Hello,
Today's artist are a Scottish pop rock band formed in Glasgow during 1985. The line-up of the band consists of vocalists Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh, keyboard player James Prime and drummer Dougie Vipond. The band released their debut album, Raintown, on 1 May 1987 in the United Kingdom and in the United States in February 1988. Their second album, When the World Knows Your Name (1989), topped the UK Albums Chart for two weeks, and included "Real Gone Kid" which became their first top ten single in the UK Singles Chart. They released their fourth album, Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, in 1993, subsequently the band split in 1994.......N-Joy
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Taking their name from the 1978 Steely Dan song "Deacon Blues", Deacon Blue were formed in 1985 following Ricky Ross's move from Dundee to Glasgow. Along with Ross, the group originally consisted of Lorraine McIntosh, James Prime, Dougie Vipond, Ewen Vernal and Graeme Kelling.
Ross, a former school teacher originally from Dundee, was the group's frontman, penning the majority of Deacon Blue's songs. He married vocalist Lorraine McIntosh in 1990. In 1986, the band contributed a track ("Take the Saints Away") to a compilation cassette entitled "Honey at the Core", featuring then up-and-coming Glasgow bands, including Wet Wet Wet and Hue and Cry.
The band's debut album, Raintown, produced by Jon Kelly was released in 1987. It spawned the singles "Dignity", "Chocolate Girl" and "Loaded". The city that the album's title refers to is Glasgow and the cover art of the album is a photograph (by the Scottish-Italian photographer Oscar Marzaroli) of the River Clyde's docks taken from Kelvingrove Park. It proved a commercial success and has to date sold around a million copies, peaking in the UK Albums Chart at no. 14 and remaining in the charts for a year and a half.
The second album, 1989's When the World Knows Your Name, was the band's most commercially successful, reaching No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart and generating five UK top 30 hits, including "Real Gone Kid", "Wages Day", and "Fergus Sings the Blues" (all five singles from the album were top 10 hits in Ireland). The following year saw the band play in front of an estimated 250,000 fans at the free concert on Glasgow Green, "The Big Day", which was held to celebrate Glasgow being named that year's European City of Culture. The band also played Glastonbury and the Roskilde festivals that summer, as well as released Ooh Las Vegas, a double album of B-sides, extra tracks, film tracks, and sessions which reached No. 3 in the UK Albums Chart.
Jon Kelly returned to the producer's chair in 1991 for the album Fellow Hoodlums. The album was met with more critical success and peaked at No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart. Fellow Hoodlums was followed up by 1993's Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, a much more experimental album. The album garnered critical praise, but was not as commercially successful as the previous two albums, peaking at No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart. Changing from producer Jon Kelly to the team of Steve Osborne and Paul Oakenfold, this album presented a change in musical style for Deacon Blue. While the band's songwriting remained based in rock and blues, many of the tracks moved into alternative rock territory in their presentation.
The band embarked on another sold out UK tour in 1994, after recording new material for their greatest hits compilation album, Our Town. This saw the band return to No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart and was one of the year's top sellers, while "I Was Right and You Were Wrong" and a re-release of "Dignity" saw the band re-enter the Top 20 of the UK chart. The album contained the previous singles from the band, minus "Closing Time" and "Hang Your Head". The album also contained three new tracks. "I Was Right and You Were Wrong", the first single from this album, was an alternative rock track that continued and expanded the musical direction the band had taken with Whatever You Say, Say Nothing. "Bound to Love" and "Still in the Mood" were pop songs in the tradition of Deacon Blue's earlier albums. The vinyl LP version of the album contained a fourth new track, "Beautiful Stranger". "Dignity" was released, now for the third time, as the second single from the album.
With Vipond's decision to quit the group in favour of a career in television, Deacon Blue split up in 1994. Although he launched a solo career, Ross had no greater success than he had as frontman for Deacon Blue. In May 1999, the group re-formed for a series of concerts in Great Britain and Europe. As of November 1999, the group featured Ross and other original bandmembers bassist Ewen Vernal, guitarist Graeme Kelling, keyboardist James Prime, and drummer Dougie Vipond, along with second vocalist Lorraine McIntosh (who had become Ross' wife after joining the band). Their first new album in five years, the ballads collection Walking Back Home, was released that year, and the full-length studio album Homesick followed in spring 2001.
