Tony, Caro and John

Tony, Caro and John
Background information
Origin	Derby and Bristol, England
Genres	Psychedelic folk, folk rock, electric folk
Years active	1972-present
Labels	Shadoks, Gaarden, Drag City
Website	http://www.tonycaroandjohn.com/
Members	Tony Doré, Caroline Clark

Tony, Caro and John is a British folk rock trio who recorded the album All on the First Day in 1972. The threesome took much of their inspiration from the Incredible String Band's eclectic strain of psychedelic folk, although songwriter and singer Tony Doré's compositions had a sound and voice of their own. The All Music Guide writes of the trio, "Tony, Caro and John were also wont to embellish their basic male-female vocal harmonies, and one electric guitar-one-acoustic-guitar-bass line-up, with weird touches of hippie psychedelia in the occasional electronic effects, tinkling percussion, flageolet (a type of small flute), wah-wah, and violin... Slightly sardonic but cheerfully playful, and with strong tunes effectively blending major and minor modes, they're more approachable for listeners with conventional rock and pop tastes than the Incredible String Band, or Incredible String Band-like bands of the period, such as Forest and Dr. Strangely Strange."

Multi-instrumentalist Tony Doré and bassist John Clark were childhood friends in Derby, England, and played together on both the rock and folk circuit. After university they reunited in 1970, when John came to London to join Tony and Caroline (Caro), who had played university folk clubs together. All on the First Day was made in 1972 with almost no budget and primitive equipment, recorded on John's 2-track; they could overdub in mono only by re-recording the backing track at the same time. They self-pressed the LP in an edition of only 100 copies, with the home-grown nature of the product emphasized by individually spray-painted covers.

Expanding the band line-up with Simon Burrett on lead guitar, Jonny Owen on Harmonica and Rod Jones on keyboards, Tony, Caro and John continued on the college circuit for a little while under the name "Forever and Ever" but the gigging stopped in the late seventies, when families and careers took precedence. The band continued to jam together, and to record in Clark's by now, multi-track studio.

Then in 2001, Tony Doré was contacted by Shadoks Music in Germany, when it transpired that there was an underground following for the All on the First Day album, and copies were changing hands for substantial sums of money. The band agreed that Shadoks could produce a limited release of vinyl albums from the original master, and at the same time release the album on CD. The release included five bonus tracks recorded around the time of All on the First Day. Almost simultaneously the band released some of the studio tracks recorded since All on the First Day, as the limited edition CD-R album Retrospect under the Forever and Ever band name. This was available online.

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