lindisfarne

Lindisfarne

Lindisfarne (lìndisfarn) Holy Island - a small island off the coast of Northumberland, England.

Linda's farm (lin-duz-farm) a spacious property in Scotland where the McCartney's smoked a lot of weed.

Lindisfarne (lìndisfarn) an awesome Folk-Rock band established in Newcastle-on-Tyne, circa 1968.

Well, it happened like this: It was my 40th birthday weekend and my boss from the other job told me "don't be foolish - take some time to enjoy yourself" or something to that effect. He was right - it was one of the highlights of my life in recent memory. I have to give thanks to some very special friends who put it all together. At the time I was dating this comedienne Kathy Rutigliano (who, if you've been surfing this site, you should know by now) and she outdid herself making it all happen. Some of the other friends I have to thank are Chef Kevin Reilly, then the executive chef at Zoe in Soho (New York, not London - and now the former executive chef/owner of 1 Midtown Kitchen in Atlanta, Georgia), Jim and Janine Hartley - the parents of my Godson - who hosted a very special dinner at their restaurant, The Clarksville Inn (no relation to the Last Train to...) and certainly not least of all are my friends who came to my surprise dinner party. Damn, I was surprised! Thanks Ed Zoo, Donna F., Jerry Z., and the rest....

Above: Kathy doing her thang at the Gotham Comedy Club, where Stand Up New York is filmed and where she shared the stage with Jerry Seinfeld one very funny evening. And, no, she is not showing the audience the size of my penis! Left: Some of the gang at the Clarksville Inn. Below: The exalted poo-bah Chef Kevin and Kathy drink to my health.

Ahem... I've always been a fan of British Folk-Rock in general but, the following night Lindisfarne were appearing at the Bottom Line in Greenwich Village, so off we go to Kevin's place armed with some tickets and pain - champagne, that is. It also happened to be Presidents weekend and everybody was out of town. I think we counted 17 people in the audience. Needless to say, the band were not about to give up just because the crowd was small. They laid into it thick and heavy and put on one of the best shows I can remember. At the time I hadn't heard the new record but the new songs came from the stage with such power and authority I went immediately to the booth and bought a copy - the title of which is Here Comes the Neighbourhood. It became a favorite around the Cottage Views office and I voted it Album of the Year for 2000. I just stopped listening to some old Christmas tapes and put it on, and you know what? I'm glad I voted it #1. It's *#@&-ing Great!

The band at the time was:

Ray Laidlaw: Drums and percussion

Rod Clements: Dobro, electric slide and acoustic guitars, madolin, violin

Billy Mitchell: Lead and backing vocals, guitars, whistles, accordion, harmonica

Marty Craggs: Flute, accordion, harmonica, whistles, vocals

Dave Denholm: Electric 12 string and guitars, vocals

Ian Thomson: Bass, vocals

Above: The disc in question and the band on the run - Left to right Dave Denholm, founder Ray Laidlaw, Ian Thomson, old friend Billy Mitchell, some 40 year old, co-founder Rod Clements, Marty Craggs, ticket stub to remember the festivities by.

Above: The band have some fun posing for the camera. Below: An added bonus - who should I see but my old friend Andy Morris from the Andrew Morris Agency (and former Badfinger tape op. of Andy Norris fame!)

Above: Kathy and Marty give the thumbs up while Ian looks on.

Editors note: Although I can agree with a line in the lead-off track from Here Comes the Neighbourhood, "Born at the Right Time," that says

I won't sigh for days gone by because now is where I'm at

I still have to say it was a great time and I hope you enjoy the article and photos as much as I enjoy remembering it!

Michael A. Cimino 5 December 2002

LINDISFARNE RETURN TO AMERICA

New Album Welcomes The Neighborhood

In the wild and woolly days of the late sixties musicians were searching for new ideas, and new sounds. In the earlier part of the decade The Beatles had revolutionized Pop music and by 1967 made it an art form. Dylan had already gone electric at the Newport folk festival and across the Atlantic British bands were searching their own roots, electrifying ancient folk tunes with a rock backbeat.

