Michael Schenker & Cozy Powell: Unraveling Cozy’s Greatest Mystery – Original Cassette Formerly Owned by Powell

This is perhaps the most mysterious of all the Cozy tapes! It is a direct transfer to disc of an Ampex cassette—hand-labeled “MS + CP, Writing Tracks”—believed to have been recorded during his time with the Michael Schenker Group. The total runtime is 11 minutes and 30 seconds. When the tape plays, you hear Cozy humming a melody (“de-re-re”) overlaid with a voice speaking English with a German accent (Michael Schenker?). Essentially, the recording captures four takes of Cozy composing a song on the piano (!) while occasionally muttering to a man with a German accent. He simply repeats a piano riff endlessly; the playing is quite clumsy—it certainly doesn’t sound like Paul Raymond (or any professional keyboardist, for that matter). Yet, I’ve never heard of Michael composing on the piano, so the situation remains a mystery. One could speculate a scenario involving three people—Cozy, Michael, and a very unskilled pianist—but regardless, it is a bizarre recording of the same piano theme repeated endlessly across three takes. While the riff bears a slight resemblance to the piano intro of “Doctor Doctor” (though it is clearly a different song), nothing like this was ever officially released, so it is hard to say for sure. The fourth track features a shorter, different piano take, and at the end, you can hear Cozy’s unmistakable voice alongside the muttered, German-accented English. It is a recording that would leave anyone asking, “What on earth is this?”—yet it stands as another fascinating chapter in the hidden history of rock. Taken from the original cassette (Ampex 60-minute tape) belonging to Cozy Powell (11:30). Take #1, Take #2, Take #3, Take #4.