If we were to stumble across the members of Focus in very early January 1970, what might be their circumstances? For a start, it’s most likely they would be freezing. The four members of the band were acting as the pit band for the Dutch production ofHair in a tent near the Olympic Stadium on the outskirts of Amsterdam. This was not ideal for any of them, least of all, one must imagine, Jan, for whom playing the same mundane arrangements night after night must have been something of a trial. But it was a paid gig, and it did allow them to rehearse their own live set during the day – and all day on Monday, which was a day off for the show.
Those who have heard the Dutch soundtrack to the 1970 production of Hair (the author could not track it down) suggest that there’s almost nothing of the Focus that we would come to know and love in these recordings. The show did allow a free-for-all improvisation with the audience allowed onstage at the end of the show, however, allowing the band to let off steam. It was around this time that the group name of Focus was first coined. As Thijs told Peet Johnson:
My mother was reading a philosophy book to me when I was young, and she said, in English, ‘to focus upon’ and I asked her, ‘what is ‘to focus upon’? She said it means ‘to direct, to concentrate’.
It’s a beautiful name. It creates an image of a nice, warm, cosy family, but I also wanted to focus on the human mind. I thought that there is perhaps a form of music that can be a catalyst to help people focus and deal with their own problems [as opposed to music that acts just as a way of blotting them out].
These were high ideals indeed and not lacking in pretension. But there is little doubt that no band has ever sounded quite like Focus, even if – ultimately – such ideals were only occasionally fulfilled in practice. The book his mother quoted from was written by Hazrat Inayat Khan, the Indian-born musician, teacher and founder of the Sufi order, who we will meet again as the lyricist of ‘Moving Waves’ via one of his poems.
‘The Shrine Of God’ (Shaffy) b/w ‘Watch The Ugly People’ (van Leer, Shaffy) – Ramses Shaffy With The Focus Band
Personnel:
Ramses Shaffy: vocals
Thijs van Leer: keyboards, flute
Jan Akkerman: guitar
Hans Cleuver: drums
Martijn Dresden: bass
Produced by Hans van Hemert
Recorded by Albert Kos at Phonogram Studio, Hilversum, 6 and 16 October, 25 November, 4 and 16 December 1969, 7 January 1970. (Thanks to Wouter Bessels for credits)
Available as part of the Focus 50 Years Anthology
