Murray Head

Murray Head’s Nigel Lived is a groundbreaking classic and one of the boldest, most daring and inventive albums of all time. Recorded by the great recording engineer Phill Brown, Nigel Lived is from the golden era of all-analog recording, a sonic and musical masterpiece that every music lover and audiophile simply must have. This 45th Anniversary Edition was mastered directly from 1972's analog tapes by Kevin Gray. As the master tapes can no longer be found in Sony's vaults in the US or the UK (Sony bought CBS and its assets), Phill's 1972 tapes are the de facto "original master tapes". The sound quality on these tapes is a revelation, with deep but tuneful bass, sweet highs, gorgeous vocals and very wide dynamics!

Best remembered for his 1984 smash "One Night in Bangkok," actor/singer Murray Head was born March 5, 1946 in London and began his performing career at age 12 with appearances in a series of radio plays. He began writing songs a year later, cutting his earliest singles while still a teenager under the supervision of famed producer Norrie Paramor. In 1966 Head made his film debut in The Family Way; the picture also featured his third single "Some Day Soon," produced by Tim Rice. Still, Head's career failed to take off and he was eventually dropped from his recording contract, spending a few years selling insurance before Rice and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber contacted him to sing the role of Judas on the soundtrack to their musical Jesus Christ Superstar; concurrently, he also appeared in the film Sunday Bloody Sunday.

If you like Pink Floyd, Neil Yong, Grateful Dead Etc., you will like this. It has a folk/blues acoustic sound. Murray Head is better known for his 80's hit "One Night in Bangkok" which is a totally different style than this. This album was Murray Head's biggest, and best shot at stardom. Sadly, it didn't make as much of a splash as he'd likely hoped, and subsequent albums were more popular in the Francophonic world than in Britain or the U.S.A.

Over the years, pianist Aki Takase and reed player David Murray have amassed respective bodies of soul-stirring compositions, of which several pieces related to the rites of passage of middle age are included on Cherry / Sakura. As a result, this is a markedly different conversation than ever before; one that is more profound as the two musicians engage in an unsparing conversation about the defining issues of later life.

Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s 1970 concept album Jesus Christ Superstar is being reissued for its 50th anniversary.