Guitarist Kelling died of pancreatic cancer in June 2004; Deacon Blue nevertheless vowed to carry on and continued to make intermittent festival appearances through the end of the decade. In 2012, Deacon Blue scheduled a nationwide tour in celebration of their 25th anniversary, and later that year they released their sixth album, The Hipsters, which was produced by Paul Savage (King Creosote, Malcom Middleton, Mogwai). Their seventh studio album, A New House, arrived in 2014. Produced once again by Savage, the album reached the U.K. Top 20 upon its release. The more politically charged Believers appeared in September of 2016, and received positive reviews. The following year Deacon Blue put out Live at the Glasgow Barrowlands, a live set recorded at their hometown's prestigious venue during the 2016 Believers tour. The performance was significant to the band and its fans, since Deacon Blue played their farewell show at the Barrowlands 22 years previously, prior to their re-formation five years later in 1999.
Between February and March 2018, Deacon Blue embarked on a tour of Spain, marking the first time that the band has played a series of live shows in Spain. The band described the shows as "an incredible experience for us all", and later confirmed that Deacon Blue will be returning to Spain in 2019 for another series of live shows, claiming that "Spain has a very special place in our hearts".
Ross, who had released a solo album before the formation of Deacon Blue, released two solo albums during the time between Deacon Blue's breakup in 1994 and reformation in 1999. Due to Deacon Blue's part-time status after reformation, Ross released additional solo albums in 2002 and 2005 and has written for and with other recording artists. In 2009, Ross and McIntosh recorded an album together under the name 'McIntosh Ross'.
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Sophisti-pop was a British rather than an English species of pop, with some of its finest exemplars coming from Scotland. Apart from the Blue Nile, who are one of the legendary groups of the the subgenre, the Scots also produced Deacon Blue, a Glasweigan group named after a tune by Steely Dan (a noteworthy sophisti-pop influence). This has a distinctive feel to it, all wistful and hopeful, not exactly full of joy or woe but nestling somewhere nicely in between. It sounds like the eighties, with even a few country guitars, but still having their uniqueness which is hard to pin down. Ricky Ross' voice is not the greatest ever put to record by a long way but it is heartfelt and full of soul, the backing vocals from Lorraine McIntosh seem to sit quite heavily in some parts but are beautifully understated in others. The production is quite slick, if a little busy in places, and maybe a little too much echo here and there. Their debut album sold almost 1 million copies in the UK, peaking at #14. While it moody atmospherics are typical sophisti-pop fare, they have more of a youthful vibe than many other artists on this list, offering coming-of-age tales for Scots in the 1980s.
Raintown is moody romance of rainy days. “You say your sleep is naked but your dreams are clothed. What about your footsteps, who sees them go? Who lets you know about these things? Who's gonna say the things we think? So take your keys and pack your bags but leave your books and leave your maps”. Leave it all behind.
Riches is a limited edition compilation album that was temporarily included with the Raintown album by the Scottish rock band Deacon Blue, starting in February 1988. Only 20,000 copies were made. It contains the two bonus tracks that were included on the CD version of Raintown, plus selected tracks and B-sides from the following single releases. It shows the band in a looser and slightly more lively fashion, superior to demo's and as such a nice bonus.
Deacon Blue - Raintown + Riches ( 480mb)
RAINTOWN:
01 Born In A Storm 1:33
02 Raintown 3:50
03 Ragman 3:08
04 He Looks Like Spencer Tracey Now 3:50
05 Loaded 4:29
06 When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring) 5:05
07 Chocolate Girl 3:18
08 Dignity 4:00
09 The Very Thing 3:34
10 Love's Great Fears 3:42
11 Town To Be Blamed 5:19
RICHES:
12 Which Side Are You On? 2:59
13 King Of The Western World 2:39
14 Angelou (Live) 6:19
15 Just Like Boys 3:13
16 Raintown (Piano Version) 3:40
17 Riches 2:39
18 Church 3:15
19 Shifting Sand 3:18
20 Suffering 2:40
21 Ribbons And Bows 4:18
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On 27 February 2006, Raintown was reissued as part of Columbia's Legacy Edition series. The re-issue was expanded to 2 CDs. The first CD featured the original 11-track album. Another reissue was released on 22 October 2012 by Edsel Records as part of a catalogue reissue program for the band's first five studio albums. This set contained all of the B-sides and remixes associated with the album, as well as also including the Legacy Edition bonus disc.
