Categories: Podcast

Terry Reid – Seed of Memory

Terry Reid - "Seed Of Memory" Song Analysis

On this episode of the podcast, we explore the fascinating career and musical genius of Terry Reid, the legendary English rock vocalist and guitarist who famously turned down offers to front Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. Instead of conforming to the commercial pressures of the industry, Reid fiercely protected his artistic independence, carving out a unique path that led to his 1976 album, Seed of Memory. We take a deep dive into the album’s title track, analyzing Reid’s custom drop-C guitar tuning, his masterful vocal restraint, and the stellar contributions of session legends like David Lindley and producer Graham Nash. It is a celebration of a true “artists’ artist” who prioritized his creative vision above superstardom.

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome back to another edition of the I’m in love with that song podcast, beaming across the universe on the Pantheon Media Network. I’m your host, Brad Page, and each episode of this podcast, I rummage through my collection of vinyl and CDs and pull out a song to explore together. This is a show for any music fan who’s at least a little bit curious. You don’t have to be a musician or know a lot of technical stuff, but if you’ve ever wondered how did that song get created, why does it sound like that, and what makes that song work, this is the podcast for you.

On this episode, we’re examining a song by an artist who spent his career on the edge of superstardom. He had the opportunity to become part of rock and roll royalty more than once, but he always chose his own path, his independence and his individuality over someone else’s vision. This is a track that exemplifies his talents, his abilities, and his idiosyncrasies. This is Terry Reid and a song called “Seed of Memory”.

Terence James Reid was born in Huntingdonshire, England, on November 13, 1949. He was an only child and his parents supported his musical inclinations, buying him his first guitar when he was ten and driving him to gigs. He formed his first band, the Redbeats, when he was 13 and wrote his first song right around then.

In 1965, Peter Jay of Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers saw Terry playing with the Redbeats and asked him to join the Jaywalkers as their lead vocalist. While touring with the Jaywalkers, Terry met Graham Nash of the Hollies, and later with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and they became lifelong friends.

By 1968, Terry had signed with producer Mickie Most, who pushed Terry in a commercial direction, which is what Mickie Most always did with his artists. But Terry was more interested in hard rock and R&B. He recorded two albums with Mickie Most, Bang, Bang You’re Terry Reid in 1968, and the self-titled album Terry Reid in 1969. The self-titled album included his cover of the Donovan song, “Superlungs My Supergirl”, and people started referring to Terry himself as Superlungs, thanks to that powerful voice.

Terry was gigging a lot, opening for some of the biggest acts at the time like Cream and Jethro Tull, but he was chafing under the restrictive limitations forced on him by Mickie Most’s management. Around this time, 1968, 1969, Jimmy Page invited him to join Led Zeppelin as their lead singer. But Terry was tied up with other touring commitments, plus he had that contract with Mickie Most that he was stuck with. So when they couldn’t work it out, Terry suggested that Jimmy should check out this up-and-coming singer named Robert Plant, and while he was at it, check out his drummer, John Bonham, too. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Then Ritchie Blackmore asked Terry to join Deep Purple, but Terry wanted to do his own thing. And if that wasn’t enough, he was also asked to replace Steve Winwood in the Spencer Davis Group. So, three top-level bands, including two of the biggest bands in rock history, offered him the frontman spot, but Terry went his own way. Going your own way doesn’t make things easy, though. He had to fight to get out of his contract with Mickie Most and signed a new deal with Atlantic Records, which resulted in one album, River, in 1973. River was produced by the great Tom Dowd and explored some new ground for Terry, incorporating jazz elements and Brazilian rhythms.

Unfortunately, River was not a commercial success. It didn’t sell well, and Terry was let go by Atlantic. Then he signed a new deal with ABC Records. Terry brought in his buddy Graham Nash to produce his first album for ABC, his fourth album overall. Together they created what many consider his best, his most consistent solid album. By this time, Terry had relocated to California, living in the Palm Desert where he composed many of the songs for this new album. The record, which would become the Seed of Memory album, was recorded primarily at the Sound Labs studios in Hollywood, though a couple of tracks were recorded in San Francisco. It was produced by Graham Nash and engineered by Al Schmitt, a legendary and incredibly well-respected recording engineer, regarded for his pristine, perfectly captured sounds on tape. The musicians on the recordings included top session players like David Lindley on guitar and violin, jazz and soul veterans like Blue Mitchell and Fred Wesley on horns, Soko Richardson on drums, and Terry’s longtime bass player, Lee Miles.

The song “Seed of Memory” is the second song on side one of the album. It was written by Terry Reid. The song opens with an acoustic guitar part played by Terry.

