Elwood n Chapman

A studio album by Roger Chapman is always an event. Since '66, when the British singer-songwriter emerged as the voice of his generation with the seminal Family band, through every twist of his four-decade solo career, Chappo's output has defied music industry protocol, challenged genre, and held up a mirror to the times. "I've never stopped writing," he reflects, "and with Life In The Pond, I felt the need to hear what I'd put down in music."

Includes the albums Deal Gone Down, Savage Amusement, The Man Who Hated Mornings plus bonus tracks.

This music, the album EB=MC2 and Chapman and Banai’s concerts together before that can ultimately be traced back to two valleys. One near Hawnby, North Yorkshire, lush green and full of trees, the other, more austere, in northern Galilee. Michael Chapman, paying his way through Art College in the early ’60s worked as a woodsman on the North Yorkshire Mexborough estate in the summer breaks and found inspiration for classics like “In the Valley” and “Among the Trees,” leaning against the trees with his guitar. Slightly later, Ehud Banai spent an extended reflective period in the ’70s, alone near Rosh Pina in Galilee, with his guitar, a ghetto blaster and one cassette. On that inspirational cassette was Michel Chapman’s 1969 Fully Qualified Survivor album. Travel forward over 30 years to 2012, and Ehud, now a successful musician with a string of his own albums, is playing The 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street in London.

BGO's two-fer reissue of Michael Chapman's most mysterious recording, Window from 1970, and its sequel, Wrecked Again, are two welcome reissues in the British singer/songwriter's CD catalog. Window is the great anomaly in Chapman's erratic, maverick career. The album was due to be recorded as a quick follow-up to the sensation that his debut, Fully Qualified Survivor, created on the British media scene. According to Marc Higgins' fine liner notes to this package, Chapman was supposed to record between touring dates. After a first demo and track session, Chapman went on tour, returning only to find that EMI had rushed 20,000 copies of the demo to print! Chapman himself warned fans off the record, telling them specifically not to buy it, but has performed songs from it in his live show continually for the last 30-plus years. The material is strong, and at this late date, nearly three and half decades after the fact, it sounds fresh. Immediacy, warmth, and the excitement of "first thought, best thought" are all over the set.

After the critical acclaim Michael Chapman received for Rainmaker in 1969, he followed up quickly in early 1970 with Fully Qualified Survivor, a record more adventurous and haunting than its predecessor, with added production flourishes and equally strong songs. Fully Qualified Survivor is the album that established Chapman as a folk troubadour. Leaving the guitar pyrotechnics largely locked in a shed, Chapman concentrated instead on his songwriting skills, and the sacrifice—for this record anyway—paid off. Leaving the lead guitar credits to a fellow Hull-man, Mick Ronson (who got his gig with David Bowie as a result of his playing on this album), with Rick Kemp making a return as bassist and Barry Morgan on drums, Chapman relied on no less than Paul Buckmaster—then beginning to work with Elton John, among others—to employ and arrange a small string section to fill out the songs.

Volume 1, which contains the tracks recorded between 1966 and 1980, was originally released in 2000, and Volume 2, which compiles recordings from 1969 to 1986, came out a year later. CD 1 - 1,2,3,4, Studios, Hull 1966; Tracks 5,6,7 Cellar Folk Club, Southampton 1969; Track 8,9,10,11,12 Southampton University Concert 1971; Tracks 13,14,15,16 Studios, Hull 1980. CD 2 The first four songs are taken from a live show at Southampton Uni Folk Club in 1969. The next 5 are from 1978 and feature Bass Rick Kemp (tracks: 5 to 9) Drums Keef Hartley (tracks: 5 to 9) Guitar Ray Martinez (2) (tracks: 5 to 9) Keyboards Brian Chapman (tracks: 5 to 9) The final track is a half-hour instrumental piece created as backing music for catwalks of Chapman's wife's fashion shows. The CDs come with a poster style booklet comprising sleeve notes and photos.

Virtuoso guitarist and critically-acclaimed songwriter, championed by John Peel and later Charles Shaar Murray, Michael Chapman recorded a quartet of highly-regarded albums for EMI's progressive Harvest label. In this latest archive recordings release, he presides over previously unreleased tracks spanning folk rock, blues, jazz and experimental genres, ranging from a live solo performance in 1969 to studio collaboration with Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) in 2005, by way of a 1980's TV film soundtrack with Maddy Prior and Rick Kemp (Steeleye Span), and much more besides…