Help Yourself -

Help Yourself was a rustic English jam band that released the 1971–72 Liberty–UA albums Help Yourself, Strange Affair, and Beware the Shadow, followed by a 1973 split release with the side-project Happy Days.

Members: Malcolm Morley (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Dave Charles (drums, percussion, vocals, 1970-73), Richard Treece (bass, guitar, vocals, harmonica, 1970-73), Ken Whaley (bass, 1970-71, 1973, 2002-03), Ernie Graham (guitar, 1971), Jojo Glemser [Jonathan Glemser] (guitar, 1971), Paul Burton (bass, 1971-73)

Background

Help Yourself assembled in 1970 when London guitarist–keyboardist Malcolm Morley re-connected with drummer and childhood friend Dave Charles, a recent member of Sam Apple Pie. Five years earlier, they played together in the Hoodoo Blues Band.

Morley signed recently with Famepushers Music, a management company that handled Brinsley Schwarz. Charles (and a planeload of journalists) accompanied the Brinsley’s to New York and recorded the band’s jet-lagged set at the Fillmore East, where they supported Van Morrison and the Quicksilver Messenger Service.

For the new Morley–Charles band, Famepushers staffer John Eichler plucked musicians from unsigned sources: Growth bassist Ken Whaley and Monday Morning Glory guitarist–harpist Richard Treece. As Help Yourself, they signed with Liberty and recorded their first album in advance of their live debut.

Help Yourself

Help Yourself released their self-titled debut album in April 1971 on Liberty (UK, Japan).

The album moves between pastoral reflection and loosely structured electric passages, with unhurried pacing and understated dynamics throughout. Richard Treece emphasizes electric phrasing and harmonic contrast, while Malcolm Morley alternates between organ, rhythm guitar, and harmonica, shaping the ensemble’s tonal flow rather than dominating it. Their interplay favors cohesion, with solos emerging fluidly from the ensemble texture rather than overtaking it.

“I Must See Jesus for Myself” opens with bright vocal layering and a wry tone before the album pivots into more nuanced terrain. “To Katherine They Fell” sustains a suspended pulse, colored by atmospheric chords and slow-moving guitar tones. “Old Man” stretches into longer form, its inward phrasing and drawn-out harmonies underscored by organ swells and staggered guitar. “Paper Leaves” unfolds in overlapping vocal lines and steady chordal shifts that highlight its structural clarity. “Deborah” reduces the framework to piano and voice, while “Your Eyes Are Looking Down” introduces sharper turns and a more urgent forward motion.

A1. “I Must See Jesus for Myself” (4:00)
A2. “To Katherine They Fell” (3:35)
A3. “Your Eyes Are Looking Down” (4:30)
A4. “Old Man” (6:45)

B1. “Look at the View” (2:30)
B2. “Paper Leaves” (3:15)
B3. “Running Down Deep” (3:30)
B4. “Deborah” (3:35)
B5. “Street Songs” (5:35)

Sessions took place at Olympic Studios under producer Dave Robinson with engineering by Anton Mathews. Morley composed and arranged the material prior to the formation of a stable band lineup; the songs originated as a solo demo project intended for Robinson’s Head Heritage imprint before he repurposed them as the foundation for a full band effort.

Liberty lifted “Running Down Deep” backed with “Paper Leaves.”

Help Yourself features cover art by Jeff of ‘Ello Mum, who also illustrated the band’s next album and Silver Pistol by Brinsley Schwarz. His artwork depicts a brightly colored cartoon landscape at sunset, where a group of children holding hands walks toward a glowing horizon framed by twin buttes. A green, jelly-like mountain with a pink-lipped face watches from the right, while children in mid-century attire play in the foreground among scattered books, stuffed animals, and broken toys. Stylized trees and rounded hills complete the setting, giving the image a dreamlike tone tinged with quiet surrealism.

1971 Tour, Glastonbury, Lineup Changes

Help Yourself toured the album with Liberty label-mates Brinsley Schwarz and Irish singer–songwriter Ernie Graham, who cut an earlier Hendrix-produced psychedelic rock album with Eire Apparent. Promoters billed the three acts collectively as the “Downhome Rhythm Kings.” The two bands backed Graham on his 1971 self-titled album. After the tour, Whaley made his first exit.

Help Yourself and Brinsley Schwarz both played at the 1971 Glastonbury Festival, a June 21–26 event with sets by Arthur Brown, David Bowie, Edgar Broughton Band, Fairport Convention, Family, Gong, Hawkwind, Henry Cow, Marsupilami, Pink Fairies, Quintessence, Skin Alley, and Traffic.

