Family Band Members and Every Lineup Change: Roger Chapman, Ric Grech and the Nine Others

Ric Grech, and the Bassist Problem

Ric Grech played bass, cello and violin and sang, and he was one of the three writers who made the first two records. In the spring of 1969, in the middle of the band’s first American tour, he left to join Blind Faith. John Weider came in at short notice on the recommendation of the tour manager, Peter Grant. Two years later Weider left for Stud and John Wetton took the chair, having turned King Crimson down in order to do it. A year after that Wetton changed his mind about King Crimson, and Jim Cregan replaced him.

Four bassists in four years, and each change lands on a record. Some accounts hold that losing Grech - and then Jim King - is exactly why the family band never made it to the very top: the songwriting engine went from three people to two and the arrangements slowly lost the instruments that had made them strange.

1. Ric Grech1966–1969Left mid-tour for Blind Faith
2. John Weider1969–1971Came in at short notice, left for Stud
3. John Wetton1971–1972Turned King Crimson down, then went
4. Jim Cregan1972–1973Saw the band out, and came back in 2013

Roger Chapman, the One Constant

Chapman sang on all seven albums, played harmonica and saxophone, and is the only member present from the Leicester clubs in 1966 to the last night at Leicester Polytechnic in 1973. His voice is the reason the band is still discussed: blues and R&B phrasing over arrangements that kept moving underneath him, and a live delivery forceful enough that after the 1969 US tour it simply stopped working for a while.

In 2013 the family band came back with three of them - John “Poli” Palmer, Rob Townsend and Jim Cregan - for what was announced as one night at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire and turned into three more years of shows.

What They Did After Family

The band stopped in October 1973 and four of the eleven went straight into groups people know. Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney, the two who had been there since the Leicester clubs, carried on together as Streetwalkers. John Wetton finally joined King Crimson - the band he had turned down in 1971 in order to join Family - and later Asia. Rob Townsend went to Medicine Head, then to The Blues Band and The Manfreds, and still plays with the last two.

• Roger Chapman and Charlie Whitney Streetwalkers The two who had been there from the Leicester clubs kept working together after 1973.
• John Wetton King Crimson, then Asia The band he had turned down in 1971 to join Family.
• Rob Townsend Medicine Head, then The Blues Band and The Manfreds He still plays with the last two.

A Note on the Name

Despite it, these were not bands with family members in the usual sense: nobody in this lineup was related to anybody else. The word came from a producer, Kim Fowley, who thought their clothes made them look like mafiosos. If you arrived here looking for genuine bands with family members - siblings, couples, parents and children playing together - there is a separate list of famous family bands in this archive.

Instruments are listed for a player only where the source record states them. For John Weider, John Wetton and Tony Ashton it does not, so the entry says who they replaced and stops there rather than assuming.