After almost thirty years apart (barring a very brief get together during the early 80s), the four of us finally met up again at a small reunion ‘do’ in Leicester during late 2002. A blast of a night where we inevitably ended up singing together just like it used to be.
With a larger-scale reunion planned for the summer of 2003, the idea then grew that we should get together to record some of the original Whinchat material to give away as a CD to those who would attend – to jog a few memories.
So began the Whinchat meet-ups and, sure enough, by June 14th 2003, the first set of very basic retro-recordings was as complete as it could be. The early Whinchat stuff was at least grabbed in some form in a set of recordings that everyone attending the reunion was able to take away. Another blast of a night! Love and best wishes to all those who attended.
But it was our collective dissatisfaction with the overall quality of those original recordings that finally led us to invest in the technology to be able to do justice both to those original songs and to the new material we had planned. We all wanted to continue to meet up and record – but only if the sound quality was better and only if we could give it sufficient time to do a better job.
We solved the first problem by investing in digital recording kit – and the second by Chris retiring from teaching so that he can spend ALL his time (well, a fair bit of it when he and Mary are not out on their narrowboat) preparing for monthly meet-ups with Bernie. After that, we then meet up with Fairlie as and when we can. Mary, of course, is ever-present.
The outcome of all this work is the set of albums that are available on the site.
‘Unfinished Business’ (released in '05) is all our own stuff. There’s a mixture of some of the old, original songs, plus ‘new’ ones from back then that for some reason we never got round to performing together. There’s also the new material that we started to write after meeting up again.
‘Between the Covers’ (also '05) is completely different – a collection of our versions of material from others – ranging right through from an unaccompanied 16th century madrigal, through Gallagher and Lyle, to the Beatles, the Eagles and America; through Graham Nash and James Taylor – even to Eric Clapton. Towards the end, there’s a real Whinchat in there too.
‘Getting There’ ('07) is the second collection of our own stuff, but this time, all newly written. One or two of the songs are completely new versions of older songs, but hardly recognisable in their new forms.
‘Changes’ ('10) presents a whole range of material from across the years. Two-thirds of the songs are entirely new, written and recorded in the last couple of years. The last third of the album, however, is a set of re-mastered and re-vamped recordings from a ’73 ‘all in one go’ session that we re-discovered only last year. Some we’ve added to, others we’ve left alone. So the album goes from the very newest rock and jazz stuff, through softer songs to a set of unaccompanied traditional folk songs. ‘Changes’ seemed the right title.
We’ve been lucky, over the years, to work with some exceptional singers and musicians and, as you’ll hear, we’ve used their additional inputs in some of the songs. Thanks to all. If you’re interested in the background to their influences, go to ‘Other Incarnations’ for more information.