Deacon Blue - The B-Sides ( flac 393mb)
01 Dignity (Bob Clearmountain Version) 4:13
The B-sides:
02 Long Distance From Just Across The Road 2:53
03 When Will You Make My Telephone Ring? (Extended 12" Version) 5:30
04 Town To Be Blamed (Live) 4:41
05 Ronnie Spector 3:31
06 Dignity (Extended 12" Version) 5:45
07 That Brilliant Feeling #1 3:15
08 Punch And Judy Man 3:49
09 Disneyworld 2:56
10 S.H.A.R.O.N. 4:13
11 Chocolate Girl (Extended 12" Version) 3:35
12 Dignity (Live At Glasgow Barrowlands 1988) 4:54
13 Love's Great Fears (Live At Glasgow Barrowlands 1988) 6:22
14 The Very Thing (Livesy Mix) 3:40
15 Love's Great Fears (Brauer Mix) 3:44
Today's artist are a Scottish pop rock band formed in Glasgow during 1985. The line-up of the band consists of vocalists Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh, keyboard player James Prime and drummer Dougie Vipond. The band released their debut album, Raintown, on 1 May 1987 in the United Kingdom and in the United States in February 1988. Their second album, When the World Knows Your Name (1989), topped the UK Albums Chart for two weeks, and included "Real Gone Kid" which became their first top ten single in the UK Singles Chart. They released their fourth album, Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, in 1993, subsequently the band split in 1994.......N-Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Taking their name from the 1978 Steely Dan song "Deacon Blues", Deacon Blue were formed in 1985 following Ricky Ross's move from Dundee to Glasgow. Along with Ross, the group originally consisted of Lorraine McIntosh, James Prime, Dougie Vipond, Ewen Vernal and Graeme Kelling.
Ross, a former school teacher originally from Dundee, was the group's frontman, penning the majority of Deacon Blue's songs. He married vocalist Lorraine McIntosh in 1990. In 1986, the band contributed a track ("Take the Saints Away") to a compilation cassette entitled "Honey at the Core", featuring then up-and-coming Glasgow bands, including Wet Wet Wet and Hue and Cry.
The band's debut album, Raintown, produced by Jon Kelly was released in 1987. It spawned the singles "Dignity", "Chocolate Girl" and "Loaded". The city that the album's title refers to is Glasgow and the cover art of the album is a photograph (by the Scottish-Italian photographer Oscar Marzaroli) of the River Clyde's docks taken from Kelvingrove Park. It proved a commercial success and has to date sold around a million copies, peaking in the UK Albums Chart at no. 14 and remaining in the charts for a year and a half.
The second album, 1989's When the World Knows Your Name, was the band's most commercially successful, reaching No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart and generating five UK top 30 hits, including "Real Gone Kid", "Wages Day", and "Fergus Sings the Blues" (all five singles from the album were top 10 hits in Ireland). The following year saw the band play in front of an estimated 250,000 fans at the free concert on Glasgow Green, "The Big Day", which was held to celebrate Glasgow being named that year's European City of Culture. The band also played Glastonbury and the Roskilde festivals that summer, as well as released Ooh Las Vegas, a double album of B-sides, extra tracks, film tracks, and sessions which reached No. 3 in the UK Albums Chart.
Jon Kelly returned to the producer's chair in 1991 for the album Fellow Hoodlums. The album was met with more critical success and peaked at No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart. Fellow Hoodlums was followed up by 1993's Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, a much more experimental album. The album garnered critical praise, but was not as commercially successful as the previous two albums, peaking at No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart. Changing from producer Jon Kelly to the team of Steve Osborne and Paul Oakenfold, this album presented a change in musical style for Deacon Blue. While the band's songwriting remained based in rock and blues, many of the tracks moved into alternative rock territory in their presentation.
The band embarked on another sold out UK tour in 1994, after recording new material for their greatest hits compilation album, Our Town. This saw the band return to No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart and was one of the year's top sellers, while "I Was Right and You Were Wrong" and a re-release of "Dignity" saw the band re-enter the Top 20 of the UK chart. The album contained the previous singles from the band, minus "Closing Time" and "Hang Your Head". The album also contained three new tracks. "I Was Right and You Were Wrong", the first single from this album, was an alternative rock track that continued and expanded the musical direction the band had taken with Whatever You Say, Say Nothing. "Bound to Love" and "Still in the Mood" were pop songs in the tradition of Deacon Blue's earlier albums. The vinyl LP version of the album contained a fourth new track, "Beautiful Stranger". "Dignity" was released, now for the third time, as the second single from the album.
