Lindisfarne

Lindisfarne - Dance Your Life Away - 1986 - River City Records

Lindisfarne may not have been the first Geordies to put Newcastle or Tyneside, England on the rock music map. Eric Burdon (from Newcastle) & The Animals were a prominent British Beat and R ‘N’ B band throughout the 1960s. Lindisfarne was, however, the most prominent band in bringing the sound of "working class" Geordie dialect and folk rock to the rock scene throughout the Sixties and Seventies. Like so many bands over-hyped by the media, Lindisfarne was first lauded to "the high heavens" by the press and then like so many more great bands, relegated to the tiphead of rock history. Even by the mid '80's, the band was still producing the goods. "Dance Your Life Away" is full of great melodic songs with brilliant lyrics mostly from the late, great Alan Hull. The songs still contain the Geordie urban folk rock sound. Fantastic musicianship and terrific vocal harmonies from an unpretentious band who never achieved the success they deserved. N.B: Sound @ 192 bit is "tinny" on this album. It would be worthwhile finding original album. Listen to Lindisfarne's classic "Nicely Out of Tune", "Fog on the Tyne", and "On Tap" albums. Listen to Alan Hull's great live "Alright on the Night" album, recorded at Clifton Poly 1975. His "Phantoms" album is another wonderful collection of great songs. Alan's "Back To Basics" album can be found @ ALANHULL/B2Bs and Lindisfarne's "Magic In The Air" album is @ LFARN/MITA The band's "Promenade" album is @ LFARN/PROM

TRACKS

1. Shine On
2. Love On The Run
3. Heroes
4. All In The Same Boat
5. Dance Your Life Away
6. Beautiful
7. Broken Doll
8. One Hundred Miles To Liverpool
9. Take Your Time
10. Song For A Stranger

All songs composed by Alan Hull except "Shine On" by Alan Hull &Steve Daggett, and "Love On The Run" by Rod Clements

BAND

Alan Hull - vocals, guitar, piano
Simon Cowe - guitar, mandolin, banjo
Rod Clements - bass guitar, violin
Ray Jackson - vocals, mandolin, harmonica
Ray Laidlaw - drums
Marty Craggs - sax on "Heroes"

