Sunday 29 March 2015

Audience - The House on the Hill


Sunday, a lovely cold gray day with rain. During the night the clock moved forward an hour, now it's summer time and it's obvious when looking out, haha!

First I had an idea to play a little more summery song, but do not want to rub salt in the wounds, so I simply throw that idea away and play something else.

The British cult art rock band AUDIENCE released their third album "The House on the Hill" is 1971. The band existed between 1969 and 1972, and reformed in 2004.



The original band consisted of Howard Werth on nylon-strung electric acoustic guitar and vocals, Keith Gemmell on tenor and alto sax, flute and clarinet, bass guitarist and vocalist Trevor Williams and drummer/vocalist Tony Connor.

AUDIENCE rose from the ashes of a semi-professional soul band named "LLOYD ALEXANDER REAL ESTATE", which had included all the AUDIENCE members except Connor, who had unsuccessfully auditioned for the earlier band when John Richardson left to form THE RUBETTES. However, when Werth, Williams, and Gemmell decided to form their new band, they thought of Connor. The "LLOYD ALEXANDER REAL ESTATE" issued one 45rpm single on President PT157 in 1967 "Gonna Live Again"/"Watcha' Gonna Do (When Your Baby Leaves You)", a Mod R&B record.

Within weeks of starting rehearsals, AUDIENCE had acquired management, a publishing contract, a residency at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, and a recording contract with Polydor, with whom they recorded their first album Audience, an acoustic guitar-driven album featuring Gemmell's saxophone often electrically altered to resemble an electric lead guitar and with string and horn arrangements by Andrew Pryce Jackman. But the band was dissatisfied with the record company's promotional approach (a single, "Too Late I'm Gone" from the album had been planned and was canceled), and temporarily moved to Switzerland to avoid involvement in proposed publicity stunts.

By the end of the year, the band was drawing public and journalistic acclaim for their songs, arrangements, and stage act. They had also been commissioned to write the score for Bronco Bullfrog, an East End skinhead film directed by Barney Platts-Mills, which established a genre subsequently taken up by Mike Leigh.

Despite a few minor projects together, the original AUDIENCE band members were not to re-emerge as a working entity until 33 years after their first incarnation. In 2004, Howard Werth, Keith Gemmell and Trevor Williams went back on the road, gigging in Germany, Italy, Canada and the UK, replacing Tony Connor with drummer/vocalist John Fisher and recording a live album alive&kickin'&screamin'&shoutin' for Eclectic Records. During this period, Gemmell released two solo albums, The Windhover, inspired by a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Unsafe Sax, a tribute to his early '60s soul roots. Following the death of John Fisher from pancreatic cancer on 27 September 2008, Audience recruited drummer Simon Jeffrey and, returning the compliment, Williams joined Jeffrey's own band, BLUE PULSE, releasing an album entitled "Trams" in 2012.



( First UK pressing )
Charisma 'pink scroll' label.
Matt gatefold sleeve with a printed red/white inner sleeve with lyrics.

Cat. No: CAS 1032 credited on labels, rear of sleeve and in brackets on lyric inner.
Todays tune is the title track from "The House on the Hill", released 1971 "The House on the Hill", released 1971 At about the same time, a single, "Indian Summer", reached number 74 on the Billboard Hot 100. The North American version of the album on Elektra Records added "Indian Summer" as the opening track, along with "It Brings A Tear" which had already appeared on the UK album Friend's Friend's Friend. The Elektra LP dropped the song "Eye To Eye".

Both the UK and North American LPs were originally issued as gatefold. The UK gatefold contains black-and-white photos of each band member. The Elektra Records gatefold contains the album lyrics with a photo of the "House on the Hill" in the background. The Elektra LP was later reissued in the early 1980s, non-gatefold.

The 1991 Virgin Records UK CD release, issued in the U.S. on Caroline Records, used the British LP track listing, adding the single "Indian Summer" to the end of the album. The Elektra Records version of The House On The Hill has never been issued on CD.



More info @

Official Audience Web

spotifyListen to ”Audience - The House on the Hill" on Spotify here!

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