RADIO CLYDE 1978

If I look at my profile in LastFM, where I have been recording most of my listening for the last 18 years, I can see Genesis and two ex-Genesis musicians in my Top 8, but Anthony Phillips is at #5, Genesis at #6 and Hackett at #8. No other ex-Genesis musicians feature in my Top 200, it is always to the guitarists I have been most drawn, for different reasons, and it is wonderful to have this long unavailable album released again. It is widely known that one of the reasons Phillips left the band was due to his sever stage fright, so perhaps it is of little surprise that for most of his career he has been a studio musician, but back in 1978, as part of the promotion for his second album 'Wise After the Event', it was decided to undertake a few live sessions which saw him play material from both that and 'The Geese and the Ghost', plus material which would feature on the next album, 'Private Parts & Pieces' plus others which did not appear for some years.

Apparently the original session over-ran by three minutes, so to get it into the 55-minute slot which it was destined for, varispeed was applied which resulted in the pitch of Ant's performance being raised by just over a semitone. This was something I did not previously know, but the essay by Jonathan Dann in the booklet is incredibly informative. The original master tapes were not maintained, but in 1999 a copy of a cassette was found in Ant's archives which led to the release of the original album in 2003, but it has long been out of print, and now it has been sound corrected and two additional tracks added from a Pennine Radio interview Ant undertook at the same time. There is no doubt that Ant is highly regarded as one of our finest 12-string guitarists, but his vocals are also perfectly suited to his songs, and it is a shame he is not more widely recognised in that area. He may never have really enjoyed baring his soul in a live environment, but there is no sign at all of nerves as this is a confident performance throughout. We also get to hear some of his Monty Python influenced style of humour in some of his introductions which certainly made me smile.

It is a very long time since I last played this, and now I find myself questioning just why that is as this album is an absolute delight, and any fans of 12-string acoustic guitars, great songs, Anthony Phillips or indeed Genesis as this features a version of the famous 'lost' Genesis single 'Silver Song', which was initially written by Phillips in 1969, with help from Genesis bandmate Mike Rutherford, to say goodbye drummer John Silver.