Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin

Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin - Spin - 1991 - Broken Records/Line Records (Germany)

In contrast to the dense, layered textures of The Big Idea, Spin is a lighter album with more of a pop sensibility. Opening with a mad re-imagining of Rufus Thomas' R & B classic 'Walking The Dog', it also features reworkings of the great '60s singles 'Eight Miles High' and 'Cast Your Fate To The Wind' and a haunting version of Joni Mitchell's 'Amelia'. Dave Stewart originals include the tender ballads 'Star Blind' and 'The Cloths Of Heaven' (based on a poem by W.B.Yeats), and a tribute to the legendary record producer Joe Meek, 'Your Lucky Star', presented here for the first time in its full-length form. © Broken Records, UK http://www.davebarb.demon.co.uk/dsbgcds.html

You would never in your wildest dreams guess that Dave Stewart led progressive rock bands like Egg and National Health from listening to the rubbery 80s synth funk on this album. Not that this is 80s pop. With cover tunes and some originals, the duo mine both an elegant pop and rubbery funk that is complex. This is not art rock, but you can tell by the tricky rhythms and layered arrangements, this is no pop album either. But the ironies go deeper and get better. Art rockers expanded rock in the 1960s and 70s. Stewart and Gaskin are covering tracks here like "Walking The Dog" and "Eight Miles High." Redefining the rock--with radically different treatments-that prog tried to escape from. In doing so, the master has become the apprentice, and by msking parts of classic rock cannon into something completely different, becomes the master, once again. ****/5 Excellent February 25, 2010 By & © Bill Your 'Free Form FM Handi Cyber Print DJ ... (Mahwah, NJ USA) © 1996-2012, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates

Having spent most of the eighties cooped up in the studio, Dave & Barbara resumed live performance in 1990. After a short tour of the US East Coast and Midwest the duo returned to the UK and recorded Spin, which (as a result of a new, live-based approach and relatively short recording schedule) has a somewhat more direct and pop-based approach than its predecessor The Big Idea. "A Customer" on Amazon.com said that "This is an album not to miss. It's a creative mix of covers with very hip arrangements allowing Dave's technology to be tempered by the warm humanity of Barbara's voice. If I had to knock it, I'd say it didn't have enough rough edges, yet Eight Miles High is a brilliant rethinking of the Byrds' classic. This and others have a way of staying with you, and you'll find yourself humming, if not singing along outright". The instrumental "The Curve of the Earth" is more progressive rock than pop (Prog-Pop!), and was originally composed as an overture to The Byrds' classic "Eight Miles High". This is not your average crap commercial "pop" music, but intelligent and original music which has been dubbed "pop music for adults". Check out Bill Bruford's "Gradually Going Tornado" album and also Hatfield and the North's classic "The Rotters' Club" album both featuring Dave and Barbara. For more good "Prog-Pop", listen to Scritti Politti's "Cupid And Psyche" album or Thomas Dolby's "Aliens Ate My Buick" album [All tracks @ 320 Kbps: 2 x rar files: Pt 1 (Tracks 1-6 80.6 Mb), & Pt 2 (Tracks 7-13 83.9 Mb]

TRACKS / COMPOSERS

1 Walking The Dog - Rufus Thomas 6:16
2 The Cloths Of Heaven - David L. Stewart 3:39 **
3 8 Miles High - David Crosby, Gene Clark, Roger McGuinn 4:40
4 Amelia - Joni Mitchell 6:05
5 Trash Planet - David L. Stewart 5:55
6 Golden Rain - David L. Stewart 5:36
7 Your Lucky Star - David L. Stewart 5:13
8a Cast Your Fate To The Wind - Vincent Anthony Guaraldi / 8b Louie Louie - Richard Berry [Medley] 5:02
9 The 60s Never Die - David L. Stewart 6:34
10 Star Blind - David L. Stewart 6:28
11 Fear Is The Thief - David L. Stewart 5:47 *
12 McGroggan - David L. Stewart 3:34 *
13 The Curve Of The Earth - David L. Stewart 3:56 *

