Was it Elvis or the Suez Canal That Inspired the Band Name Ten Years After?

The British band Ten Years After became best known for their innovative blues-forward sound that infiltrated rock in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In their early days, they amassed a number of chart-topping hits, like “I’m Going Home,” “Hear Me Calling,” “Love Like a Man,” and “I’d Love to Change the World.”

An iteration of the band exists today, still touring and making music as Ten Years After. But one question has always remained: Ten years after what?

Behind the Name

Ten Years After came to be in the early 1960s. Their core lineup – consisting of frontman Alvin Lee, drummer Ric Lee, bassist Leo Lyons, and keyboard player Chick Churchill – and their band name was cemented by the end of the decade.

Having sprung from the group the Jaybirds, the band cycled through names like Blues Trip and Blues Yard before settling on Ten Years After in 1966. There are two theories as to where the name came from – one involving Elvis Presley, the other having to do with the Suez Canal.

“Ten Years After” is believed to be a nod to Presley because the year they changed their name was 10 years after the icon’s most successful year: 1956. For Presley, that was the year he released his first single, earned his first No. 1 hit, and made his film debut.

“Well, Alvin was a big Elvis fan, no two ways about it,” Ric Lee explained in an interview about the frontman’s musical inspiration. “Not the last show, the penultimate show we did, which was at the House of Blues in Los Angeles in California, he played that night as if he was Elvis. It was incredible. The guy that managed at the time, a guy called Ron Rainey – and Ron and I were talking, he said, ‘I thought that was Elvis out there tonight.’ I said, ‘Well, you and me both.’

“He just went for it,” he continued. “He had all the movements, he slipped into the voice now again.”

However, the other theory, suggesting the Suez Canal, seems to be the most likely. One day, Lyons came across the name in a newspaper when he reportedly saw an advertisement for a book, titled Suez Ten Years After.

“We were looking for a name [for the band] and I thought, well, Ten Years After would be very interesting,” Lyons explained, “because for the next 40 years, people are going to be asking me, where did the name for the band come from?” And they apparently have.

“It’s an interesting name,” he continued, “in as much as the number 10 is an interesting number, alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, and it’s an important number in the Tarot … yes, there’s a lot of things you could say about it, and over the years I guess I have.”

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