Forever and Ever

It all started with Tony, Caro and John…

Singer, songwriter and guitarist Tony Doré and bassist John Clark were childhood friends in Derby, England, and played together on both the rock and folk circuit. After university they reunited in 1970, when John came to London to join Tony and his wife Caroline (Caro), who had played university folk clubs together. All on the First Day was made in 1972 with almost no budget and primitive equipment, recorded on John’s 2-track Ferrograph; they could overdub in mono only by re-recording the backing track at the same time. They self-pressed the LP in an edition of only 99 copies, with the home-grown nature of the product emphasised by individually spray-painted covers.

Expanding the band line-up with Simon Burrett on lead guitar, Jonny Owen on Harmonica, and me on keyboards, Tony, Caro and John continued on the college circuit for a little while under the name “Forever and Ever” but the gigging stopped in the late seventies, when families and careers took precedence. The band continued to jam together, and to record in John Clark’s by now, multi-track studio.

In 2001, Tony Doré was contacted by Shadoks Music in Germany, when it transpired that there was an underground following for the original All on the First Day album, and copies were changing hands for substantial sums of money. The band agreed that Shadoks could produce a limited release of vinyl albums from the original master, and at the same time release the album on CD. The release included five bonus tracks recorded around the time of All on the First Day. Almost simultaneously the band released some of the studio tracks recorded since All on the First Day, as the limited edition CD-r album Retrospect under the Forever and Ever band name. This was available online.

Bassist John Clark died in 2005.

Following the wider release of the band’s material, one of Doré’s compositions “The Snowdon Song” was covered by the indie duo Beach House, on their eponymous 2006 debut album. Although not attributed to T, C & J on the album, and given a different title (“Lovelier Girl”), Beach House do not dispute authorship of the song. Doré worked with Beach House’s management on authorship and royalty issues.

Tony continues to write songs, and between 2006 and 2010 recorded 13 new tracks with Tony and I doing the production and mastering in my studio in France in January 2010. This collection, Fall Away Like Leaves by Tony Doré and Friends, was released digitally in 2011 by Gaarden Records of Portland, Oregon. 

Gaarden have also reissued All on the First Day as digital downloads and as limited editions on green and maroon vinyl. In 2012, Tony, Caro and John had their first major label release with the album Blue Clouds on the Chicago-based record label Drag City. This album, a joint release with Gaarden and Galactic Zoo, was made up of rare unreleased and live tracks from the All On The First Day era.

In November 2017 All On The First Day was again re-released, in vinyl and CD format, this time by the German label Tapete. Tony and Caro announced that they were going to tour again in early 2018 in Germany and the UK to promote the re-release – the full scale band tour since the 1970s. They were joined by Jonny Owen (Caro’s brother) of Walking Wounded, on harmonica and vocals, and Davey Galt on lead guitar.

In late 2017, Tony and Simon completed recording a new collection of songs, The Festival At The End Of The World under the band name Nation of Strangers, for 2018 release.

Tony’s birthday in November 2018 seemed to be an appropriate excuse to reprise some of the good vibes from the UK/Germany tour, and so joining Tony and Caro were Felix Hedderich and Adam Jones sharing bass duties, Simon Burrett of the Blue Bishops, Gil Gilchrist and Davey Galt on electric guitars, Tony’s ex-boss Bill Maloney on drums, me on keyboards, and with Tony’s wife Barbara and sister Julie helping out with backing vocals, we played a combination of standards, T, C & J originals and some of Tony’s newer stuff, and raised the roof of the Ealing Cricket Club pavilion.

And again for Caro’s birthday the following April.

In January 2019, we did something similar, but this time under the name The Ageing Hippies, and in my home village of Competa, Andalucia in Spain. It was a stripped down version of the previous lineup with Tony, Simon and myself, with my son Adam on bass and Simon’s son Alec on cajon.

It seemed to go down well…

There was a plan to do another Ageing Hippies gig in September 2020 as I was planning on having a bit of a birthday bash, but the Coronavirus pandemic scuppered this. But in April 2022, we were finally able to reprise the gig, again at Captain Morgan’s in Competa, but this time without Alec who had suspected Coronavirus. Marshall Dixon, a friend and musical collaborator stood in for him on Cajon.