New Mountain
2000
Burnside Records 0037-2
Track listing:
1. Restless (Mick Clarke)
2. Honey Do (Mick Clarke)
3. See See Baby (Freddie King)
4. Bed of Nails (Mick Clarke)
5. London Town (Mick Clarke)
6. You Gonna Miss Me (McKinley Morganfield)
7. Please Believe Me (Haywood/Tucker)
8. New Mountain (Mick Clarke)
9. Bromley City Limits (Mick Clarke)
10. The Howlin' Wolf (Mick Clarke)
11. Singapore Strutt (Mick Clarke)
12. Gettin' Round To It (Mick Clarke)
13. Save the World (Mick Clarke)
14. I Should've Waited (Mick Clarke)
Mick Clarke - Guitar / Vocals
Lou Martin - Keyboards
Chris Sharley - Drums
Ian Ellis - Bass
Engineered by Richard Jackson
Recorded at Gold Dust Studio, Bromley, Kent
Cover photo - Dave Peabody
Produced by Mick Clarke - executve producer Terry Currier
Read Reviews
Listen to "Bed of Nails" in three formats..
Bed of Nails Real Audio
Bed of Nails MP3
Bed of Nails Broadband
Mick writes..
The idea of "New Mountain" was to catch the feel of the band as it was on the many club and festival dates that we were playing around Europe at that time. Although not recorded "live" it was recorded fast and with the minimum of overdubs, and is a good record of the band as it was in August 1999.
We made the album at a friendly studio in the suburbs of Bromley.."Bromley City Limits" is meant to be ironic! I avoided any really heavy material and stuck to a rockin' blues format - plenty of shuffles, boogies and one slow blues..the Muddy Waters song "You Gonna Miss Me". I also threw in a couple of acoustic guitar numbers for the first time on record.
"See See Baby" was a song we played with Freddie King when we were touring with him back in the 60's. I had never recorded one of his songs before, and thought it was time to pay a small tribute. I've kept to the basic arrangement and original words, although I never thought I'd ever sing "Oh Lawdy Mama"!
"Please Believe Me" is a Charles Brown song which I simply..liked. If you get the chance check out the original, which he recorded with Fats Domino's band - it's great!
I always thought that Muddy's version of "You Gonna Miss Me" was a bit upbeat and jaunty considering the subject matter, so I arranged our version as a minor key slow blues - it's quite different, but I think it works. We play it every gig and it can be the highlight of the evening.
Two acoustic tracks.. I've always avoided acoustic guitar songs. 1. I'm not a very good acoustic guitarist (not compared to some) 2. I didn't want to create yet another comparison with Rory. But I'd had the song "Howlin' Wolf" in the back of my head since I wrote it about ten years ago, so I thought it was time. It was written about the time we played with the great man at a college in the North of England. Afterwards we sat and chatted with Wolf and Freddie King in the dressing room, while Wolf got slowly more and more inebriated. Magic.
"Singapore Strutt" is extremely Django influenced, but it comes out as something all of its own..Django meets Eddie Lang? I wrote it purely for my own amusement and never imagined it going on a Mick Clarke album, but it's fun..no more than that. The rest of the album is pretty much straight ahead boogie and shuffle - I hope you like it.
"New Mountain" is released world-wide on Burnside Records.
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