01	In Ancient Days						07:40
	02	Way To Power						03:58
	03	Come To The Sabbat						04:55
	04	Conjuration						05:45
	05	Seduction						05:37
	06	Attack Of The Demon						05:37
	07	Sacrifice						11:09

(p) 1970 An Excellency Production
(c) 1990 Repertoire Records

Jim Gannon - Lead guitar, vibes, spanish guitar (composer of all tunes)
Zoot Taylor - Organ, piano
Kip Trevor - Vocalist
Clive Jones - Flute, sax, clarinet
Bob Bond - Bass guitar
Clive Box - Drums & percussion

Review by Tommy Schonenberg
Early 70's British progressive. This, their first album, is their best known, probably most because of the very satanic lyrics. Absolutely every track on the album is about Satan, black magic, demons and secret spells. Musically, it's quite typical early 70's progressive with a lot of flute and organ. On some parts they use some strings too. With it's Jethro Tull-ish flute theme and fairy-tale atmosphere, "Come to the Sabbath" became a hit for the band. Other good tracks on the album is "In Ancient Days", the ballad "Seduction" (a love song to a female demon!) and the intense title-track. But in fact, the whole album is quite nice. "Conjuration" is a quite theatrical track, and the theme is kinda symphonic. I also think I can hear some mellotron on "In Ancient Days", but I'm not too sure. Black Widow were never the best band on earth, but "Sacrifice" is a enjoyable and nice piece of early 70's progressive anyway.

Once upon a time in Leicester, England, there were seven young musicians; Kay Garrett (vocals), Kip Trevor (vocals, guitar & harmonica), Jess "Zoot" Taylor (organ & piano), Jim Gannon (guitar & vocals), Clive Jones (sax & flute), Bob Bond (bass guitar) & Clive Box (drums & percussion). In the year of the lord, 1966, they formed the soul band Pesky Gee!. The band made one album for "Pye", "Exclamation Mark" (1969), before reforming without Garret as Black Widow in 1970. CBS become the bands new label. The group played a wild orgiastic, black mass oriented rock, much in the footstep of their colleagues Black Sabbath.

Clive Romeo Zoot Jim Kip Jeff

The band had a small amount of success with "Come To The Sabbat", taken off their first LP Sacrifice (1970). The band had an extravagant mystic shows (choreographed by members of Leicester's Phoenix Theatre Company) and outrageous effects. The live show initially featured the mock sacrifice of a nude woman, which in itself, was enough to cause uproar in the press, and coupled with the fact that they were receiving advice on the art of witchcraft from Alex Sanders, the self professed "King Of The Witches" - the Sunday tabloids had a field day!

Early concerts were attended by priests waving crossed in the air, warning those attending to the inherent dangers of witchcraft and Black Widow. Religious fanatics would preach at the waiting queues urged on by journalists looking for a story. The news writer Paul Green said that the Black Widow music and stage show was not an example of Satanism, but more an example of Satanic bad taste.

The debut album reached the number 32 (or 34?) in the U.K. charts. The group toured throughout Europe and appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival of 1969 and 1970.
Gannon and Trevor later worked on a abortive project to turn the Black Widow stag show into a Broadway musical.

Before Sacrifice, the group had in 1969 recorded the "same" record with Kip Trevor and Kay Garret (from Pesky Gee!) on vocals. The master tapes remained in the possession of band member Clive Jones and have not been heard until now, when it has been released as 'Return to the Sabbat' on Mystic Records.

By their second album Black Widow (1971) the band had pulled away from their Black Magic influences, hoping to widen their appeal, but received less response. Black Widow had a different line-up on each of their albums: Jeff Griffith replaced Bond, Romeo Challenger filled in for Box and John Culley (ex-Cressida) took over Gannon?s guitar duties. Check this 'Black Widow ready reference chart' if you are interested in Black Widows different line-ups.

The Band received barely any interest from international music press, if any at all, yet become nonetheless a definite part of the early seventies "Heavy Rock Occult Wave".
Their third album, Black Widow III , came out in 1972. With songs like The Battle (a antiwar song) and The Sun (a hymn to the sun) it stood very clear that the group had left the dark domains and become more commercial. The record received critics in the European press. In fact Black Widow was more successful in countries like Sweden, Germany, France, Austria and Netherlands, than in the United Kingdom.
By the summer of 1972, the impetus was beginning to drain from Black Widow. The band were tired, dispirited, and without a record label, having been dropped by CBS.