With Vipond's decision to quit the group in favour of a career in television, Deacon Blue split up in 1994. Although he launched a solo career, Ross had no greater success than he had as frontman for Deacon Blue. In May 1999, the group re-formed for a series of concerts in Great Britain and Europe. As of November 1999, the group featured Ross and other original bandmembers bassist Ewen Vernal, guitarist Graeme Kelling, keyboardist James Prime, and drummer Dougie Vipond, along with second vocalist Lorraine McIntosh (who had become Ross' wife after joining the band). Their first new album in five years, the ballads collection Walking Back Home, was released that year, and the full-length studio album Homesick followed in spring 2001.
Guitarist Kelling died of pancreatic cancer in June 2004; Deacon Blue nevertheless vowed to carry on and continued to make intermittent festival appearances through the end of the decade. In 2012, Deacon Blue scheduled a nationwide tour in celebration of their 25th anniversary, and later that year they released their sixth album, The Hipsters, which was produced by Paul Savage (King Creosote, Malcom Middleton, Mogwai). Their seventh studio album, A New House, arrived in 2014. Produced once again by Savage, the album reached the U.K. Top 20 upon its release. The more politically charged Believers appeared in September of 2016, and received positive reviews. The following year Deacon Blue put out Live at the Glasgow Barrowlands, a live set recorded at their hometown's prestigious venue during the 2016 Believers tour. The performance was significant to the band and its fans, since Deacon Blue played their farewell show at the Barrowlands 22 years previously, prior to their re-formation five years later in 1999.
Between February and March 2018, Deacon Blue embarked on a tour of Spain, marking the first time that the band has played a series of live shows in Spain. The band described the shows as "an incredible experience for us all", and later confirmed that Deacon Blue will be returning to Spain in 2019 for another series of live shows, claiming that "Spain has a very special place in our hearts".
Ross, who had released a solo album before the formation of Deacon Blue, released two solo albums during the time between Deacon Blue's breakup in 1994 and reformation in 1999. Due to Deacon Blue's part-time status after reformation, Ross released additional solo albums in 2002 and 2005 and has written for and with other recording artists. In 2009, Ross and McIntosh recorded an album together under the name 'McIntosh Ross'.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Sophisti-pop was a British rather than an English species of pop, with some of its finest exemplars coming from Scotland. Apart from the Blue Nile, who are one of the legendary groups of the the subgenre, the Scots also produced Deacon Blue, a Glasweigan group named after a tune by Steely Dan (a noteworthy sophisti-pop influence). This has a distinctive feel to it, all wistful and hopeful, not exactly full of joy or woe but nestling somewhere nicely in between. It sounds like the eighties, with even a few country guitars, but still having their uniqueness which is hard to pin down. Ricky Ross' voice is not the greatest ever put to record by a long way but it is heartfelt and full of soul, the backing vocals from Lorraine McIntosh seem to sit quite heavily in some parts but are beautifully understated in others. The production is quite slick, if a little busy in places, and maybe a little too much echo here and there. Their debut album sold almost 1 million copies in the UK, peaking at #14. While it moody atmospherics are typical sophisti-pop fare, they have more of a youthful vibe than many other artists on this list, offering coming-of-age tales for Scots in the 1980s.
Raintown is moody romance of rainy days. “You say your sleep is naked but your dreams are clothed. What about your footsteps, who sees them go? Who lets you know about these things? Who's gonna say the things we think? So take your keys and pack your bags but leave your books and leave your maps”. Leave it all behind.
Riches is a limited edition compilation album that was temporarily included with the Raintown album by the Scottish rock band Deacon Blue, starting in February 1988. Only 20,000 copies were made. It contains the two bonus tracks that were included on the CD version of Raintown, plus selected tracks and B-sides from the following single releases. It shows the band in a looser and slightly more lively fashion, superior to demo's and as such a nice bonus.
Deacon Blue - Raintown + Riches ( 480mb)
RAINTOWN:
01 Born In A Storm 1:33
02 Raintown 3:50
03 Ragman 3:08
04 He Looks Like Spencer Tracey Now 3:50
05 Loaded 4:29
06 When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring) 5:05
07 Chocolate Girl 3:18
08 Dignity 4:00
09 The Very Thing 3:34
10 Love's Great Fears 3:42
11 Town To Be Blamed 5:19
RICHES:
12 Which Side Are You On? 2:59
13 King Of The Western World 2:39
14 Angelou (Live) 6:19
15 Just Like Boys 3:13
16 Raintown (Piano Version) 3:40
17 Riches 2:39
18 Church 3:15
19 Shifting Sand 3:18
20 Suffering 2:40
21 Ribbons And Bows 4:18
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On 27 February 2006, Raintown was reissued as part of Columbia's Legacy Edition series. The re-issue was expanded to 2 CDs. The first CD featured the original 11-track album. Another reissue was released on 22 October 2012 by Edsel Records as part of a catalogue reissue program for the band's first five studio albums. This set contained all of the B-sides and remixes associated with the album, as well as also including the Legacy Edition bonus disc.
