a wider audience, and were picked up by Blackhill Enterprises. Blackhill landed them their first record deal, on EMI’s progressive rock label Harvest Records, in December 1968. Their first single was “Evil”/”Death of an Electric Citizen”, released in June 1969, which was also the first single released by Harvest. In 1971, the band decided that existence as a power trio was limiting, and asked Victor Unitt, who had been playing meanwhile in The Pretty Things, to rejoin the band. In May, with the new lineup, they released their eponymous third album, which contained “Evening Over Rooftops” (again with strings by David Bedford). Edgar Broughton Band contained heavy blues and even country influences. The album is known among fans as “The Meat Album”, because the album cover features lots of meat on hangers in a warehouse; a human being can also be seen hanging among the meat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Broughton_Band

Album & Cover
Edgar Broughton Band is the self-titled third album by the Edgar Broughton Band. The album is known amongst fans as “The Meat Album”, as the album cover features lots of meat on hangers in a warehouse; a human can also be seen hanging amongst the meat.  Several outside musicians were used on this album including Mike Oldfield of Tubular Bells fame.

Aubrey Powell states the this cover was an attempt to portrays the band’s political views, which were anti-capitalism and the de-humanisation of the individual. The person is unable to escape from the other animals hanging there. The working class overlooked in a sham society. The model was a friend from Cambridge called Emo, who coped with the cold and was unspooked by the dead carcasses. The cover did not fare well with the suits in the EMI offices and according to Storm Thorgerson, was described as one of the most disgusting things ever seen, but the band were very deomonstrative…bravo Edgar Broughton. This was Hipgnosis foray into the surreal and the macabre.

Cover Location: Smithfield Meat Market, Farringdon, London, UK
Who Did What: Photography – A. Powell/S. Thorgerson.  Photography(Inside) – Adrian Boot, Nigel Leaman
Label: Harvest SHVL 791(UK)
Source: Vinyl. Album. Cover. Art, The Complete Hipgnosis Catalogue: Aubrey Powell
The Work Of Hipgnosis ‘Walk Away Rene’ – Hipgnosis & G. Hardie

Tracklist

Credits
Arranged By [Celli And Brass] – David Bedford
Engineer – Peter Mew
Featuring – Arthur, Edgar, Steve, Victor
Producer – Peter Jenner
Written-By – R. E. Broughton* (tracks: A1 to B2, B3b, B5b), S. A. Broughton (tracks: A4b, B2, B4), Edgar Broughton Band (tracks: B3a, B5a), Unitt* (tracks: A1, A4b, B2, B4)