Dust Bin Discoveries: Wally’s Lost Soft-Prog Masterpiece

Some of the best albums ever made never get heard. With Dust Bin Discoveries, we highlight some of the lost treasures – from obscure prog-rock masterpieces to hidden folk relics – withering away in record store bargain sections and antique store attics. 

Wally – Wally
Year: 1974
Label: Atlantic
Producer: Rick Wakeman, Bob Harris

RIYL: Curved Air, Stackridge, Yes, CSNY
Price: $2.50 

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Never judge a record by its cover – especially when said record costs roughly the price of a Big Gulp. 

One of my favorite record spots is an unassuming little booth in a junky collectibles mall in Knoxville, Tennessee. We have five legitimate record stores in town – and I love all of them for different reasons – but there’s something special about making a vinyl haul as you step over chochkes and old Playboys, dripping with sweat from the lack of air-conditioning. I dunno, it feels like you’ve earned it. Like you’ve rescued this record from music death row.

I’d been frequenting said record booth for a year or two. And every damn time, I picked up this same piece – an album sporting the vague name “Wally” – and twirled it in my hands. “PROG,” read the label, in perfect penmanship, suggesting the seller took pride in his research. “Produced by Rick Wakeman.” As an obsessive progressive rock fan, I felt a chill run up my spine. “Have I discovered some sort of lost Yes-related relic?” But I always put it back in the box: a splurge for another day.

On one lazy afternoon, I finally took the plunge. The dude was having a half-off sale, and my curiosity was worth the $2.50 gamble. Maybe I’d skip lunch that day.

Holy shit, what a good call. A week later, it’s already one of the prized records in my collection.

Wally formed in North Yorkshire, England at an unclear date in the early 1970s. After catching the eye of Old Grey Whistle Test presenter Bob Harris, the sextet secured a record deal with Atlantic Records and released their Wakeman-produced, self-titled debut LP in 1974.

Based on the few archival reviews floating around the internet, many fans have dubbed the band’s sound “country-prog” – a label I find a bit limiting. The prominence of Pete Sage’s electric violin and Paul Middleton’s steel guitar certainly add an Americana flair, and the group’s lush vocal harmonies offer tracks like “I Just Wanna Be a Cowboy” and “Sunday Walking Lady” a gentle Eagles/CSNY vibe. But there’s little discernible twang here – more of a ’70s soft-rock smoothness that tempers their more adventurous instrumental sections. If the “country-prog” tag suggests Willie Nelson fronting Genesis, the reality is somewhere closer to David Crosby fronting Curved Air.

Opener “The Martyr” is the the album’s pure progressive epic, blending Paul Gerrett’s classical-styled harpsichord with Sage’s haunting violin between lines of “flames that drown her feet.”

And the album is equally engaging – if not more so – when it more evenly pairs its soft-rock and prog sides. On “What to Do,” frontman Roy Webber sings, “All I need’s a steel-guitar to keep me company” over ethereal textures that recall Dark Side coated in tobacco spit. The album is loaded with miniature sonic wonders: the Celtic fiddle breakdown on “Sunday Walking Lady,” the harmonized guitar solo on “To the Urban Man.” I can honestly say I’ve never heard anything like this in my life.

Beyond Wally

Wally, like many great bands of the mid-70s crossover-prog boom, had their very brief moment in the pseudo-spotlight (including an opening date with Wakeman’s Yes) before fading into further obscurity. They released a follow-up LP, Valley Gardens, in 1975 – then reunited after a three-decade hiatus for a third album, 2010’s Montpelier.