The Sherwood Forest Tapes
The Sherwood Forest Tapes were a demo a tape recorded sometime in the late 70s featuring Allan, Jack Bruce and Jon Hiseman. The demos have been widely bootlegged.
Holdsworth & Co. A New Side Of Allan’s Music. (Guitar 1980)
There’s more space in this music because it’s a three-piece, but I’m also working a lot harder than normal. It came about when I had a blow with Jack Bruce and Jon Hiseman, and we were toying with the idea of trying to get that team together, but it came unstuck because we all had different problems at the same time. We made a demo at a studio during a couple of evenings and turned out half an album. I enjoyed it so much, it triggered the idea of a three-piece, and I knew that’s what I’d like to do. It’s taken a long time to sort out, and we’re off now, hopefully.
No Secrets (Facelift 1994)
"All I’d ever done was play guitar for other people and I just wanted to do my own thing. And then I met Gary Husband at the same time and started to do that. And we tried really hard when I was in England - in fact I had a little band together before IOU, with Jon Hiseman and Jack Bruce. And we did a couple of demos. And we couldn’t get anyone interested at all. Just shortly after that was when I met Gary and we were just banging our heads against the Wall but we kept going. And there was a club in France called Riverbop and there was a really nice lady there called Jacqueline Ferrari. She liked us and she would bring us over there for like two weeks at a time, playing this little jazz club. It was great, but she was the only person who really gave us a chance.
