Nicely Out Of Tune

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I think the vocal harmonies are excellent on here with some very nice choruses throughout, however individually I do not think these singers are the best. A couple of days later I was at my mam and dad’s house when I noticed a book of sheet music that belonged to my brother who plays piano. I took my trophy back to Jacka and he got it photographed and completed the artwork which featured his splendid Lindisfarne logo.

Bruce Eder of AllMusic praised Nicely Out of Tune as "easily the best album the group ever recorded". There was a time when, in the days I counted these things, Lindisfarne were probably the band I’d seen live most often. As there was no one around I tore out the page and put the sheet music book back in the piano stool.That was in 1983, when I’d not long started work and I had to go into a training day unable to hear much beyond the ringing in my ears. Nicely Out of Tune was Lindisfarne’s debut album, released on Charisma when they were touring with two labelmates, Van der Graaf Generator and Genesis, and holding their own. All above is correct except that Dave Wood, in addition to being the engineer on all of Alan's and Lindisfarne's early demos, was also the owner of Impulse Studios in Wallsend, the third partner in Hazy Music and Alan's / Lindisfarne's manager.

What a joy to revisit this little beauty, if not one of the great albums of 1970, then certainly one with some of the great songs. Long before Lindisfarne made their first album we had a collective interest in things visual and often fantasised about what our sleeve would be like when we eventually made our first album. Track B1 published by Hazy/Heathside, Track B4 published by Stratsong and Track B5 published by Essex Music.Some of the songs are cruder in their arrangements than they became, notably We Can Swing Together, and I sometimes hear echoes of contemporaries: the Faces certainly, perhaps too Dr Strangely Strange. A live version can be found on the group's Lindisfarne Live, recorded in 1971 and released in 1973, and as a bonus track on their third album, Dingly Dell. Coming from the pre-LF time still under the name of "Brethren" and "Downtown Faction" are Jeff Sadler and Richard Squirrel. The "flatulette" was actually one of the band members blowing raspberries during the instrumental break in "Down".

Ray Jackson and myself had met at art college, a well-known safe haven for musicians who had yet to figure out how to make a living from music. The album stands up to repeated playing;I have had the album since its release in 1970,and never tired of it. It's got the lot, lively and ireverent with the likes of "we can swing together" to the melodic thoughtful "Alan in the river with flowers", and perhaps in "Winter Song" one of the best songs the late and much lamented Alan Hull ever wrote. Tracks like the "Jackhammer Blues" or the "Knacker's Yard Blues" are not according to my taste and don't really fit the flow. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

I have happy memories of being blinded by the halogen spots they’d turn on the crowd at the chorus of Clear White Light, their long-time closing song. Drummond Amin, Tyneside rock'n'roll godfather and owner of the Shaftsbury electric 12 string guitar that Lindisfarne borrowed for the NOOT recording sessions.