Gary Boyle - Light Again the recordings 1977 -1978 Progressive Voyages Review.

This great little set continues the musical journey of Gary Byle after Isotope fell apart Fary was signed to Gull records where he recorded two very different albums in The Dancer (1977) Electric Glide (1977) these albums saw Gary widening his vision and collaborating with new musicians to create new musiç .

These included Gary Moore,Simon Phillips, John Giblin and old Isotope keyboard player Zoe KronbergerKen Shaw, Rod Argent amongst others.

Another difference here is that mix of both acoustic and electric playing, there are fiery Rockers like Cowshed Shuffle and The Dancer that are counterpointed he likes of Pendle Mist and Maiden Voyage. This all conspires to show Gary's ongoing development as a musician abd his giving confidence in his own abilities. Certainly on Dancer and CowshedcShuffle we hear a definate fire to his playing.

Gary is often likened to John Mclaughlin for his incredibly precise and attacking not to mention Fast playing style, obviously at that time in the 1970’s there was a lot of fusion groups around each trying to stand out from the crowd with the likes of zmahabvihshnu Orchestra and zal Di Moela being at the forefront whilst britigroups like isotope, Hummingbird and the like were trying to get the publics attention against the growing swell and domination of Punk and New Wave groups.

Sadly Gary and his ilk were marginalised with musicianship being viewed as a dirty word amongst the growing status of Punk and New Wave, obviously there was still a remnant of people who wanted more than three chords and a badly played racket, These folks edre hiwever largely in the minority with the result being good albums like The Dancer fell through the gap, as did a lot of progressive music, where is stayed on the sidelines until times changed fir the better around 1983/84.

By then sadly zfary had been dropped by his kabel who went into liquidation shortly afterwards.

Gary's next album Electric Glide was different again, with very mu h a who's who of British jazz fusion appearing here, Gary moored who was playing guitar for Colosseum 2,Robert Awahi