N.B: * Bonus Tracks (Not on the 1991 US Rykodisc CD issue): ** Lyrics based on a W.B.Yeats poem

MUSICIANS

Dave Stewart - Keyboards, Rhythm Programming
Andy Reynolds - Guitar on Tracks 1,2,3,5,7,8,9
Gavin Harrison - Drums on Track 3: Percussion on Tracks 2,6
Jimmy Hastings - Bass Clarinet on Track 10: Flute on Tracks 6, 10
Barbara Gaskin - Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals
Roger Planer - Voice [Deep Bass ] on Tracks 1,5
Sam Ball - Voice on Track 5: Victor Lewis-Smith - Voice on Track 1
Dexter James - Voice [Shouting] on Track 5

DAVE STEWART BIO (WIKI)

Dave Stewart (born David Lloyd Stewart, 30 December 1950, Waterloo, London) is an English keyboardist and composer who has worked with singer Barbara Gaskin since 1981. He played in the progressive rock bands Uriel, Egg, Khan, Hatfield and the North, National Health and Bruford. Stewart is the author of two books on music theory and wrote a music column for Keyboard magazine (USA) for 13 years. He has also composed music for TV, film and radio, much of it for Victor Lewis-Smith's ARTV production company. Having joined local band The Southsiders while still at school, Stewart's musical career began in earnest at the age of 17 when he played organ in Uriel with Mont Campbell (bass, vocals), Steve Hillage (guitar, vocals) and Clive Brooks (drums). After a summer residency on the Isle of Wight in the summer of 1968, Hillage left the group to go to university. Uriel continued as a trio, later changed their name to Egg and subsequently recorded two albums for Decca. In 1969 Hillage briefly rejoined his former bandmates to record a one-off psychedelic album under the pseudonym Arzachel. In 1972 Stewart guested on Hillage's new band Khan's first album. After the break-up of Egg in 1973, Stewart joined Hatfield and the North, described by author Jonathan Coe as "probably the best-loved of the so-called 'Canterbury' bands". (Coe's novel 'The Rotters' Club' takes its title from the band's second album.) Hatfield broke up in 1975 and after guesting with the Steve Hillage-led Gong on a few French gigs Stewart founded National Health with fellow keyboardist Alan Gowen and ex-Hatfield guitarist Phil Miller. Finding a permanent drummer proved difficult; Bill Bruford played with the group for a few months and was eventually replaced by Pip Pyle, thereby reuniting three of the former Hatfield musicians. Stewart subsequently guested on Bill Bruford's debut solo album Feels Good to Me (1977) before joining his band Bruford. Having recorded three albums and played two successful US tours, the Bruford group was discontinued in 1980. Stewart immediately formed Rapid Eye Movement with his friends Pip Pyle (drums), Rick Biddulph (who had been a roadie and sound engineer for Hatfield and National Health) on bass and Jakko Jakszyk (guitar & vocals). The UK REM (not to be confused with the contemporaneous American band of the same name) was conceived primarily as a live band and never recorded an album, although poor-quality tapes of live concerts in France survive. In 1981 Stewart changed musical direction and began experimenting with pop arrangements and songwriting. His first solo release, a heavy electronic reworking of Jimmy Ruffin's Motown soul classic 'What Becomes of the Brokenhearted' featuring guest vocals by The Zombies founder and vocalist Colin Blunstone, reached #13 in the UK Singles Chart. For a follow-up, Stewart recruited friend and former Hatfield backing vocalist Barbara Gaskin to record a version of the '60s teen lament 'It's My Party'. Released in the autumn of 1981, the single reached #1 in Britain and Germany and topped the UK charts for four weeks. Stewart and Gaskin have worked together ever since and have released five albums. The duo occasionally play live gigs augmented by Andy Reynolds on guitar and in September 2001 performed in Japan as a quartet with Gavin Harrison on drums. The keyboardist's side projects include reforming National Health in 1981 to produce a memorial album for keyboardist Alan Gowen, producing the hit single 'Hole In My Shoe' and 'Neil's Heavy Concept Album' for comedian Nigel Planer (well known for his hippie character in 'The Young Ones' TV series) and producing the first album by Bill Bruford's electro-jazz outfit Earthworks. Stewart has also composed TV music – in the mid-'80s he wrote the new title theme to the revamped BBC Television AOR show 'The Old Grey Whistle Test' and later wrote, produced and performed much of the soundtrack to the TV drama series 'Lost Belongings', set in Northern Ireland. From the 1990s on he has written music for programmes made by British production company Associated Rediffusion. These include the Channel 4 series 'Inside Victor Lewis-Smith' (1995), 'Ads Infinitum' (BBC2, 1999) and the 2003 documentary on the BBC Radiophonic Workshop 'Alchemists of Sound'.