REVIEW

It's been four years since the last Lindisfarne album and yet the lads have always remained well in the publie eye. The spirit of this mad mob was summed up for me by the Bob Dylan and Santana show at St. James Park. I was compere for the day and this means that most of your time you're trying backstage not to get in anyone's way. The members of Santana and even Bob Dylan were taking full advantage of the toilet facilities, everyone was terrified until you reached the Lindisfarne camp, all lying in the sun relaxing with a glass of the amber nectar, soaking up the atmosphere. So after such a gap in recording I was very worried as to whether they could still so it (I'd spoken to their wives and girlfriends who said they still could, but only on a Saturday night !). As soon as the first track 'Shine On' oozed into my ears it was like honey off biscuits, the kind of harmonies that only Lindisfarne can achieve, and with some nice work from Steve Daggett (who is known for his organ) he plays keyboards too. It's the kind if record that everyone loves to hear around Christmas time ! Rod Clements wrote the next cut 'Love On The Run' and it's an up-front rock song with some superb violin and interplay between Jacka on vocals and a moody, haunting chorus. Yet the violin makes it jaunty and memorable, this is probably my favourite from the album. To do this one live, Rod who plays bass and violin will be as busy as a one legged man in a forest fire. It has that unique Lindisfarne feel. Most people who know Alan Hull will be aware that he's a political animal (he's been called worse), well his song 'Heroes' tells us about how it's a constant battle between the 'man and the street' and the politician or rich. The people who are always willing to lay down your life for their country. The typical politician will do anything for the workers, except work with them. This song is a bit of a rallying song for those folk who dare to speak their mind and don't just whine that there's something wrong, but rolls up their sleeves and does something about it. Alan sings how isde by side it's the people that can do what the politicians can't do, stop the burglars and muggers, get decent income - the people who stand up and be counted are the real heroes. Marty Craggs provides a lovely sax break. After a meaty song the next tune 'All In The Same Boat' was exactly what I wanted. A lilting, lazy and downright relaxing song, the sort you love to hear on a day out. Ray Jackson adds some neat mouth organ. In the 'North' we are all in the same boat, and this is the type of lullaby that soothes the soul. (Remembering your soul is the only part of you that you can't rub germolene on). 'Dance Your Life Away' the title track has a 'John Lennon' feel, a quirky and powerful song with great lyrics summing up what is often the case. Strangely, this is my least favourite track because it may be too near the truth to suit me. At scholl you're told study and you'll do well, having studied there's not enough jobs to go around. It seems especially for the North it's always a promise of what will happen tomorrow never what can be done today. The vitriol in Alan Hull's voice puts across the point (either that or he's spilled his beer). Perhaps the people who will identify with this song most, will be those folk who are born into hard to do areas and find the cards stacked against them. Alan spent most of his childhood in Suttons Dwellings, Benwell and as a coincidence has it I was born and bred in the next street along. Hugh Gardens. It's the spirit of the bred in the North who always suceed in overcoming all of the burdons of life with a grin on their chin. It's at times like this you discover that two can live as cheaply as one ... but only for half as long. Challenging four your album favourite 'Beautiful Day' has to be up there. Ray Laidlaws solid drum sound over a keyboard bed gives the song a warm and full feel. It's a love song - when you're in love nothing can upset you. Ray Jackson should know he's seen more lovemaking than a policemans torch. The harmonies are fabulous and you'll find yourself singing this around the house, or if you haven't fixed that lock yet in the toilet. It didn't surprise me to see 'Broken Doll' on the album. Alan Hull was bound to name one song after a pub, and Broken Doll does have a better ring than, 'The Duke of Wellington'. I loved the 'oldy worldy' beginning between harmonica and accordian [actually it was an 'ordinary' keyboard; see 'the story behind the "Dance-songs" '; R.G.], a mix of styles that fuses rock, pop and folk. Surprisingly it's a love song, a song of heartache, I can identify with this. I've been turned down more than page 262 of the Kama Sutra. With my luck when my boat comes in I'll be at the airport. This is a solid album track and can see it being a concert favourite too. 'One Hundred Miles to Liverpool' provides some of the most devastating harmonies and musical interplay I've heard in years. Simple playing from Si Cowe that helps set the scene, Alan Hull's lyrics are superb. He can read what he sees and interprets it in his very own brand of musical rock poetry. This is Alan at his best, the magic is back and this song is one of the classiest examples of that. No one can create that Northern flavour better than Lindisfarne. Just when you thought you'd sampled the full range of Lindisfarnes wares in comes 'Take Your Time' that seems to pick up a vocal style where the Beatles left off. It's another simple song to get you swaying, as if the lads need anything apart from a good brew to achieve that. This song features 'Chorus Interuptus' and can lead to a squint and hair on the palms of your hands. To wrap up what I think it is a fabulous album another classic 'Song For A Stranger' what Lindisfarne go out with all guns blazing. This is what they do - tight harmonies, natural warmth, strong lyrics, harmonica and mandolin guitar sound and even a trick ending. I may sound over the top about this album, but I honestly think it's that good. © Alan Robson, Metro & Tees Night Owl and the Hot 'n' Heavy Express's Flashing Blade [ from http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nLujE_htiRoJ:www.lindisfarne.de/misc/danc_rev.htm+lindisfarne+Dance+Your+Life+Away&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ie ]



