"For blue-eyed soul fans, there are treats a plenty": Terry Wilson Slesser and friends successfully conjure up the ghost of Paul Kossoff on Forever Blue

Back Street Crawler singer Terry Slesser sang on Pyromania and auditioned for both AC/DC and Iron Maiden. Now he's finally made a solo album

Forever Blue cover art
(Image: © MoMojo Records)

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Terry Wilson Slesser added backing vocals to Pyromania, but is best known as the singer in Back Street Crawler, the post-Free band formed by Paul Kossoff.

Koss died in March 1976 but still casts a long shadow and his spirit lives on throughout this, the frontman’s first solo album – laced with reminders of Koss’s style on guitar played by John Buckton.

Forever Blue - Terry Wilson-Slesser (official Video) - YouTube Forever Blue - Terry Wilson-Slesser (official Video) - YouTube
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Neatly, too, all the original BSC band (plus Snuffy Walden) feature somewhere across the 12 originals here. Wilson-Slesser delivers each in a high register, often over co-writer Mark Taylor’s electric piano, in a laid-back blues soundscape that has echoes of late period Joe Cocker.

Love Is Blind, Checkmate and Shine On stand out but, for blue-eyed soul fans, there are treats a plenty.

Physical copies of Forever Blue are available from Terry Wilson Slesser.

Neil Jeffries

Freelance contributor to Classic Rock and several of its offshoots since 2006. In the 1980s he began a 15-year spell working for Kerrang! intially as a cub reviewer and later as Geoff Barton’s deputy and then pouring precious metal into test tubes as editor of its Special Projects division. Has spent quality time with Robert Plant, Keith Richards, Ritchie Blackmore, Rory Gallagher and Gary Moore – and also spent time in a maximum security prison alongside Love/Hate. Loves Rush, Aerosmith and beer. Will work for food.