Mabel Greer's Toyshop

Mabel Greer's Toyshop were formed in London, England in summer 1967 by singer/songwriter/guitarist Clive Bayley and drummer Robert Hagger. The pair met in a pub in Fleet Street, after getting in touch via an advert in the Melody Maker music magazine, and decided to form a psychedelic group. Hagger came up with the name, which was inspired by "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and other such long psychedelic titles. They recruited bassist Paul Rutledge, an art school student, and jammed together for a few months and played in a school hall near Bayley's house, in Kingston-upon-Thames. In autumn of 1967, Rutledge decided to leave the band and return to art school. Hagger called bassist Chris Squire of The Syn. They met up and played music that Bayley had been writing. Squire brought in guitarist Peter Banks, also formerly of The Syn, and they became a quartet, with Bayley shifting to rhythm guitarist while Banks took lead. The quartet played shows at the Marquee Club and Middle Earth. In spring 1968, they recorded five Bayley-Squire compositions at White City Studios for Disc Jockey John Peel's "Night Ride" radio show: "Beyond and Before", "Get Yourself Together" (with Squire singing leading vocals), "Jeanetta", "Images of You and Me" and "Electric Funeral". At their live shows, they group would open with "Beyond and Before" and close with "Electric Funeral" and would play covers such as "Light My Fire" by The Doors and "I See You" by The Byrds. On 18 May, the group played a gig at St. Joseph's Hall in Highgate during which Jon Anderson sang with the band on stage. Squire had met Anderson a few weeks previously and written a song called "Sweetness" together. Shortly after the Highgate gig, Banks quit to join the group Neat Change, so Bayley returned to the role of lead guitarist and Anderson joined as lead singer. In early June 1968, after a few rehearsals with the new line-up, Hagger decided to quit and join the group Heaven, attracted by their offer of more live work than Mabel Greer's Toyshop. Bayley, Squire and Anderson recruited new drummer Bill Bruford via an advert in the Melody Maker. Bruford auditioned with the group in the basement of the Lucky Horseshoe Café on Shaftesbury Avenue on 7 June and played live with them that night at the Rachel MacMillan College, Deptford playing an extended version of Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour". Much of June and July 1968 was spent rehearsing in the basement of the Lucky Horseshoe Café. In July, the quartet recruited Hammond Organ player Tony Kaye. Rehearsals allegedly included extended covers of "Every Little Thing" by The Beatles and Stephen Sondheim's "Something's Coming" from West Side Story (1961) as well as the group's song "Sweetness" and other Anderson-penned songs. During this period, Bayley became disillusioned with the group and left towards the end of the month. The group asked Banks to return as guitarist, which he did having fallen out with Neat Change. With no founding members remaining and a growing dislike towards the long name, particularly by Anderson, the group decided to come up with a shorter name. Anderson suggested "Life", Squire suggested "World" and Banks suggested "Yes". By the end of a rehearsal at the Lucky Horseshoe on 2 August, they had decided on Yes and played their first gig under the new name the following day. The debut Yes album was recorded in spring 1969 and featured several Mabel Greer's Toyshop numbers: "Beyond and Before", "I See You", "Every Little Thing", "Sweetness" and "Something's Coming". By this time, Bayley and Hagger had both left the music business. Many years later, in 2013, Hagger was on a flight to Johannesburg when he read of the death of Peter Banks. He got off the plane and contacted Clive Bayley. After swapping a couple of emails, the pair met up in Nice, France for dinner with their wives. During dinner, they decided to hire a room and play together again. They teamed up with bassist Hugo Barré, a friend of Hagger's son James Hagger, and began playing Mabel Greer's Toyshop songs from 1967/68 as well as new Bayley compositions. This led to the rebirth of the group and a 2015 debut album "New Way of Life", which was produced by Billy Sherwood and also featured former 1968 member Tony Kaye on Hammond Organ and vocals by Bayley's daughter Annouchka. In 2016, Max Hunt replaced Kaye as keyboard player. The new line-up of Bayley, Hagger, Barré and Hunt recorded the album "The Secret", which also featured a posthumous appearance by Peter Banks on the title track. Unfortunately, despite in 2014 being endorsed by Chris Squire and produced by Billy Sherwood, the group subsequently managed to fall out with Yes. This meant that initial plans for Bayley and Hagger to perform at Yes's 50th anniversary fan convention - in London in March 2018 - were aborted. However, Max Hunt did appear at the event as a member of the Yes tribute band Fragile.