Edwards Hand are a music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

al group formed by Englishmen

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 Rod Edwards (keyboards and vocals) and Roger Hand (acoustic guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 and vocals). After a 1968 album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 released under their former name, in 1969 Edwards Hand released an eponymous album produced

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

 by George Martin

George Martin

Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...

 who, taking a break from working on The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

' White Album

The Beatles (album)

The Beatles is the ninth official album by the English rock group The Beatles, a double album released in 1968. It is also commonly known as "The White Album" as it has no graphics or text other than the band's name embossed on its plain white sleeve.The album was written and recorded during a...

, described their music as "exceptional". The online CD vendors Freak Emporium (UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

) and Forced Exposure (US

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

) tentatively compare it to certain works by Kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope (UK band)

Kaleidoscope were an English psychedelic rock band that were active between 1967 and 1968. The band's songs were combining the elements of psychedelia with remarkable lyrics...

 and Fairfield Parlour.

A further album, Stranded, came in 1970. Also produced by Martin, for this they were backed by James Litherland on electric guitar

Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...

, former Tornados

The Tornados

The Tornados were an English instrumental group of the 1960s that acted as backing group for many of record producer Joe Meek's productions and also for singer Billy Fury. They enjoyed several chart hits in their own right, including the UK and U.S. Number One "Telstar" , the first U.S...

 drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

mer Clem Cattini

Clem Cattini

Clem Cattini , is an English rock and roll drummer who was a member of The Tornados before becoming well known for his work as a session musician...

 and John Wetton

John Wetton

John Kenneth Wetton is an English bassist, guitarist, keyboardist, singer and songwriter. He was born in Willington, Derbyshire, and grew up in Bournemouth. He has been a professional musician since the late 1960s...

 – who was later to find fame with King Crimson

King Crimson

King Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...

 and Asia

Asia (band)

Asia are an English rock group formed in 1981. The band was labelled a supergroup as it included former members of several veteran progressive rock bands, namely John Wetton , Geoff Downes , Steve Howe and Carl Palmer Asia are an English rock group formed in 1981. The band was labelled a...

 – playing bass

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

. Forced Exposure and Freak Emporium describe Stranded as...

...a superb blend of styles that is very hard to categorise. Short West Coast

West Coast of the United States

West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...

 influenced rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 tracks sit alongside all out progressive anglophile pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 symphonies

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...

 that at times utilise the kind of 'everything including the kitchen sink' tactics employed by Brian Wilson

Brian Wilson

Brian Douglas Wilson is an American musician, best known as the leader and chief songwriter of the group The Beach Boys. Within the band, Wilson played bass and keyboards, also providing part-time lead vocals and, more often, backing vocals, harmonizing in falsetto with the group...

.

Their final album, Rainshine, was again produced by Martin in 1971 but, rejected by the band's RCA Victor label. For this album, the lineup included the Americans

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Les Brown Jr. on drums and percussion and David Dowd on guitar, as well as Harry Reynolds on bass.

In 1975 Edwards and Hand set to music the poems of William Plomer

William Plomer

William Charles Franklyn Plomer CBE was a South African author, known as a novelist, poet and literary editor. He was educated mostly in the United Kingdom...

 from the best selling children's book, The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast, illustrated by Alan Aldridge famous for his work with the Beatles. This album featured the voices of Dame Judi Dench

Judi Dench

Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...

 and Sir Michael Hordern

Michael Hordern

Sir Michael Murray Hordern was an English actor, knighted in 1983 for his services to the theatre, which stretched back to before the Second World War.-Personal life:...

. It was originally released on the Argo label and has been re-released by wizardpresents. It features Edwards on keyboards and vocals and Hand on guitar and vocals, with Gerry Conway on drums and Bruce Lynch on bass.

The Huge World of Emily Small (1968)

An album released under the band name Picadilly Line, the featured musicians were Edwards and Hand plus Danny Thompson

Danny Thompson

Daniel Henry Edward 'Danny' Thompson is an English multi-instrumentalist best known as a double bassist and businessman...

 (bass), Alan Hawkshaw

Alan Hawkshaw

Alan Hawkshaw is a British composer and performer, particularly of themes for movies and television programmes...

 (keyboards), Herbie Flowers

Herbie Flowers

Herbie Flowers is an English musician specialising in bass guitar, double-bass and tuba. He is noted as a member of Blue Mink, T...

 (bass) and Harold McNair

Harold McNair

Harold McNair was a renowned saxophonist and flautist.-Background:...

 (flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

). All material is original except for a version of Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

's "Visions of Johanna

Visions of Johanna

"Visions of Johanna" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. Dylan first recorded the song in New York City in November 1965, under the working title of "Freeze Out", but was dissatisfied with the results...

" and the The Everly Brothers

The Everly Brothers

The Everly Brothers are country-influenced rock and roll performers, known for steel-string guitar playing and close harmony singing...

' "Gone, Gone, Gone

Gone, Gone, Gone

Gone, Gone, Gone is the name of an album by The Everly Brothers, originally released in 1964. It was re-released on CD in 2005 on the Collectors' Choice Music label....

