Gryphon (band)

English progressive and medieval folk band

Gryphon are an English progressive and medieval folk rock band formed in London in 1972. They are known for their medieval and Renaissance style of music. The band briefly flourished in the progressive rock heyday of the early 1970s, and then retired to other musical activities before reforming for a one off reunion in 2009. Subsequently, Gryphon played some gigs in 2015, featured at the Cropredy Festival in 2016, and in 2017, an invitation to a ProgRock festival in Portugal, and in the UK, the NewDay Festival near Canterbury. The first new Gryphon record for 41 years was released in 2018.

Gryphon formed in early 1972 as a four piece band by English musicians Graeme Taylor, Richard Harvey, Dave Oberlé, and Brian Gulland. Harvey and Gulland were graduates of the Royal College of Music in London who started an acoustic band, using their classically trained backgrounds to perform a mixture of English folk music, contemporary rock, medieval and Renaissance music. The duo were joined by guitarist Graeme Taylor and drummer Dave Oberlé shortly after, thus becoming the first line up of Gryphon. They soon signed a recording deal with the folk label Transatlantic Records and secured Nick Wright as their manager. Later that year they composed for the documentary film Glastonbury Fayre (1972) and completed a European tour. Taylor and Bennett were replaced on guitars and bass by Bob Foster and Jonathan Davie respectively, with Alex Baird recruited as kit drummer to allow Oberlé to focus fully on singing and lighter percussion. This lineup recorded a fifth, even more rock oriented album, Treason, which was released on Harvest Records in 1977. Gryphon split up later in 1977, after the release of Treason, due to the band members feeling that the band's momentum had been lost and that the advent of punk had sidelined their style of music. Another factor was that Richard Harvey's projects outside the band (in folk rock, sessions and soundtrack work) were developing further and beginning to require too much of his attention. In the same year, both Harvey and Jonathan Davie under the names Rik Mansworth and John Thomas were briefly members of the punk/new wave "scam" group The Banned.

In September 2007, Gryphon announced on their website that they had finally decided to produce a new album after a silence of thirty one years. A one off performance occurred on 6 June 2009 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, thirty two years after their last performance. The four original members Richard Harvey, Brian Gulland, Graeme Taylor and Dave Oberlé opened the evening with a selection of songs and instrumentals from the first album Gryphon. They were then joined by Jon Davie (the final bass player, who appeared on Treason) and a new member, the multi instrumentalist and film/production music composer Graham Preskett for the rest of the evening. A follow up tour was postponed, but the band eventually played six dates in May 2015, with further dates in 2016 including Fairport Convention's Cropredy Convention and a return to Union Chapel Hall. Harvey left the group in early 2016, and shortly after they were joined by Keith Thompson on woodwinds and Rory McFarlane on bass. In September 2018, the band released a new studio album of original material entitled ReInvention, their first in 41 years. This was followed in November 2020 by a seventh studio album, Get Out Of My Father's Car!