Ranking the Albums: Patto

Join Pete Pardo as he ranks the albums of British jazz-rock/blues rock act Patto, featuring Mike Patto & Ollie Halsall. #patto
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[@Saffy-yr8vo]

So nice to find you re a ‘created’ list on you tube. My friend and myself at the age of 15 managed to sneak into a gig in England where they topped the bill. At the time it was Free, the Small Faces, Marc Bolan and an upcoming Bowie. But we clung on to our Rock. Patto certainly exuded a lot of rough complicated stuff reminded me of Scots band The Alex Harvey Band, still lauded here in Glasgow to this day. We stood fascinated by their street energy. Prob too young to appreciate fully their deep musical abilities. However my friends’ mom picked us up at the rear of the building at the end and we were most secretly pleased when the band all called out to us a ‘goodbye’ as we got into the car. We were tall so they prob thought we might go to meet them after the gig! Very good band. Listened a bit to them recently. Totally underrated by the evil music industry. That ‘you point your finger’ is a superior composition. They were all great. I honour that experience. With Patto.

[@TheWusster]

“You, you point your finger” is a killer track. Halsall was a guitar genius.

[@sspbrazil]

He was one of may favorite players and a lefty like myself.

[@garyjoyce2160]

Another group/ I had zero knowledge about until Petes announcement. 8 spins each. For second, consecutive week. Me and Pete/ same exact order. 1- 7️⃣1️⃣. 2-7️⃣0️⃣ 3-7️⃣3️⃣ ( the first scratch and sniff album ) 4-7️⃣2️⃣. In addition, any episode with a “ shoutout “ to the LEGENDARY “ Silence is GOLDEN “ Eric PORTER- is a phenomenal show. Thanks Pete for your time ( as usual) 👍💯

[@3bwana]

Halsall and Halsey were also a major part of helping Neil Innes sonically recreate the amazing Beatles parody tunes for The Rutles along with the great Ricky Fataar

[@JaredRobbins2]

These rankings open my eyes to bands in never heard of. I probably haven’t even heard of the last 5 or so bands you have ranked. Will have to check them out. Thanks Pete!

[@theterrytaylorshow7270]

I have loved this band for 30 years. I’m lucky I got turned onto them in high school. Such an amazing band. This was a great video. It’s so hard to find people that have ever heard of them.

[@dugfalsetti9448]

Thank You. I'd thought you didn't know about these guys. Been following patio since the early 80's and never thought this would happen. loved Ollie's playing...My favorite guitarist.

[@davidtoothman4954]

I fell in love with Hold Your Fire early and hard when I first heard it. Tasty stuff all over that album. Especially on the title track.

[@andrewlongshaw2128]

Thank you, Pete. New to me, and so I will investigate.

[@monte.olson58]

Great ranking. The band Patto and guitarist Halsall are a recent discovery for me. Only have the first album and love it.

[@lemming9984]

Boxer, the band that Mike Patto and Ollie Halsall formed after Patto, also had Keith Ellis on Bass - previously in Van Der Graaf Generator.

[@jeffreyrobinson9120]

I love your album ranking shows. In this case, I`m not familiar with the bands music, but it all sounds interesting and worth checking out.

[@ivanfortuny2244]

Great show.☮️

[@leonscoretzka801]

still waIting for the part 3 of top 10 riffs with butch as you promised 2 years ago!

[@jeremydicker6613]

Boxer were the next band they formed , one of the first on virgin records after tudular bells , bought it on day of release way back in the 70s..

[@gwts1171]

Wow, I haven't thought about this band in decades. I have never heard a whole album by them, either. I think I've heard maybe half of the first album because Muff Winwood produced it. I liked it, but just never went back for more. I'll have to check out more. Thanks, Pete! It's a classic episode of Patto with Pardo.

[@johnevans7658]

Thanks for the review, great stuff. Patto my fave band of all time. I was lucky to see them live at a pub in Sheffield UK ' The Mucky Duck' aka White Swan.

[@Scandolo]

Nice to see some love to Patto. A great band to me too. I'd rank their albums exactly as you did. I hope to see a Boxer ranking soon!

[@8il]

Great Band, I saw them a few times in the 'Greyhound' in Fulham Palace Road. Brinsley Schwarz also played there. Wonderful Days.

[@girthbloodstool339]

Thanks - been on the hunt for vinyl for years!

[@alistairewen9558]

I've got first pressing of ( HOLD your fire ) but hanging on to it.

[@stratsuperlead]

Great show! I've been waiting patiently for a Patto ranking and an acknowledgement Of Ollie Halsall's vast talents. One of my absolute fave guitarists! Kind of a wilder, more incendiary Holdsworth. Maybe not quite as precise or technical, but definitely going for it. His performance on Tempest's 'Living In Fear' album is epic. And the solo on Kevin Ayer's 'May I?" from the Ayers/Eno/Nico '74 live record is jaw droppingly good! Thanks again and how about some Pink Fairies...

