These days, Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express is a family affair.
The keyboardist’s current group, which shares the name of Auger’s famous jazz/fusion outfit of the ’70s, includes his son and daughter.
You don’t imagine much fighting backstage.
“We never pushed any of our kids into the music business,” Auger says. “In fact, we tried to discourage it. But I guess being around it all the time and being in love with making music, you can’t force people not to do something they love to do.”
There was no discouraging Auger, either. As a jazz pianist, bandleader, session man, Hammond B3 innovator and prime mover in the rise of jazz/rock fusion, he has played or toured with Rod Stewart, Tony Williams, Jimi Hendrix, Sonny Boy Williamson, Led Zeppelin, Eric Burdon and many others. (That’s even Auger’s harpsichord playing on the Yardbirds’ classic “For Your Love.”)
It started early. Growing up in London during World War II, the Auger family home had a player piano, and young Brian was quickly under its spell. As a teen, he soaked up the sounds of American small-group jazz by Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers. By 1965, he had stumbled across albums by B3 maestro Jimmy Smith, and decided to begin playing the famously bulky instrument.
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That led to the formation of Steampacket, with Stewart on vocals, and then Trinity, with singer Julie Driscoll.
“Trinity had a chart hit in England (a cover of Bob Dylan’s `This Wheel’s on Fire’), but it all fell apart on tour in America at the end of the ’60s due to severe mismanagement,” Auger, 67, said. “We came back to London and were immediately presented with a bill that was huge for its time.”
Next up was the Oblivion Express, a creamy blend of organ-led R&B and jazz that took in such top players as the late, great soul drummer Robbie MacIntosh (later to help start Average White Band) and the distinctive poll-winning Scottish jazz/funk guitarist Jim Mullen.
“The band smoked,” Auger said. “We made fans out of people who never ventured outside of the jazz, blues or rock camps. The idea was to put together a band with a drummer that sounded like Bernard Purdie, a bassist like James Jamerson and a guitarist like Cornell Dupree. And we owed a lot to Mose Allison.”
To hear the band’s ongoing influence, simply lend an ear, briefly, to Justin Timberlake’s chart-topping current album, which bears arrangements strangely similar to Auger’s of the period.
Despite various lineup changes, Auger’s Oblivion Express — whose funky originals such as “Happiness Is Just Around the Bend” and silky covers of Wes Montgomery’s “Bumpin’ on Sunset” and Eddie Harris’ “Freedom Jazz Dance” crossed over to rock, R&B and jazz stations across the U.S. — was a constant on the ’70s touring circuit, playing on bills with Joe Cocker, Pink Floyd, the Who, Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin and many others, often at rock palaces such as the Fillmore East and West.
“I wasn’t home very much during those years,” said Auger, who has lived in Los Angeles for about 25 years.
The Oblivion Express now includes Auger’s son Karma, 35, on drums, daughter Savannah, 30, on vocals, and bassist Andreas Geck.
But regardless of whom he shares the stage with, Auger is a formidable presence. Hancock calls him “one of the best B3 artists I have ever heard in my life. His technique is awesome, and the amount of energy he generates is unparalleled and relentless.”