Taking it to the bridge:
Average White Band, London, June 5, 1973 (from left) Hamish Stuart, Robbie McIntosh, Alan Gorrie, Malcolm ‘Molly’ Duncan, Onnie McIntyre, Roger Ball.
Photograph by BRIAN COOKE
Funk soul brothers from Dundee, they toiled in the London clubs before finding their chemistry in 1972. Then, playing with Bonnie Bramlett and Clapton brought them to the attention of Jerry Wexler and Atlantic Records. But as their Stateside star began to rise in ’74, drummer Robbie McIntosh died of an accidental heroin overdose. “It was moving like a rocket,” recall the band and intimates, “and then it was immediate crash and burn.”
Alan Gorrie: In 1964 I was at Duncan Of Jordanstone School Of Art & Design in Dundee with Molly [Malcolm Duncan, sax] and Roger [Ball, sax, keyboards]. I was going to the Blue Workshop in Perth where musicians played jazz, blues, R&B together. Molly and Roger came with me, and Robbie [McIntosh, drums] passed through a couple of times. He was 15 and blew us all away. That was the sperm of Average White Band. Then in late ’66 I moved to London. You had to go to London to ‘make it’.