Customer Reviews

Fog on the Tyne

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album came along in the States at a time when groups like Sandy Denny, Fairport Convention, Strawbs, Nick Drake and a bunch of others were plying the waters of Celtic folk rock. But Alan Hull & Company were different; these guys were as ragged as Fairport in their loosest moments -- but they could be as polished and sharp as the Strawbs in their best moments. These guys were tight, multi-instrumentalists that played in the best of the tradition of English folk bands of the late 60's and early 70's. Steeleye Span, Jethro Tull and Gryphon were also contemporaries of Lindisfarne and had nothing on these guys. If you like any of the bands mentioned here and you've never added any Lindisfarne to your collection, you are missing a real treat here. Fog On the Tyne is Lindisfarne's best effort overall (though many of their albums are very good) and their combination of rich, instrumental passages is backed by thick and bawdy harmonies in a very British and rollicking sensibility. The band's guitar, mandolin and a seeming hundred other stringed instrument attack -- along with a great rythym section on the bass and drums -- gives them a sound that holds up well even today, thirty years later. Sadly, I heard somewhere that Alan Hull passed away recently, so there will be no nostalgia tours or "here we are again" releases from Lindisfarne. Get this one. It's simply great.

"Fog on the Tyne" was Lindisfarne's second album originally released on Charisma records in 1971. It contains their first single-hit "Meet Me on the Corner", and the album itself spent many weeks in the charts. It's popularity even brought their first album "Nicely out of Tune" back into the charts. Interesting that their second hit single "Lady Eleanor" was taken from their great debut-album.

Though "Meet Me on the Corner" was written by Rod Clements, it is still lead singer and guitarist Alan Hull who is the dominating personality with his great songs like "January Song", "Peter Brophy Don't Care", "City Song" and "Passing Ghost".

Compared to their debut, the overall feeling on this album is more acoustic and though many songs are up-beat tempo, there is a very relaxed and pleasant feel to the album.

The two bonus-tracks are great additions; especially Alan Hull's fine B-side "No Time to Lose".

Like their debut "Nicely Out of Tune" , this is one of my all-time favourite albums.

Great sound on this new remastered CD release.

Highly recommended!

Lindisfarne's greatest hit and more popular than the charming, folksy subtleties of Nicely Out of Tune, this album has much to commend it.

As the first album captured the return to the roots to traditional music in the heydey of psychedelica, so this, the second album is atune with the times as young people resumed their long term relationship with alcohol. This album for Lindisfarne is their equivalent of the second Grateful Dead live album, derided by New Musical Express as the boogie Dead. Well this is the drinker's album and I say that not in a derogatory way.

Meet Me On The Corner sounds like an anthem to a dug dealer and begins the album while the famous Fog On The Tyne which closes on the original celebrates the boozy rowdy city of Newcastle on Tyne with that wonderful refrain, we can have a wee-wee, we can have a wet on the wall. In between though the songs take on a more robust outlook while retaining the essential folk-rock sound. No Incredible String Band here but certainly the sounds of the urban poets in an environment forged in shipyards and coalmines and transient factories while industrial decline was to put thousands out of work.

The connection with drinking is very strong in the North East of England. Indeed the Saltgrass folk club in Sunderland was housed in a pub next to a shipyard which overwhelmed the sky and where shipyard workers, coming out of their shift would slake their thirst with a pint or six before going home to eat before returning to a local pub later in the evening. In the early days of deindustrialisation in the godforsaken council estates of Tyneside with their soulless uniformity and treeles vistas, then the only alternative to a life sentence on the dole was drugs and alcohol, the Lindisfarne album was most appropriate for the times. Indeed when touring in promotion of the album, drink was taken aplenty by performers and audience alike while the dancing was robust too.

All of the songs on this album have much to commend them. Alan Hull in particular hits his stride here with tight lyrics with a political message and songs, which outsiders might not find tender but girls from Benwell might.

This album is as much folk-rock as any Fairport Convention album but while the latter reflects a more genteel, middle England view, Fog on the Tyne is Northern through and through. Fog on the Tyne too is certainly more populist and gained the band a strong local following evidenced by the packed house at the first farewll concert at Newcastle City Hall where we all felt like part of the Lindisfarne extended family and the fact that this could be repeated by full houses for many years afterwards despite break ups and reformations and the decline in national popularity.

This album has an endearing quality to it which still exists to this day. So open up a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ales put on your dancing shoes and enjoy.

This English folk-rock act, featuring singer-songwriter Alan Hull, was one of the big pop successes in the post-Beatles, progadelic era of the early 1970s. This was their second album, and their biggest commerical hits, improbably cracking into the British Top Ten based on the strength of the bouncy single that lent the album its title. Not really that "trad," for the most part this album is a dreamy, drifty acoustic psych-folk exploration, much along the lines of the Incredible String Band, or the early albums by the Dransfield Brothers. Often the lyrics are embarassingly hippie-dippy, yet the album will grow on you, particularly the hit, "Fog On The Tyne," which is the kind of tune that sticks in your mind for hours if you hear it play just before you walk out the door to run errands. A goofy, but unassuming and sweetly naive acoustic prog album... worth checking out!

I can't understand why the two guys above could rate that work only 4 stars. There are very few albuns of any kind of musical styles or genres with a set of strong compositions like this one. All songs from "Fog on The Tyne" - except the bonus tracks -are great.
"Meet Me On The Corner", "January Song", "Peter Brophy Don't Care", "City Song" and the title song are all classics songs. And so is the other songs: inspired and catchy melodies in beautiful arrangments. A true masterpiece. I'd wish to speak english to tell how splendid is that album, in a better way and words. Only a very few albuns in the pop/folk/rock history deserve the 5 stars. This is, obviously, one of them.

What a great record! These guys would have put C,S,N & Y out of business if they had received the same B.S. "hype" the "Yanks" got this side of the pond!
Excellent songwriting and vocal harmony highlight this "gem". Listen to this "Jim Dandy" and you won't listen to your over-rated C,S,N & Y CD's anymore! I dare you?...... T.A. Stephenson, Nashville,TN U.S.A.

I first heard this album three decades ago at a house in East Africa by the shore of the Indian Ocean. It was wonderful the first time. And many, many hundreds of listens later, it is still wonderful today.
Every song is a gem. The lyrics are witty. The musicianship is solid. But what makes Fog on the Tyne really stand out is its ability to make the listener feel as if he/she is hearing it live in some small, boisterous pub...downing the pints and singing along.

This is a great album ... Good old geordie Folk rock. Down sides a) its not enhanced b) its sooo short.... 34 minutes even with 2 bonus tracks ( - the record company should add this with Nicely out of tune and it makes a good length CD). No bad songs - of course there are no fillers as its so short. I remember the band from the 70s and loved them then...Peter Borphy don't care is a classic. Buy it second hand - at least you will feel you are getting some quantity for the cost and are not getting ripped off