Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Planes and Never Even Thought

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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Earlier to-day I listened to the two Colin Blunstone albums I got recently (Planes and Never Even Thought).  Here are some thoughts about them (although more about the production credits than the songs themselves).

I was surprised by the extent of the liner notes.  I wasn't really expecting anything, but they were pretty detailed.  They mention that this release (July 2015, as far as I can tell) is the first time these albums have been issued since their original releases in '70s (the copyrights say Planes is from '76; Never Even Thought from '78).  I was pleasantly surprised to find that Gus Dudgeon (who engineered most - if not all - of the Zombies' recordings at Decca's West Hampstead studios) produced Planes (and also contributed some percussion and did brass arrangement) and that Rod Argent played various keyboard instruments on Planes and sang on both albums (he's also credited with vocal arrangements on Planes).  Argent members Russ Ballard and John Verity also did some backing vocals (Ballard on Planes; Verity on both).

I listened to the CD only once so far (so I don't have specifics), but I noticed that one song has melodica and an-other has mandolin.  Both are instruments I have, but I don't often get the opportunity to use them for this project (although I think one of the earlier Blunstone albums also has a song with a mandolin part).

It turns out that "(Care of) Cell 44" wasn't the only song I knew.  The next track (and the final track of Planes) is a cover of Buddy Holly's "Tell Me How."  Planes also has "Only with You," a Beach Boys song from their Holland album.  (I got Holland for Christmas and have listened to it only once so far, so - were it not for the "Wilson/Love" credit and the liner notes' mentioning it's from Holland - I would have been oblivious to this.)