![]() They changed their name to the hipper-sounding Blues Trip, though they soon adopted the handle Ten Years After, referring to the fact they launched the band in 1966, ten years after Elvis Presley's career breakthrough opened the doors for rock & roll. Around this time, keyboard player Chick Churchill came on board, and soon, he along with Alvin, Leo, and Ric decided to strike out on their own without Ivan Jay. In 1966, Jay and his band, now dubbed the Jaybirds, moved to London to take on a lucrative gig serving as the backing band for a popular British vocal group, the Ivy League. Group leader Jay would keep the band together through a large number of personnel changes, and in 1965, drummer Ric Lee signed on following the departure of the band's previous timekeeper, Dave Quickmire. The Ten Years After story began in 1960 in Nottingham in the English Midlands, when guitarist Alvin Lee and bassist Leo Lyons first crossed paths while playing in a local rock band called Ivan Jay and the Jaycats. While their original run would end in 1974, Ten Years After would reunite in the '80s, and they continue to record and tour more than 50 years after they started out. While the group was also capable of moody pop and acoustic-based material (as heard on 1971's A Space in Time, whose single "I'd Like to Change the World" was their greatest American hit), it was the group's raw blues-based music that remained their trademark, powered by Lee's high-speed guitar figures. A storming blues and boogie band from the U.K., Ten Years After rocketed from modest success to worldwide fame in the wake of their performance at the Woodstock Rock Festival in 1969, where their nine-minute rendition of "I'm Going Home" showed off the lightning-fast guitar work and howling vocals of Alvin Lee, the unrelenting stomp of bassist Leo Lyons and drummer Ric Lee, and the soulful support of keyboard man Chick Churchill.
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