[@MrMjp58]

I bought their self-titled album in ‘72. I had it specially ordered from my local record shop. I listened intently to it for a long time. I went to see them in early’73. An interesting band, full of all sorts of influences.

[@scotterrebo995]

Remember Mike was lead vocalist for Spooky Tooth in 1974 for the album “The Mirror”. And 2 of the guys did The Rutles, good band Patto was.

[@dvanmartin9842]

I wondered if you liked this band. I loved this band. You would see the first album in the cut-outs vinyl bins everywhere. Ollie Halsall... brilliant musician... He is on a lot of people's albums.... Great session player. I also might mention the reissued Cds have a lot of live bonus material on them... and the live tracks are blistering!

[@sspbrazil]

Ollie Hasall is one of my favorite guitar players and he was a lefty like myself. Sadly, he couldn’t curb his addictions and passed away in 1992, he was most well known for being in The Beatles parody band The Rutles, but he played on quite a few Kevin Ayers albums as well as the other bands you mentioned Pete. He is also Andy Partridge’s favorite guitar player too.

[@tentringer4065]

There are lots of videos of him in John Cale's band too. Excellent guitarist.

[@sspbrazil]

@@tentringer4065 yes indeed.p, he also did a solo album that was produced by Robert Fripp, but has yet to be released to this day. That would be interesting to hear.

[@wolf1977]

@@sspbrazil Yeah early 70's solo album called Ollie & The Blue Traffs. Don't have it but might have a bead on it (the music files/mp3 anyway)...He also has two other solo records: Caves from '79 which I do have & is good, and Rusty Strings from '73 that I'm also hunting down (produced by Steve Winwood's bro)

[@SuperWalshBros]

Patto's great. I think if their albums had better production and were marketed better they could have been much bigger. They deserved more love.

[@wolf1977]

They really need a well-mastered live album!

[@excession30]

Within the last year, I read a revealing interview with Halsall's musical partner Zanna Gregmar. Halsall was quite a character, not always likable or honest, and sometimes a hurtful egotist. One amusing note was how much he despised Allan Holdsworth. Just hearing his name mentioned in passing would apparently never fail to trigger a non-stop tirade from Halsall. The two of them never talked to each other again after the brief time they worked together in Tempest. I've heard all the Patto albums, and while the Mike/Ollie songwriting partnership was inconsistent, they did manage some worthwhile stuff. His guitar playing eschews the ubiquitous Clapton fixation of the time as well as jazz-rock fusion clichés. Although he doesn't sound anything like Chris Spedding, the two of them were similar in stubbornly trying to avoid those pitfalls and establish respective musical identities that weren't overly derivative. I think his best work was probably with Kevin Ayers, though. He did some excellent playing on every major Ayers album release in which he was featured. This review reminded me to get the book "Tuning Up at Dawn" by Tomas Graves, which chronicles the music scene in Majorca and features Peter "Ollie" Halsall.

[@andyshelton4889]

Patto sounds like Free meets Jazz rock.😀❤️🎼

[@wolf1977]

Yeah very jazzy

[@ccc1362]

Will check them out. Have no idea who they are.

[@alperry7346]

i agree, a great band and the late ollie halsall, a phenomenal guitarist...i also loved the album that was released years later called "ducks in flight"...it was the most jazziest...

[@wolf1977]

The only album by that name that I know of is by Peter French (Black Cat Bones, Atomic Rooster & Cactus) from 1978 but I don't think Halsall plays on it. It does have a bunch of famous guests though: Brian Robertson, Kenny Jones, Micky Moody, Pete Wingfield...

[@alperry7346]

i had a vinyl copy of patto's "ducks in flight" which i lost to hurricane sandy (i lost all my albums to hurricane sandy)...it's up on youtube...

[@richardarchbold4721]

Thanks for giving this great band some recognition. I would just note that Esoteric did a box of these 4 albums in the last couple of years, with a very informative booklet and a non-essential poster. I would agree with Pete's ratings. I do think the first and second albums are well ahead of the last two in my rating, but anything Ollie Halsall is on is well worth a listen.

[@mikeonb4c]

What an absolutely extraordinary collection of (listenable to) talents Patto were - it beggars belief that the world at large has hardly heard of them. I would never have heard of them either except for the lead guitarist in a band in which I was lead singer, and who was a collaborator with David Bowie at the time and who brought their music round to my place. I was blown away. Hard to put Patto into a category but maybe if you took Steely Dan and put them in a blender with AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Capt Beefheart, James Brown, BadCo, Frank Zappa then you might by accident get something that sounds for brief moments like them.

[@StivGators]

For the oldies out there, I used to have Loud Green Song playing on my myspace page

[@cliffordsalmon6342]

I would argue that Loud Green Song is one of the best rock songs ever recorded.

[@garryfay5564]

Love the Ranking albums shows. Might I suggest a Gotthard one.