“Street Songs” appears on the 1971 Liberty compilation All Good Clean Fun, a two-record set with cuts by Amon Duul II, BB Blunder, Cochise, Colin Scot, Groundhogs, Gypsy, Hawkwind, If, Man, Sugarloaf, Sweet Slag, and WAR (with Eric Burdon). To promote this comp, Liberty–UA sent Help Yourself on a Swiss tour with Man and Gypsy.

In late 1971, Help Yourself moved into Headley Grange, a historic East Hampshire workhouse where Led Zeppelin cut their recent albums Led Zeppelin III and Led Zeppelin IV (aka Zoso). Treece took up bass when Graham arrived with his guitarist, Jonathan “Jojo” Glemser, who joined Help Yourself for their second album. Midway through the sessions, road manager Paul Burton (a onetime Sam Apple Pie roadie) joined as their proper bassist.

Strange Affair

Help Yourself released their second album, Strange Affair, in early 1972 on United Artists (UK, US, Germany) and Liberty (Japan).

The album features six originals credited to Malcolm Morley, including the barroom-flavored title track, a two-timer’s tale. Ernie Graham submitted “Movie Star.” The band’s roadie, Sean Tyla, wrote the liner notes and made lyrical contributions.

Strange Affair alternates short-form character vignettes with one extended jam, arranged around loosely stacked guitars and ensemble-focused sections. Guitarist Richard Treece trades lines with JoJo Glemser and Graham, while Morley layers organ, piano, and rhythm guitar beneath shifting vocal textures. The arrangement emphasizes group interplay, with solos passing fluidly between players and locking into layered harmonic spaces.

A1. “Strange Affair” (3:21)
A2. “Brown Lady” (4:42)
A3. “Movie Star” (5:45)
A4. “Deanna Call and Scotty” (3:45)

B1. “Heaven Row” (4:15)
B2. “The All Electric Fur Trapper” (9:31)
B3. “Many Ways of Meeting” (3:53)

Sessions took place at Rockfield and Olympic Studios with production by the band and engineer Anton Mathews, assisted by Kingsley Ward and Ralph.

United Artists issued “Heaven Row” as a mid-March single backed with “Brown Lady.” A UK promo-only single appeared two months earlier with “Heaven Road” (misspelled) backed with the title track.

Strange Affair features cover art by ‘Ello Mum, with layout design credited to Jet Power and photography by Art Gabrinowski.

By the time Strange Affair hit shelves, Graham and Glemser left Help Yourself, which continued as a quartet (Morley, Charles, Treece, Burton) and cut their first session for BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel. Meanwhile, Tyla linked with the band’s former bassist, Ken Whaley, in Ducks Deluxe.

Beware the Shadow

Help Yourself released their third album, Beware the Shadow, in late 1972 on UA.

The album alternates compact sketches with two extended pieces built on layered interplay between guitar and keyboard. Richard Treece expands his phrasing across the longer tracks, while Malcolm Morley shifts between second guitar and keyboards, adding tonal depth. Paul Burton reinforces the harmonic layering with additional bass and guitar lines. Morley composed all seven tracks, collaborating with Sean Tyla on “American Mother” and with Burton and Treece on “Reaffirmation.”

“Reaffirmation” opens with restrained vocals over flute and Mellotron, then shifts into a drawn-out instrumental section driven by recurring guitar figures and gradual harmonic expansion. “American Mother” begins with suspended guitar phrases and builds in density at a fixed tempo. “Molly Bake Bean” relies on loose strumming and wide intervals, while “Passing Through” closes the album in a quiet setting of acoustic guitar and high-register vocals. Even brief pieces like “Calapso” maintain continuity through sparse phrasing and placement.

A1. “Alabama Lady” (4:02)
A2. “Reaffirmation” (12:34)
A3. “Calapso” (1:10)

B1. “She’s My Girl” (3:31)
B2. “Molly Bake Bean” (2:18)
B3. “American Mother” (7:45)
B4. “Passing Through” (4:31)

Sessions took place at Rockfield Studios with Strange Affair engineers Kingsley Ward and Ralph Downs, the sound team on 1973 albums by CMU and Kingdom Come.

Beware the Shadow features cover art by Annie, who illustrates the band as cartoon longhairs standing at the edge of a woodland clearing under a split sky—sunny on the left, dark and storm-laced on the right. Mushrooms, vines, and flowering trees fill the foreground, where forest creatures and elfin figures hide among the roots. The ornate, hand-lettered title rises from the grass in orange and red flourishes, echoing the band’s name above in curling script. The composition mirrors the album’s title, placing the group at the border between light and shadow.

A depressed Morley sat out the tour for Beware the Shadow, which Help Yourself promoted on with ex-Man guitarist–keyboardist Deke Leonard, who used the band for his debut solo album Iceberg.