ALAN HULL BIO

Alan Hull (James Alan Hull, 20 February 1945 - 17 November 1995) was an English singer-songwriter and founding member of the Tyneside folk rock band, Lindisfarne. Hull was born in Benwell, Newcastle upon Tyne in 1945. He became a member of the band The Chosen Few alongside keyboard player Mick Gallagher in 1962. He supported himself one year by working as a nurse at a mental hospital while appearing as a folk singer and guitarist in local clubs before helping to form Brethren and Downtown Faction, which evolved into Lindisfarne in 1970. He also released a one-off solo single, "We Can Swing Together", which was re-recorded with the group on their first album, Nicely Out of Tune, and became a regular favourite in their stage performances. As the group's most prolific songwriter and joint lead vocalist, Hull came to be regarded as its leader. After dissatisfaction with the sound and critical reception of their third album, Dingly Dell, in 1972 he considered leaving the group, but instead he and joint lead vocalist Lindsay Raymond Jackson formed a new six-piece Lindisfarne the following year, leaving the three other original members to form Jack The Lad. He also released a first solo album Pipedream the same year, and published a book of poems, Mocking Horse. Lindisfarne disbanded in 1975 and Hull released a second solo album Squire, then formed the short-lived Radiator, which also included drummer Ray Laidlaw of Lindisfarne and Jack the Lad. At the end of 1977 the original line-up of Lindisfarne reformed after a well-received Christmas show at the Newcastle City Hall which was broadcast on local radio. Thereafter he combined his musical career as front man of the group with a solo career. He was also a staunch Labour Party activist. In 1994, he recorded Back to Basics, a live all-acoustic survey of the best of his songwriting from 1970 onwards. On 17 November 1995 whilst working on a new album, Statues & Liberties, Hull died suddenly of a heart thrombosis, at the age of 50.

LINDISFARNE BIO

Lindisfarne barely command more than a footnote in most rock reference books. During the early '70s, however, Lindisfarne were 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 poised for international success, when a series of unfortunate artistic decisions, followed by a split in their lineup, left them bereft of audience and success. Singer/guitarist Alan Hull (b. Feb. 20, 1945), guitarist Simon Cowe (b. Apr. 1, 1948), mandolin player Ray Jackson (b. Dec. 12, 1948), bassist/violinist Rod Clements (b. Nov. 17, 1947), and drummer Ray Laidlaw (b. May 28, 1948) 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 that 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, and the Newcastle 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 Stratton-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 repertoire, and seemed destined to find an audience. The album and the "Lady Eleanor" single failed to chart, but Lindisfarne'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 from 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 earlier, had been a pleasant folk-rock outfit with a solid cult following. Alan Hull was referred to in the press as the most important new songwriter since Bob Dylan, and Lindisfarne were saddled with the designation as "the 1970s Beatles." Up to this time, the group had played in England and Wales, but, apart from one show in Scotland and individual forays to Paris and Holland, its members hadn't even pondered the notion or implications of an international career. It all seemed too good to last, and it was. Later in 1972, after a frantic period capitalizing on one massive success after another, the band released its 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 bandmembers 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 up-front, 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 Lindisfarne were 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 were 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 Lindisfarne'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 Dingly Dell still got to number five on the charts and yielded one modest hit, "All Fall Down." They 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 its 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 from 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 lineup, featuring Ken Craddock on guitar, keyboards, and vocals; Charlie Harcourt on guitars; Tommy Duffy on bass and vocals; and Paul Nichols on drums. Their first album, Roll on Ruby, was a critical and commercial failure. Hull embarked on a solo recording career at around this same time, which seemed to draw away still more of the band'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 its next album, Happy Daze, which 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, releasing a single album, entitled Isn't It Strange. Lindisfarne switched labels again to Mercury and debuted with a double live album, Magic in the Air, with songs drawn from the group's first three albums. The band remained intact and on Mercury for two more long-players, released to little lasting commercial avail: Back and Fourth (1978), which yielded a pair of modest hits in Alan Hull's "Run for Home," a song that sounds more like Springsteen than Springsteen does, and "Warm Feeling"; and The News (1979). They remained a reasonably popular concert attraction — especially in Newcastle and the surrounding area — into the early '80s, and have continued to record and reunite for concerts periodically in the years since. During the early '80s, they organized Lindisfarne Musical Productions and began releasing their work on the LMP label, including a live album cut in 1983. Their live recordings, featuring new renditions of their classic early-'70s material, seem to draw the greatest enthusiasm. Alan Hull has also maintained a separate solo career, and fans of the group should definitely own his Back to Basics CD, on which he does live acoustic versions of his best songs from 1970 onward. © Bruce Eder © 2010 Rovi Corporation. All Rights Reserved http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:09fexqu5ldte~T1