[@erniericardo8140]

Thank You Pete!!! -Been waiting for years for this ranking 👍 Hope you do a ranking of Halseys other band The Rutles 😂🤣😅

[@Saffy-yr8vo]

I hope you read your comments. It’s great to be able to share.

[@JoelPrice253]

Patto was in Spooky Tooth between Patto & Boxer.

[@johnmichaelwilliams6694]

Thanks for the ranking, Pete. Another catalogue completely unfamiliar so more SoT homework. Appreciate your recent reviews of some of these more 'obscure' bands.

[@Mark-bi5dk]

Good show Pete. Have you ever considered ranking the sunstorm catalog or the joe Lynn turner catalog

[@tonyfaelens3626]

Halsall one of the best !!!!

[@acedylan]

Could the Muff Winwood production cause the Traffic-like (Spencer Davis) sound?

[@terrypeaker]

Live Patto had a lot of humour in their shows which off set the complex music that they played. Some of the quirkier songs made a lot more sense if you saw them live. The only difference between the later Timebox and Patto was pianist Chris Holmes who went on to join Babe Ruth. Unusually for the time Ollie used a small amplifier so they were fairly quiet live.

[@andrewcarr5923]

Mike Patto was a great rock vocalist taken way before his time at just 36 years old, I would liken Patto to two other great English bands who got little recognition Leaf Hound and Grannie. The debut album cover always makes me think of Monty Python.

[@mattymac1399]

Cool band. You, You Point Your Finger and Magic Door are two of my favourite songs by anyone. Ps. Barry Womb rules.

[@wolf1977]

First of all the Patto 'root' band Timebox - check out their collection The Deram Anthology. Not bad, late 60's rock. Halsall's later band Boxer (again with Patto) is excellent - Below The Belt/Absolutely/Bloodletting...For Patto's 4 studio albums here's my ranking: 1. Hold Your Fire - the clear winner, the whole album's really good. The expanded edition adds some live BBC recordings from '71 plus a bunch of session outtakes 2. S/T - almost as good as Hold Your Fire (but that one’s expanded version puts it over the top)... 3. Monkey’s Bum - still really good 4. Roll 'Em, Smoke 'Em Put Another Line Out - still not bad but not at the same level as the other three Other albums: the collection called Sense Of The Absurd, Warts And All (Live at The Black Swan, Sheffield 1971-the sound’s not great but still felt that 4 tracks were worth it), And That's Jazz (Live At The Torrington, London, January 21, 1973-probably a boot with even worse audio that was too sub-par for me)…I’d say this band needs a really good remastered live album! There's also some solo Ollie - I've got his '79 Caves that's pretty good (the writing's a little inconsistent but good playing). He also has 2 other solo albums from the early 70's that I don't have

[@timholden3436]

Almost a Patto album, strongly featuring Halsall and Patto: "Steve York's Camelo Pardalis - Manor Live" 1973 Virgin 2003 One of the very few albums with a giraffe on the cover! Would be nice to know the links if any between this album and the "failure" of Monkey's Bum at the time. Label: Virgin - V 2003

[@dugfalsetti9448]

Timebox was Patto without the Keyboardist (Chris Holmes) who quit and later joined Babe Ruth. They also had a guitarist (who was American) who had to drop out when he was found to be draft dodger. Ollie picked up the guitar as a result and two years later they made their first album. Pretty impressive for two years of playing guitar.

[@gratefulblac]

if you like Patto you should try T2, Jonesy, and the first 3 albims of Jade Warrior!

[@ralphfiligenzi6180]

Pete should rank the albums from Farshi.

[@kennbrown4638]

Pretty much the order they came out 1. Patto 2. Hold Your Fire 3. Roll 'em, Smoke 'em, Put Another Line Out 4. Monkey's Bum

[@luytondriman6236]

Patto were what I would term an ART ROCK band, not prog or jazz -rock. They were great, plenty of amazing guitarwork from Halsall (R.I.P.), who for me surpasses Holdsworth and their song structures have many time signatures with excellent musicianship with weaving melodies and great drumming (some interesting time changes here-in !). Their sound was quintessentially English, hence the side bar comments / short tracks. After Boxer, Halsall formed Colosseum 11 with John Hiseman (R.I.P.) and Mark Clarke as a power trio did a killer album called 'Living in Fear'. Mike Patto joined Spooky Tooth for the 'Fantasy Satisfier' album around the same time...

[@wolf1977]

I have 'em categorized under "Rock' but they definitely get into prog/art rock/fusiony territory at times

[@markspooner1224]

It's hot enough to boil a Monkey's Bum Your Majesty. Any mention of Ollie is worth notice!

[@matthewclark9652]

How about Canadian rock group Trooper (Ranking The Studio Albums) of "Raise A Little Hell" fame??

[@gratefulblac]

first 2 albums - are classics, don't really know the later 2 albums

[@franciskocher200]

Never heard about that band...

[@erniericardo8140]

Never knew anything about them until watching the movie Observe and Report