A note about this guitar part, for all you guitar players out there, Terry is using a special tuning on his guitar. Most of the strings are tuned down a whole step, so the first string, the high E, is tuned to a D, the B string is tuned to an A, the G string to an F, the D string to a C, the A string to a G, and then the sixth string, the low E, is actually tuned down two whole steps to a C. With all the strings tuned lower, the guitar not only sounds lower in pitch, that loose tension, especially on the sixth string, there’s a slight wavering in the tuning. That lowest string can’t quite hold the pitch because it’s so slack. That bit of unstableness, along with the extended frequency range, gives the riff an extra heaviness and an element of foreboding.

Terry is keeping his vocals in a higher register, and it’s somewhat restrained. He’s holding back, keeping his powder dry, so to speak. And there’s just a hint of grit in his voice.

Let’s look at the lyrics for a minute. They seem pretty ambiguous to me. There’s a lot of room for interpretation. ‘Brave dreams that are kindled from ashes, rise out over the battle below. Spread wings over all that he passes so his life can stay immortal to his country.’ It seems like he’s talking about a soldier at war, but you could also see it as Terry singing about himself, about his own struggles, the battles in his own career, the legal conflicts to break free from his contract with Mickie Most, the fight to make the records that he wanted to make, the pressures and the commercial failure of his last record, and just trying to stay true to his vision and to himself.

Let’s go back and bring his voice up in the mix, listen to a little bit of that. You can hear him pushing his voice a little harder, more forceful. It’s all done with intention. You start to see that this is a singer with complete control over his instrument, his voice.

Here comes the second verse. And before we get there, David Lindley is going to add some lap steel in the right channel. We’ve run into David Lindley on this podcast before. He’s, of course, the brilliant multi-instrumentalist who famously played that killer lap steel solo on “Running on Empty” by Jackson Browne.

And you can hear another legend there, the unmistakable voice of Graham Nash, adding backing vocals on this verse. Let’s listen to just these harmonies.

And now let’s bring Terry’s lead vocal back in and listen to them together.

This brings us to the bridge, and we’re about to shift into a whole different groove here. You can really hear that Latin influence. It takes the mood of the song to a whole other place.

Alright, a lot going on there. Let’s go back and listen to just the instrumental. We’ll take the vocal out and just hear what the band is doing.

David Lindley is doing some really interesting stuff all in the right channel there. Now how about we bring up the lead vocal and listen to Terry work his magic.

They return to the main riff and the harmony vocals are going to join in again.

As we approach the end of the song, Terry’s going to cut loose on the vocals a bit. This song is a real study in restraint. We know Terry could have belted this song out from the top, but he has held back, letting his vocals slowly build over the course of the track, letting it develop. This is something more singers need to learn to do, in my opinion anyway.

Let’s bring up Terry’s vocal one more time.

The harmony vocals return for one last little bit there at the end.

“Seed of Memory” by Terry Reid.

The Seed of Memory album was released in 1976. It was critically well-received, but once again, it wasn’t a commercial success. And that wasn’t helped by the fact that ABC Records filed for bankruptcy the same week the album was released, and it never received the promotion it deserved. Terry moved to another label, Capitol, and recorded one more album, Rogue Waves, in 1978, but then essentially retired from his solo career. He focused on session work, singing on albums by Don Henley and Jackson Browne, to name a few. In 1991, he got together with producer Trevor Horn to make the album The Driver. That would be his last full album as a solo artist. But he continued to do studio work and he recorded three songs with Joe Perry of Aerosmith, released on Perry’s 2018 solo album, Sweetzerland Manifesto. And he continued to play live gigs, including a four-year long residency at The Joint in LA, where he was frequently joined on stage by stars like Keith Richards, Roger Daltrey, and his old pal, Robert Plant.

Terry was diagnosed with cancer in June of 2025 and he passed away on August 4. He was 75 years old.

Thanks for joining me for this edition of the I’m in love with that song podcast. A special shout out to my friend and former Guitar Center co-worker, John Callahan, who’s a big fan of this song. I hope I did it justice. If you liked what you heard, we’ll come back in two weeks for our next brand new episode. And if you’d like to catch up on all of our previous shows, there’s over 200 of them, you’ll find them on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or look for them back in your feed in your favorite podcast app.

We’re part of the Pantheon Network of podcasts. This is where fans belong. If you’d like to support shows like this, the best thing you can do is to spread the word, tell your friends and family about the show, help us to grow our audience. I don’t do this show for money, it’s done to keep these songs alive. I do it to learn more about the music I love and to share what I find out with you. We’re all learning and rediscovering here together and I’m glad to have you along for the ride. Thanks for being a part of the show. I’ll see you back here soon. Until then, don’t forget to support the artists you love by buying their music, and go rediscover an old album you’ve never heard before, or haven’t listened to in a long time. A record like this one: Seed of Memory by Terry Reid.

RESOURCES:

Here is a list of referenced individuals, bands, labels, and studios from the episode, complete with links for further reading:

Artists & Bands: