Anthony Charles McPhee (23 March 1944 – 6 June 2023) was an English guitarist and singer. He was the founder of the blues rock band the Groundhogs.
McPhee was given the name “T.S.” — standing for “Tough Shit” — when he released a duet single with Champion Jack Dupree — titled “Get Your Head Happy!” — in 1966. Producer Mike Vernon suggested adding to McPhee’s name in order to make it look more like an official blues name.
The Groundhogs backed Dupree and John Lee Hooker on UK concerts in the mid-1960s. The band evolved into a blues-rock trio that produced three UK Top 10 hits in the UK Albums Chart in the early 1970s. Although they have continued to play in various line-ups to the present day, McPhee officially retired from the band in 2015.
In 1973, McPhee released a solo album titled The Two Sides of Tony (T.S.) McPhee. Side A of this record is blues rock, and Side B is a single psychedelic art rock electronic composition in four movements, featuring Arp 2600 Synthesizers, Electric Piano and The Rhythm Ace Drum Synthesizer. Entitled The Hunt, it explores McPhee’s strong stance against fox and stag hunting. McPhee also released many other solo acoustic blues records, as well as duets with Jo Ann Kelly.
Apart from the Groundhogs, McPhee has played with Herbal Mixture, the John Dummer Band, Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, Tony McPhee’s Terraplane, Tony McPhee’s Turbo, the Tony McPhee Band, and Current 93.
McPhee’s definitive biography, written by Paul Freestone, was published in 2012.[5]
Health issues and death
In 2009, McPhee suffered a stroke, which affected his speech and ability to sing.[8][9]
McPhee died on 6 June 2023 of complications from a fall that occurred the previous year. He was 79 (wikipedia)
And here´s is 3rd album with The Groundhogs:
Thank Christ for the Bomb is the third studio album recorded by The Groundhogs, originally released by Liberty Records in 1970. It was engineered by Martin Birch, who had previously worked on albums by Deep Purple, Jeff Beck, Fleetwood Mac and Peter Green. It entered the UK Melody Maker album charts at number 27 on 20 June 1970, and had a total of 3 entries in that chart.
The image of Pete Cruickshank on the left of the cover is adapted from photograph Q 1 in the Imperial War Museum’s photograph archive. (wikipedia)
Thank Christ for the Bomb was the first Groundhogs album to indicate that the group had a lifespan longer than the already-fading British blues boom suggested. It was also the first in the sequence of semi-conceptual masterpieces that the group cut following their decision to abandon the mellow blues of their earlier works and pursue the socially aware, prog-inflected bent that culminated with 1972’s seminal Who Will Save the World? album. They were rewarded with their first ever Top Ten hit and purchasers were rewarded with an album that still packs a visceral punch in and around Tony McPhee’s dark, doom-laden lyrics. With the exception of the truly magisterial title track, the nine tracks err on the side of brevity. Only one song, the semi-acoustic “Garden,” strays over the five-minute mark, while four more barely touch three-and-one-half minutes.
Album review, NME 11 July 1970:
Yet the overall sense of the album is almost bulldozing, and it is surely no coincidence that, engineering alongside McPhee’s self-production, Martin Birch came to the Groundhogs fresh from Deep Purple in Rock and wore that experience firmly on his sleeve. Volume and dynamics aside, there are few points of comparison between the two albums — if the Groundhogs have any direct kin, it would have to be either the similarly three-piece Budgie or a better-organized Edgar Broughton Band.
But, just as Deep Purple was advancing the cause of heavy rock by proving that you didn’t need to be heavy all the time, so Thank Christ for the Bomb shifts between light and dark, introspection and outspokenness, loud and, well, louder. Even the acoustic guitars can make your ears bleed when they feel like it and, although the anti-war sentiments of “Thank Christ for the Bomb” seem an over-wordy echo of Purple’s similarly themed “Child in Time,” it is no less effective for it. Elements of Thank Christ for the Bomb do seem overdone today, not the least of which is the title track’s opening recitation (a history of 20th century war, would you believe?).
But it still has the ability to chill, thrill, and kill any doubts that such long-windiness might evoke, while the truths that were evident to McPhee in 1970 aren’t too far from reality today. [Originally issued in 1970, the LP was reissued on CD in 2007 and features bonus tracks. (by Dave Thompson)
Personnel:
Peter Cruickshank (bass)
Tony (T.S.) McPhee (guitar, vocals)
Ken Pustelnik (drums)
A LP Re-Issue:
Tracklist:
01. Strange 4.18
02. Darkness Is No Friend 3.48
03. Soldier 4.49
04. Thank Christ For The Bomb 7.19
05. Ship On The Ocean 3.28
06. Garden 5.22
07. Status People 3.34
08. Rich Man, Poor Man 3.27
09. Eccentric Man 4.57
+
10. Garden (BBC Radio 1 Sessions) 3.35
11. Eccentric Man (BBC Radio 1 Sessions) 5.01
12. Eccentric Man (Live at Leeds) 6.48
13. Garden (Live at Leeds) 6.20
14. Soldier (BBC Radio 1 Sessions) 15.03
All songs written by Tony (T.S.) McPhee
Another great LP-Re-Issue:
In 1914 a war began, a million soldiers lent a hand,
Weren’t many planes to give support, hand to hand was the way they fought.
Young men were called up for the cause, for king and country and the cross,
In their naivete they thought it was for glory, so they’d been taught.
In 1939 once again there came the sound of marching men,
Occupying European land, all the way to North French sands,
But, in the final year of that war, two big bangs settled the score,
Against Japan, who’d joined the fight, the rising sun didn’t look so bright.
Since that day it’s been stalemate, everyone’s scared to obliterate,
So it seems for peace we can thank the bomb, so I say thank Christ for the bomb
More from The Groundhogs:
ManyFantasticColors 