Lone Star

Lone Star was a Welsh rock and heavy metal music band formed in Cardiff in 1975. They released two albums on CBS Records before splitting up in 1978. History An embryonic line-up consisted of former Iona members Kenny Driscoll and Tony Smith, former Quest bassist Ray Jones, and drummer Jim Mathews. The band took on the Lone Star moniker in early 1975 with bassist Pete Hurley and drummer Dixie Lee replacing Jones and Mathews, respectively, and the addition of Canadian keyboardist Rick Worsnop and guitarist Paul "Tonka" Chapman (a cousin of famed Welsh rocker Dave Edmunds), the latter whose credits included the bands Universe, Skid Row (where he had replaced Gary Moore), Kimla Taz, and most notably, UFO, in a short-lived 1974 dual guitar configuration alongside Michael Schenker. They raised £300 and recorded a five-song demo tape (The Acorn Sessions) at a studio near Oxford, with four of the five songs appearing in re-recorded form on their first two albums. The demo brought interest from manager Steve Wood, and after a bidding war, they signed a worldwide deal with CBS Records (which Driscoll would later describe as "the worst record deal ever"). The band recorded a studio session for John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show in early 1976, and recorded their self-titled debut album in August 1976 at Sweet Silence studios in Copenhagen, with Roy Thomas Baker producing. Driscoll had suffered a broken collarbone in a car crash (that left his girlfriend paralysed from the neck down) shortly before recording the album, and claimed to have recorded all the vocals for the album in three hours while drunk, and was disappointed with the results. The album charted at No. 47 on the UK Albums Chart, and was supported by a UK tour with label mate Ted Nugent. A second Peel session was recorded in April 1976 and broadcast around the time of the first album's release that August. The band's profile would get a further boost with a BBC Radio 1 In Concert broadcast, recorded at the Paris Theatre in London on 23 September 1976, just before going on tour as openers for Mott in October 1976. After friction between Driscoll and other band members, he left in 1977, and was replaced by 20-year-old John Sloman (ex-Trapper), with Abe Hoch taking over as manager from Wood. The band's third BBC studio session, with Sloman now on vocals, was recorded in February 1977, and broadcast in July of that year on Alan Freeman's Saturday Show.