"

Edwards Hand (1969)

Recorded in stereo

Stereophonic sound

The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective...

 at the EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

 Abbey Road studio in St John's Wood

St John's Wood

St John's Wood is a district of north-west London, England, in the City of Westminster, and at the north-west end of Regent's Park. It is approximately 2.5 miles north-west of Charing Cross. Once part of the Great Middlesex Forest, it was later owned by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Produced by George Martin, the album was released in the United States on vinyl

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

 and cassette

Compact Cassette

The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...

 by GRT Records of Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades...

, Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

. The cover art

Cover art

Cover art is the illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product such as a book , magazine, comic book, video game , DVD, CD, videotape, or music album. The art has a primarily commercial function, i.e...

 is a golden autumnal scene featuring two faces, those of Rod Edwards and Roger Hand, with a tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 in the background. All songs were written by Edwards and Hand except If I thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind by John Cameron.

• Banjo Pier
• Characters Number One
• Close My Eyes
• Days Of Our Life
• Episodes, Being The First Part
• Friday Hill
• House Of Cards
• If I thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind (by John Cameron)
• Magic Car
• Orange Peel
• Sing Along With The Singer

Stranded (1970)

Recorded at London's Morgan Studios

Morgan Studios

Morgan Studios, also known as Morgan Sound Studios, were recording studios in Willesden, North London. The studios were notable for many recordings of the 1960s and 1970s by many British bands and artists such as Ten Years After, Yes, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Joan Armatrading, Cat...

 Produced by George Martin, assisted by John Miller and released on RCA Victor

RCA Records

RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

, the original cover art , as seen on the uk release,was a black

Black

Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...

 and white

White

White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.White light can be...

 drawing of a sheriff

Sheriff

A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

's rotund stomach

Stomach

The stomach is a muscular, hollow, dilated part of the alimentary canal which functions as an important organ of the digestive tract in some animals, including vertebrates, echinoderms, insects , and molluscs. It is involved in the second phase of digestion, following mastication .The stomach is...

 produced by Klaus Voormann

Klaus Voormann

Klaus Voormann is a German Grammy Award-winning artist, noted musician, and record producer. He designed artwork for many bands including The Beatles, The Bee Gees, Wet Wet Wet and Turbonegro. His most notable work as a producer was his work with the band Trio, including their worldwide hit "Da Da...

 (famous for designing the cover of The Beatles' album Revolver

Revolver (album)

Revolver is the seventh studio album by the English rock group The Beatles, released on 5 August 1966 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin. Many of the tracks on Revolver are marked by an electric guitar-rock sound, in contrast with their previous LP, the folk rock inspired Rubber...

). The drawing referred to a track about one of America's racist policemen, Sheriff Myras Lincoln, which was banned in the USA. A new cover was produced for the US release, this time a photograph of a hand

Hand

A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered extremity located at the end of an arm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs...

, finger

Finger

A finger is a limb of the human body and a type of digit, an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of humans and other primates....

s splayed, beneath the Stars and Stripes

Flag of the United States

The national flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars alternating with rows...

. All songs were written by Edwards and Hand.

• Death Of A Man (an epic in five parts)
• Encounter
• Hello America
• Revolution's Death Man!
• Sheriff Myras Lincoln
• Stranded
• US Flag
• Winter

Rainshine (1971)

Produced by George Martin in 1971 at AIR studios

Associated Independent Recording

Associated Independent Recording , an independent recording company, was founded in London in 1965 by Beatles producer George Martin and his partner John Burgess after their departure from EMI....

 in London; mixed by John Miller.Unreleased at the time it will be available on Cherry Red Records with bonus tracks, in 2010. All songs written by Edwards and Hand.

Notable appearances

• Piano and backing vocals on the Larry Norman
  Larry Norman
  Larry David Norman was an American Christian musician, singer, songwriter, record label owner, and record producer, who worked with Christian rock music...
  
   classic Only Visiting This Planet
  Only Visiting This Planet
  Only Visiting This Planet is the title of an album recorded by Larry Norman in 1972. The album was selected as the second album in 's The 100 Greatest Albums in Christian Music.-History:...
  
  (Verve, 1972);
• Keyboards and percussion on Larry Norman's So Long Ago the Garden
  So Long Ago the Garden
  So Long Ago the Garden is an album recorded by Larry Norman, released in 1973. It is the second album in what came to be known as his "trilogy," which began with the album Only Visiting This Planet and concluded with In Another Land. So Long Ago the Garden was controversial because Norman's...
  
  (MGM, 1973);
• Keyboards and percussion on the Malcolm and Alwyn
  Malcolm and Alwyn
  Malcolm and Alwyn were a popular British gospel beat music group in the 1970s. They played Beatles-influenced rock music with lyrics reflecting their conversion to Christianity. The duo was composed of Malcolm Wild and Alwyn Wall, who had been performing together in a band called The Zodiacs prior...
  
  album Fool's Wisdom (Myrrh, 1973);
• Keyboards and percussion on Malcolm and Alwyn's Wildwall (Myrrh, 1974).
• Keyboards and vocals on Ashman Reynolds