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!
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 tothose who came – to jog a few memories.
So began the
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
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 so that he could spend practically ALL of his time (when he’s not out on his narrowboat) preparing for the rest of us to meet up on occasional weekends and holidays!
The outcome of all this work was two CDs - released in November 05 - that we’re extremely proud of, available here.
is all our own songs and represents the best of these early recordings. Mostly, this is new material inspired by being together again, with a few of the best from back then. We’re very proud of these early recordings and trust that you’ll enjoy them too.
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 and Sting. Somewhere, there’s a real
in there too.
We’ve loved doing these.
After the release of this early material we,of course, carried on playing together and, in January 08..... our newest CD is finally released. Clickhere is a set of entirely new material all written by Chris and Bernie in the last couple of years.
The album represents another significant leap forward in the evolving
story.
Free MP3 downloads from all
CDs can be found by clicking here.
To get hold of the CDs themselves (because CD-quality sound still knocks MP3 into a cocked hat) click here.
Thanks!
trust that you’ll enjoy them too.