Singer Paul 'Sandy' Davis and guitarist Alan Cowderoy formed a band, the Disciples, while at school in Esher, Surrey.
The band's early sound was influenced by Cream and the British blues movement, and one of their first professional recordings was a cover of a John Mayall song.
They supported The Who on a tour in 1968, by which time they had moved away from their blues roots and developed a more "pop" flavoured identity, landing a deal to record an album under the direction of producer Norrie Paramor.
Sessions at a Denmark Street studio produced ten tracks, an eclectic mix of Vanilla Fudge-influenced covers and Moody Blues-meets-The Beatles styled originals penned by Davis and Kitcat.
Two tracks were released on the Polydor single "Beautiful" b/w "Oh What A Lovely Rain", but nothing else from the sessions was heard until 1994 when four more songs appeared on the Renaissance Buried Treasures compilation.
The centrepiece of the band's second LP, recorded early 1971 at Olympic, was the 25-minute suite "Supernova", inspired by the shortest ghost story ever written: "the last man alive on earth was sitting at home when suddenly there was a tap at the window".
Before Davis ultimately moved to Germany, he and Wheatley recorded material together, along with Rob Townsend, keyboard player Billy Livsey and the horn section from The Rumour.
In 1995 Tim Wheatley and Robert Lipson began work on a new Gracious album, following approaches from a Japanese record company, with guest participation from Alan Cowderoy.
In the 1990s the German label Repertoire Records reissued the first LP, and the US label Renaissance reissued This Is..., which restored the originally intended running order of the "Supernova" suite (because of time and space limitations of the LP format, a section of the epic "What's Come To Be" had been removed and relocated out of context to side two as a separate song).
But Martin was the first guy to contact the Bradley brothers [UK-based Mellotron manufacturers] and have his made custom, with lead sound on both sides."
Four tracks (three Davis/Kitcat originals and a cover of "I Put A Spell On You") from the aborted 1968 recording sessions were included on a Renaissance CD compilation, Buried Treasures (1994), along with similarly unheard material by Touch and Stray Dog.