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LINDISFARNE |
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Lindisfarne was one of the hottest folk-based
rock bands in England, with chart placements on two of their albums that
rivaled Jethro Tull, and had them proclaimed one of the most important groups
of the decade. With a sound that mixed plaintive folk-like melodies, earthy
but well-sung harmonies, and acoustic and electric textures, the group seemed
Singer/guitarist Alan Hull, guitarist Simon
Cowe, mandolin player Ray Jackson, bassist/violinist Rod Clements and drummer
Ray Laidlaw all hailed from Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, and the surrounding
area. At some point, they were known as Downtown Faction, but they took their
familiar musical form under the name Brethren. The band became a very popular
act on the college circuit, playing what was known as "good time"
music, singalong numbers resembling (or directly derived from) pub songs in
which audiences could luxuriate, usually with Jackson's harmonica honking
along. Alan Hull had a background in folk music which enabled him to freely
incorporate that influence, and he was the major songwriter and singer in the
band. In 1968, they discovered that an American group
was already using the name "Brethren," so the group rechristened
itself Lindisfarne, taken from the name of an island off the coast of
Northumberland in Northern England -- the island Lindisfarne (also known as
"Holy Island") is most famous for its early medieval monastery and
castle and the ancient "Lindisfarne Gospels" medieval manuscript.
The new name fit the times and the group's sound, which was evolving in the
direction of folk-style music. The group was signed to Tony Stratten-Smith's
Charisma Records, England's premiere progressive rock label, in 1970. They released their first (and best) album,
Nicely Out of Tune, that same year. Their debut album captured the group's
best attributes, a rollicking, upbeat, optimistic collection of hippie/folk
music, somewhere midway between Fairport Convention and the early Grateful
Dead, with a peculiarly urban, English working-class ambience. Their
"Englishness," coupled with the occasionally uneven quality of
their songwriting, may explain one major reason why Lindisfarne never
achieved more than a tiny cult following in the United States. Nicely Out of Tune contained one wistfully
romantic number, "Lady Eleanor," which became a favorite number in
the band's concert repertory, and seemed destined to find an audience. The
album and the "Lady Eleanor" single failed to chart, but the
group's live shows only grew in popularity -- by the end of 1970, they were
able to ask for £1500 a night from promoters, a far cry from the £300 they
had been getting on the college circuit. Their second album, Fog On The Tyne,
released in 1971, marked their commercial breakthrough -- a collection of
earthy, folk-type pub songs, Fog On The Tyne entered the British charts in
October of that year and began a slow climb into the middle reaches. In
February of 1972, however, the group's label belated issued a single off of
the album, "Meet Me On The Corner." That record was number five on
the charts the following month, while Fog On The Tyne suddenly rose to the
number one spot. Within a matter of weeks, Nicely Out Of Tune entered the
charts for the first time and eventually hit number eight; "Lady
Eleanor," reissued in June of 1972, made it to number three. That was when the media hype kicked in, raising
expectations and aspirations for a group that, until four months Later in 1972, after a frantic period
capitalizing on one massive success after another, the band released their
third album, Dingly Dell. The album was troubled from the start. The record's
producer was Bob Johnston, the American who had worked on Bob Dylan's John
Wesley Harding, among many other records, and who had also produced Fog On
The Tyne. The band had a falling out with Johnston over Dingly Dell, and
remixed the album themselves immediately prior to release. The resulting
record had a very crisp sound, very upfront, and more of a mainstream hard
rock sound than their previous two long-players. Unfortunately, this was not
the move that the critics had wanted or expected of the band -- they wanted a
richer, more progressive folk-type sound, in some ways closer to Fairport
Convention, not the harder, more basic sound that they found here.
Additionally, the songwriting didn't match the prior two albums, and nobody
was drawing comparisons between Alan Hull and Dylan over the songs on Dingly
Dell. Ironically, this album came out at just about
the time the group was in the process of gaining a small following in
America, although they never really had much chance of succeeding. Their
association with Charisma Records meant that they were afforded a listen by the
American progressive rock audience, and to some limited extent their mixture
of folk and rock was "progressive." In reality, Lindisfarne was
closer in spirit and music to such hard-rocking bands as Brinsley Schwarz,
Bees Make Honey, and Eggs Over Easy, utterly lacking the pretensions needed
for a prog-rock band. Under other circumstances, the album would have
been passed over by most critics as nothing more than a slightly
disappointing lapse, but reviewers and journalists seemed bent on revenge for
the group's failure to rise to the praise and hype lavished on them over the
previous year. The record and the group were universally savaged, although it
still got to number five on the charts and yielded one modest hit, "All
Fall Down." The band toured America, but discovered that American
listeners and critics found their sound too peculiarly English -- in the
wrong ways -- to really accept Lindisfarne. The group was never remotely as
popular as their Charisma labelmates Genesis, who were eagerly snapped up by
Atlantic Records once their Charisma contract was up. Cowe, Laidlaw, and Clements exited the band in
early 1973 and formed a new group called Jack The Lad, which specialized in a
harder, more basic pub-rock sound, and went on to release three albums on
Charisma. A live Lindisfarne album, featuring the original lineup and songs
mostly off of the first three albums, was issued by Charisma in 1973, but it
was at best a holding action. Later that year, Alan Hull and Ray Jackson were
back leading a new Lindisfarne line-up, featuring Ken Craddock on guitar,
keyboards, and vocals, Charlie Harcourt on guitars, Tommy Hull embarked on a solo recording career at
around this same time, which seemed to draw away still more of Lindisfarne's
original audience. As the principal songwriter and voice of the group, and
one of two original members, he held Lindisfarne's public better than the new
Lindisfarne did. The band switched to Warner Bros. for their
next album, Happy Daze, but it fared no better. By 1977, Jack The Lad had
called it quits and Cowe, Clements, and Laidlaw were back with Lindisfarne.
Hull also recorded with Laidlaw and Craddock under the group name Radiator on
the Rocket label,
They released one album Isn’t It Strange. Most material was repackaged
a little later as a solo album entitled Phantoms (1979). A later album
of new material was released in 1983 called On The Other Side. Jacka
would release his solo In The Night album in 1980. |
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LIVEMUSICMAGAZINE.COM2007 |
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