With the future looking increasingly bleak Black Widow entered D.T. Studios in Kettering to begin recording their fourth album (Black Widow IV). The irony of the situation was that the band, due to the circumstances prevailing at the time, were left to produce the new record them self, something they had always requested in the past, but always been refused. The end result was that the band recorded, by far, their strongest album - but it was never to see the light of day until now (thanks to Mystic Records and Kip Trevor!).
Shortly after "Black Widow IV" was recorded Kip Trevor left the band to be replaced by an American singer called Rick "E". The last four songs on the album are demos put together by the band at that time. Like the fourth album, nothing was ever to be done with them - until now!! (Thanks again Mystic Records and Kip Trevor!)

After Black Widow Gannon went to play with songwriter Kenny Young in Fox (1975), Dave Cartwright and Alice Cooper (1976) and Yellow Dog (1977) before joining Sherbet and moving to Australia where he leads a club band called "Bop till you drop". Trevor worked as a session singer and music publisher while Challenger plays drums for "Showaddywaddy". (If anyone knows what the others are doing, please let me know!)

Even if the group never became as big as they deserved they still have many fans (me for example). The Swedish Death Metal group Bewitched have on their EP "Encyclopedia of Evil" (1996) a cover of the cult classic "Come to the Sabbat".





ProgForest:


Black Widow - "Sacrifice" (1970)

This British band released an album under the name Pesky Gee before they decided to change name to the more sinister Black Widow. They knew exactly that they were not the greatest musicians or songwriters on earth, so they adopted a very accomplished satanic image that went further than any other band before them. Their stage-show included sacrificing of virgins, giving the band some attention that they never would have got if they just had relied on their music. "Sacrifice" was undoubtedly their best album, as all the occult and satanic imagery at least managed to hide some of the band's most obvious shortcomings. Their music was progressive rock with lots of flute, sax and organ performed in a charmingly mediocre way. The album also featured some strings on "Conjuration", "Seduction" (a love song to a demon) and "Come to the Sabbath". The latter one was catchy enough to be a minor hit and the band's signature tune. The lyrics was the most apparently satanic stuff any band had written until then. And they also went the opposite way of Black Sabbath's lyrics. While Sabbath's lyrics were dark, sinister, frightening and could almost be seen as a warning against Satanism, Black Widow was with their almost cheerful and fairy-tale styled music making it look romantic and exciting. "Sacrifice" is at its best an amusing album with a nice, early 70's atmosphere and is the only Black Widow-release worth having.

Black Widow - "Black Widow" (1970)

Black Widow was obviously trying to get "serious" on their self-titled second album, as all the Satanism was gone and they decided instead to let just the music carry them. But without their image, the only valuable thing of the band disappeared: the entertainment. The album was an attempt at making a varied and diverse progressive rock album, but it all falls flat on its face due to the band's lack of both songwriting skills and instrumental abilities. To be honest, the simplistic sax-prog of "Tears and Wine", the light-hearted pop of "When My Mind Was Young", the dramatic "Mary Clarke" and the hard rock of "Wait Until Tomorrow" is not directly painful listening, but they're all still very mediocre songs when you compare them with the really GOOD bands around the same time. And the band's clumsy performance didn't make things much better. The worst and most embarrassing moment on the album is probably their attempt at making raw blues in "Poser". This is a weak album from a weak band, and of interest to no others than 70's progressive rock completists.
View the whole cover.

Black Widow - "III" (1971)

The band was joined by former Cressida-guitarist John Culley on their third and final album. You could may expect that this would result in a slightly better product than the previous album, but "Black Widow III" sounds in my ears even more amateurish and mediocre than anything they had done before. "The Battle" is a 10-minute three-part suite that opens the album. It has actually one decent riff in it, but the rest of the track lacks everything that sounds remotely like good melodies and memorable themes. And Kip Trevor reveals himself as an awful singer. The only track that I really care for is "The Sun". It's a short and very nice little tune with a lovely atmosphere. The rest is a study in mediocrity, and the bottom is reached in "Old Man" where the band attempts to sound folk-influenced. If you want an amusing slice of satanic early 70's prog, then get "Sacrifice" and skip the two other albums.