Hold Your Fire

Amazing musicianship already given, for the band’s second album, Hold Your Fire, Patto pulled out some of their best songwriting. The lead-off and title track “Hold Your Fire” is the post-hippie anthem, complete with some of Ollie Halsall’s slickest guitar work at the fade. Note the release date; this is some of the earliest “shredding” on record. “You, You Point Your Finger” cops a somber mood, with more of Mike Patto’s poignant lyrics about the counter-culture vs. the establishment; again, Halsall’s emotive lead toward the end just kills it. “Give It All Away” has a nice hook, and more of Halsall’s guitar histrionics swinging underneath the potent rhythm section of Clive Griffiths and John Halsey. “Air Raid Shelter,” however, is the album’s paragon. Much like the previous “Money Bag,” it owes more to jazz than to rock, and is simply unparalleled by any contemporaneous group. Yet even a high-profile tour supporting Ten Years After didn’t change Patto’s fortunes: The album did not chart. In early 1972, Halsall recorded the lost Blue Traffs album with John Halsey and Gary Windo; Robert Fripp produced. Patto’s Roll ‘Em Smoke ‘Em Put Another Line Out was released on Island Records in October 1972 and then the band went off on a world tour supporting Joe Cocker. A fourth and final album was recorded, but Halsall quit before it was finished. After that, Patto split, with Halsall joining Tempest and Mike Patto briefly working with Spooky Tooth (appearing on the excellent album The Mirror). With Keith Ellis and ex-May Blitz drummer Tony Newman, Patto and Halsall reunited in 1975 as Boxer, recording a pair of (more or less) mainstream rock albums over the next two years. Griffiths and Halsey kept busy as session musicians; the latter was part of Eric Idle and Neil Innes’s Beatles 1978 spoof, The Rutles’ All You Need Is Cash. Halsall would also participate in the film and soundtrack, yet despite his supplying the voice of the Paul McCartney character, Dirk McQuickly, he was relegated to just a brief cameo as the fifth Rutle, Leppo, in the film. Sadly, Mike Patto would succumb to throat cancer in 1979, while Griffiths would never physically recover from a road accident in 1983.