BARBARA GASKIN BIO (WIKI)

Barbara Gaskin is a British singer (born 1950 in Hatfield, Hertfordshire) who, with her musical partner, the keyboardist Dave Stewart, formed a duo in 1981. In September of that year they had a number one single in the UK with a cover version of the song "It's My Party". Subsequent singles "Busy Doing Nothing" (1983), and "The Locomotion" (1986) also entered the UK Singles Chart, without reaching the heights of their debut release. Five albums followed, released on the duo's own Broken Records label. Gaskin and Stewart continue to work together and occasionally play live concerts with Andy Reynolds on guitar. Gaskin was formerly lead vocalist in British folk-prog band Spirogyra (1969–1974). In the 1970s she also sang backing vocals in Stewart's band Hatfield and the North. Gaskin has sung with Egg (The Civil Surface), National Health, Peter Blegvad (The Naked Shakespeare), Phil Miller, Nigel Planer (Neil's Heavy Concept Album), Jane Wiedlin (Tangled), Rick Biddulph and Mont Campbell (Music from a Round Tower). Barbara Gaskin was born and grew up in Hatfield (SE England). She had formal training in piano and cello from the age of 10. In her early teens she taught herself very basic acoustic guitar (Lesson 1: The strings face outwards) and performed in local folk clubs. In 1969 she moved from Hatfield to Canterbury to study for a degree in Philosophy and Literature at Kent University, but immediately became involved in the Canterbury music scene, joining folk rock group Spirogyra as vocalist. Spirogyra quickly procured a recording contract and subsequently made 3 albums, namely:- 'St Radigunds' B & C Records (CAS 1042), 'Old Boot Wine' Pegasus Records (PEG 13), and 'Bells, Boots, & Shambles' Polydor (2310 246), while gigging extensively on the UK college circuit, as well as completing numerous successful tours of Europe. During the same period, Barbara met guitarist Steve Hillage (also a student at Kent University) and via Steve, the members of Canterbury band Caravan, and Steve's old friend and musical colleague Dave Stewart. Barbara guested both live and on record with Dave's band 'Hatfield & The North', and was a member of the 'Ottawa Music Company', brainchild of Dave Stewart and `Henry Cow' drummer Chris Cutler. The intricate, largely instrumental music of bands such as Egg, Hatfield & The North and Henry Cow, and by contrast, the more spontaneous, lyrically driven approach of Spirogyra, were both powerful formative musical influences on Barbara during the six years she lived in Canterbury. When Spirogyra split up, Barbara left England to travel in Asia for nearly three years, following her interest in Eastern philosophy and culture while earning money by teaching English. She continued to sing - in Japan, professionally - and while living in Java and Bali became very interested in gamelan music. She also lived in India for a total of 18 months. On returning to England, Barbara was invited by drummer Germaine Dolan to play keyboards and sing in the all female band Red Roll On. Based in Canterbury, the band played in clubs and art colleges in the London area. But Barbara also renewed her musical association with Dave Stewart by contributing vocals to his compositions on Bill Bruford's "Gradually Going Tornado" album. In 1981 Dave & Barbara joined forces and recorded the hit single "It's My Party". The collaboration has continued to this day with a series of singles and albums on their own Broken Records label and Rykodisc Records.