One particular band, out of the northeast province of Newcastle, the Brethren, were putting their own particular spin on Pop music infusing folk instrumentation with original songs. When they signed with the Charisma Record label in 1968 they changed their name to Lindisfarne, after the holy isle off the Northumberland coast, and released the critically acclaimed Nicely Out of Tune. In 1969 they followed it with the #1 Fog on the Tyne, which spawned the hit singles "Meet Me On the Corner," and "Lady Eleanor."

While success was almost instantaneous in England, America was slow to follow and it wasn't until 1978 that they finally reached the US top forty with the hit single "Run For Home."

Twenty-seven years since their last appearance in the US Lindisfarne are ready to make their mark on American soil once again with the release of their latest disc Here Comes the Neighbourhood (Park Records), a rollicking good-time record of folk-inflected Pop, and a current tour to promote it.

Original drummer Ray Laidlaw explains, "The band did very well over here in the early seventies, then the original band bust up for a couple of years. They got back together in 1977 and released a new album with a single on it "Run For Home," which was the biggest hit we ever had in the states."

In the interim Laidlaw had formed a side project, Jack The Lad, with original Lindisfarne bassist/lyricist Rod Clements.

Continuing, Laidlaw says, "We were planning to come across and tour then but we were with Atlantic Records at the time and the person who was the big fan of the band at Atlantic got fired. So, all of a sudden our tour support was cut and we went to the bottom of the pile."

Determined, Lindisfarne carried on.

With the addition of multi-instrumentalist Marty Craggs they continued to attract huge crowds in their native England and in Europe. In 1990 their perseverance paid off with a re-make of "Fog on the Tyne" which reached #2.

In 1995 tragedy struck when guitarist/lyricist Alan Hull died of a massive heart attack, leaving the band on shaky ground.

"That was a big testing time whether we should continue or not," says Laidlaw of the time following Hull's death. "We felt we wouldn't be achieving anything by stopping because we're always going to be playing, so we might as well play together and see if the fans would accept it, and they did.

"It went through different changes," he admits. "We lost a few members for various reasons. Myself and Rod Clements are the two from the original band. Billy Mitchell is one of the lead singers, who was actually in Jack The Lad with us in the middle seventies and who was also in Lindisfarne before it was Lindisfarne in the sixties.

"It goes back a long way," he chuckles. "Marty Craggs has been with us since 1981 and Ian Thompson and Dave Denholm have been with us for about six years."

The new blood within the group spurs them on, and it shows on their new disc. Mitchell's vocals are dead on and the musicianship couldn't be sweeter. Clements' new role on slide guitar and mandolin adds tremendous depth to the record while Craggs adds Celtic flourishes with pennywhistle, flute, and accordion.

These things aside, what propels Here Comes the Neighbourhood are the songs. Mitchell, Craggs, and Denholm all put their best foot forward, while Clements supplies the majority of the tunes. Their optimism shines through on Mitchell's bouncy opener "Born at the Right Time," progresses with the not-a-care-in-the-world "Jubilee Corner" and continues on right to the closing number "Driftin' Through."

"In the early days Rod wrote a lot of songs," says Laidlaw. "He wrote "Meet Me on the Corner" and a few other things. Now that Alan is not here anymore Rod has blossomed again and is writing some fantastic material."

And the new material is everything to Lindisfarne, as they have survived for over thirty years and plan to continue indefinitely. On stage they are completely professional and immensely entertaining. They have fun joking with the audience, they tell stories, they sing their hearts out until their voices intertwine seemlessly, and while the instrumentation takes you to another place and time everything reverts back to the song.

"The things that last are the songs," states Laidlaw. "Songs last forever, and we've always tried to maintain a very high level of song. Our heroes were big song bands; The Beatles, The Band, Dylan, and people like that. We don't have any fillers in the show. Every song has to fight for it's place. Maybe that's an old fashioned way of doing things but that's the way we've always done it, and we've continued doing that."

Looking forward to what the future may hold, Laidlaw is hoping to find mass appeal once again in the states. "We're working on material for a new album and then we're probably coming back to the states in September. I'm not too bothered how many people there are on this trip," he laughs, "so long as when we come back there are three times as many."

If this has been any indication, Lindisfarne needn't worry. l

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