Deacon Blue - The B-Sides ( flac 393mb)
01 Dignity (Bob Clearmountain Version) 4:13
The B-sides:
02 Long Distance From Just Across The Road 2:53
03 When Will You Make My Telephone Ring? (Extended 12" Version) 5:30
04 Town To Be Blamed (Live) 4:41
05 Ronnie Spector 3:31
06 Dignity (Extended 12" Version) 5:45
07 That Brilliant Feeling #1 3:15
08 Punch And Judy Man 3:49
09 Disneyworld 2:56
10 S.H.A.R.O.N. 4:13
11 Chocolate Girl (Extended 12" Version) 3:35
12 Dignity (Live At Glasgow Barrowlands 1988) 4:54
13 Love's Great Fears (Live At Glasgow Barrowlands 1988) 6:22
14 The Very Thing (Livesy Mix) 3:40
15 Love's Great Fears (Brauer Mix) 3:44
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Deacon Blue - Legacy Bonus Album ( flac 305mb)
01 Born In A Storm (Live At Glasgow Art School 1986) 1:14
02 Raintown (Live At The Marquee 1986) 3:49
03 Ragman (Demo Version) 3:13
04 He Looks Like Spencer Tracy Now (Live At The Marquee 1986) 4:50
05 Loaded (Demo Version) 4:11
06 When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring) (Art Studio Vocal Mix) 3:14
07 Chocolate Girl (Live At The Marquee 1986) 4:51
08 Dignity (Live At The Marquee 1986) 4:11
09 The Very Thing (BBC Session For Radio 1's Mark Goodier Show) 5:04
10 Love's Great Fears (Live At The Marquee 1986) 3:28
11 Town To Be Blamed (Live At Glasgow Art School 1987) 4:28
Bonus Recordings:
12 Souvenirs 3:05
13 Don't Let The Teardrops Start 4:02
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Deacon Blue was a triumph of not embarrassing yourself: they loved soul, but they mostly stayed away from beg 'n' shout formalism. Their imagery is accessible, a hodgepodge not of ragamuffins but kind workers and girls who try. The music's slick pop/rock with a touch of the twang. Hooks are scarce; the general aim is bemused uplift. On When the World Knows Your Name, the band blends AOR, Celtic flourishes, and dashes of blue-eyed soul to create a polished album that, while it won't make any "best-of" lists in a hurry, has more than a few pleasures to offer nevertheless. Deacon Blue isn't on the mark all the time. They have their failings, notably a tendency to get overly precious and self-indulgent when trying too hard to be impressionistic on the slower songs toward album's end. But when they get it right, like on "Queen of the New Year," "Wages Day," "Real Gone Kid," and "Fergus Sings the Blues," their driving melodies and hooks are fine compensation. Ricky Ross' songwriting is accomplished enough when he's not striving too hard for poetic effect: his word-picture evocations of light and shade are particularly impressive. The material is mostly strong, if not uniformly so; the playing is rather more consistently focused and energetic. If Deacon Blue gets the balance right, and plays to their strengths, they could be rather more than the minor-league U2 they come off as on this album. Anyway If ever a record was plundered too much for the masses and made you hate them from overkill then this is the one! No less than five singles and promotion on tv shows, clearly the grubby music industry moneymen smellt big dosh to be made of them, that didn't happen, ah yes great expectations 'When The World Knows Your Name".
Deacon Blue - When The World Knows Your Name ( 319mb)
01 Queen Of The New Year 3:36
02 Wages Day 3:10
03 Real Gone Kid 4:04
04 Love And Regret 4:48
05 Circus Lights 4:59
06 This Changing Light 5:02
07 Sad Loved Girl 1:12
08 Fergus Sings The Blues 3:55
09 The World Is Lit By Lightning 4:28
10 Silhouette 3:19
11 One Hundred Things 3:54
12 Your Constant Heart 4:11
13 Orphans 3:33
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ReplyDeleteBeen awhile since i've been on checking things out. Would love a re-up of Raintown Deluxe. Lot of neat gems on there.
Three discs of material = this week's listening SORTED. Thank you in advance, looking forward to getting back to checking things out. Excellent blog site.
Chris