Q&A ELMER GANTRY

The Velvet Opera main man reflects on a remarkable career, plotting a line from the nascent UK psych scene to Alan Parsons, by way of Hair: The Musical, Mick Fleetwood, Cozy Powell and Jon Lord.

Tim Batcup

Emerging from the mid-60s homegrown R&B/soul scene, rubbing shoulders with Pink Floyd along the way, Dave Terry (aka Elmer Gantry) and his Velvet Opera embraced the shackle-freeing ‘Summer of Love’ with both arms, transforming Willie Dixon-fixated chops into an undervalued psychedelic gem: Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera. Following on from an overdue three disc retrospective, we caught up with Gantry in reflective form – musing on a storied career. What was it like being at the centre of a musical awakening? There was a sense we could do anything. We’d come from a blues background – Willie Dixon had written everything – but there was something in the air, and we wanted to burst out of that. It was so enjoyable. We started adding extended solos, smoked loads of dope, and…

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Prog (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 132

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