Morley recovered in tome for Man’s Christmas Party, a December 19 event at the Patti Pavillion in Swansea, where Help Yourself performed with Leonard and Cochise steel-player BJ Cole. Two lengthy numbers from their set, “Mona” and “Eddie Waring,” appear on Christmas at the Patti, a 1973 UA double-10″ document of the night’s performers: Man (with Dave Edmunds), Ducks Deluxe, The Jets (a sixties Man precursor, reformed for the occasion), and Flying Aces (Leonard’s makeshift band, with Morley and Charles).

By the time of the Christmas event, Ken Whaley had already left Ducks Deluxe. In February 1973, he rejoined Help Yourself, which intermixed sessions for a new album with material by Happy Days: a vaudeville-themed collective project with the Flying Aces, and formed Bonzo Dog BAnd multi-instrumentalist Roger Ruskin Spear. Happy Days embarked on a two-month tour in advance of Help Yourself’s reunion album with Whaley.

The Return of Ken Whaley

Help Yourself released their fourth album, The Return of Ken Whaley, in June 1973 on UA, sometimes co-credited to Happy Days due to the contents of a second disc.

The album opens into freer structures and longer-form development, with extended instrumental sections that showcase the restored four-piece lineup. Guitarist Richard Treece stretches melodic phrases over Malcolm Morley’s alternating keyboard and rhythm guitar passages, while returning bassist Ken Whaley locks into phrasing patterns with Dave Charles, who also contributed two co-writes. Interplay unfolds through wide-panned textures and stacked layers that shift between tension and release without fixed climaxes.

A1. “Candy Kane”
A2. “Pioneers of the West In the Head”
A3. “Who Killed Paradise?”
A4. “Amy”
A5. “Blown Away”
B1. “Man We’re Glad We Know You”
B2. “It Has to Be”
B3. “The Golden Handshake”

Sessions took place at Chipping Norton Recording Studios with additional engineering at Olympic Studios by Anton Matthews. Morley composed five of the eight tracks, while the second side stems from a collective group effort between Morley, Treece, Whaley, and Charles, who produced the album.

The first 5,000 copies contains a second record, Happy Days, a document of the spring 1973 tour.

A1. “Jesus What Are Little Kids For?”
A2. “Virginia”
A3. “Waiting at the Station”
A4. “Seashell”
B1. “I’ve Got Beautiful You”
B2. “My Friend”
B3. “Elephant By My Side”

Help Yourself’s live popularity never translated to record sales. The road-worn members were ready to move on when UA asked for another album. They recorded eight tracks for the project under the prospective title 5. Before the album recached completion, Help Yourself disbanded in August 1973.

On August 28, 1974, Help Yourself staged a one-off reunion for the “Amazing ZigZag Concert,” an event organized by ex-Monkees Michael Nensmith to honor the fifth anniversay of the seminal British music magazine ZigZag. The concert also features sets by Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers, Starry Eyed and Laughing, and onetime Kingston Trio singer–guitarist John Stewart.

5

Help Yourself’s long-vaulted album, 5, finally appeared in 2004 on HUX Records.

The album gathers material initiated in 1973 and completed three decades later by the original lineup with additional contributions from later associates. Guitarists Richard Treece and Malcolm Morley share instrumental duties with Sean Tyla, while Morley also handles piano and keyboards across the reconstructed tracks. Deke Leonard contributes lead guitar on the opener, with solos and fills layered into multi-guitar frameworks that maintain continuity between the original sessions and the newly completed material.

1. “Light Your Way” (3:49)
2. “Cowboy Song” (6:59)
3. “Monkey Wrench” (1:12)
4. “Romance In a Tin” (4:35)
5. “Grace” (3:43)
6. “Martha” (3:24)
7. “Monkey Wrench (Reprise)” (1:46)
8. “The Rock” (6:00)
9. “Willow” (3:18)
10. “Alley Cat” (5:38)
11. “Duneburgers” (4:37)

Eight tracks stem from summer 1973 sessions at Chipping Norton Studios, shortly before the band disbanded. Three songs (“Romance In a Tin,” “The Rock,” “Alley Cat”) were completed in winter 2002–03 by Morley, Treece, Charles, Whaley, and Tyla, with Kevin Spacey filling in on drums for the newer material. Sean Tyla contributed lyrics and guitar on multiple tracks, while Ken Whaley co-wrote and sang “Alley Cat.” Dave Charles produced new vocals for “Duneburgers,” which he also co-wrote.

5 features a cover illustration by Rick Griffin and package design by Synoptik, with liner notes by Malcolm Morley, Nigel Cross, and Phil McMullen.

Discography: