John Howard (singer-songwriter)
Encyclopedia
John Howard is an English singer-songwriter, pianist and recording artist. With his February 1975 debut album Kid in a Big World (CBS Records
), Howard emerged as a late voice of the glam-pop wave of the early 1970s. Across a musical career that has included two main periods of recording activity – 1974-84 and 2004-present – Howard has released 11 studio albums.
, a market town in North West England
which historically is part of Lancashire
and administratively is within Greater Manchester
.
Having started playing the piano at four years old, Howard began classical training at seven. He attended St. Gabriel's Roman Catholic High School in Bury, and in 1969 enrolled at the Accrington
College of Art.
Starting in March 1970 and continuing for the next three years, Howard – having adopted the professional moniker "Jon Howard" – played his own songs at universities and folk clubs, and at the Bolton
Octagon Theatre
.
At the Octagon, Howard often played support for the folk
/progressive rock
band Spirogyra
. The band at the time was managed by Howard's contemporary, Max Hole
, who later, as an A&R
manager at WEA Records U.K.
in the early 1980s, went on to sign Howard Jones
, whose birth name – ironically – is John Howard Jones. Hole currently serves as chief operating officer of Universal Music Group
International.
in August 1973, Howard was playing at the Troubadour folk club, when he was spotted by "Hurricane" Smith's manager Stuart Reid, who was the head of pop at Chappell Music
. Reid signed Howard to a management contract – changing "Jon" to "John," in the process – and Howard signed with CBS at the end of that year.
Kid in a Big World was the first of three albums that Howard recorded for CBS in 1974 and 1975. The album – recorded at Abbey Road
and Apple Studio – was produced by ex-Shadows
drummer Tony Meehan
and Paul Phillips. Session players included founding Zombies
and Argent
keyboardist Rod Argent
and founding Argent drummer Bob Henrit
.
CBS initially put considerable resources behind its new artist – promoting Howard's debut album with a major print advertising campaign, life-sized cardboard cutouts of Howard at record shops, and a launch concert for recording industry executives and press at the Purcell Room
in London's Southbank Centre.
But BBC Radio 1
refused to play the first single, "Goodbye Suzie," calling it "too depressing," and also passed on the second single, "Family Man," calling it "anti-woman."
Following his debut album release in February 1975, Howard recorded two more albums of material for CBS that year. His second album – Technicolour Biography, produced by Paul Phillips – was a collection of songs in a vein similar to those on Kid in a Big World. Indeed, the songs on both of Howard's first two albums were among the group of songs, written between 1970 and 1973, that led CBS to sign Howard in late 1973. But after BBC Radio 1's rejection of the two singles from the debut album, CBS balked at this new set and shelved the project, with the songs never being developed beyond the initial "vocals and piano" demonstrations.
At this point, CBS, anxious for a hit, paired Howard with Biddu
, a producer best known for his pioneering work in disco
. Howard set about writing a new collection of songs, and the result was his third album, Can You Hear Me OK?
CBS's promotion of the only single, "I Got My Lady," from that fully produced third album included Howard's only live television appearance – on a December 1975 episode of the BBC television program The Musical Time Machine, which ran from 1975 to 1977. Also appearing on that episode were Johnny Mathis
and Lynsey de Paul
.
But when the single did not chart as well as CBS had hoped, CBS shelved that album too. Having failed to find an audience for Howard's music, CBS ultimately released only the first "installment" of Howard's first three albums – sometimes now referred to as the "Kid trilogy." Howard left the label in early 1976.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
called this sequence of events one of the most extreme of examples of Murphy's Law in record company history."
Many years later, Howard's mentor Paul Phillips – who at the time was Howard's producer and A&R manager at CBS – had a more specific explanation. Phillips told Howard that his difficulty in getting radio airplay was due primarily to homophobia in the recording industry. Howard, who is gay, presented a louche and effete image at a time – the early 1970s – when, despite the shattering of gender stereotypes that was being heralded by the emergence of glam
and disco, record label executives and radio programmers still often expected gay male artists to conform to traditional ideals of masculinity and to keep their sexuality to themselves. Howard wrote about his experience of this dynamic in his 2007 song, "My Beautiful Days."
's AD8 club.
In late 1976, Howard suffered a fall in which he broke his back and feet. But after a period of recuperation and recovery, he resumed recording and released a number of singles over the next several years.
Howard's work with the producer Trevor Horn
in 1977 and 1978 resulted in two 7" singles – "I Can Breathe Again"/"You Take My Breath Away" (Ariola, 1978) and "Don't Shine Your Light"/"Baby Go Now" (SRT, 1979) – that were among Horn's earliest commercially released production credits.
And a brief return to CBS in late 1979 led to two more 7" singles – "I Tune Into You"/"Gotta New Toy" and "Lonely I, Lonely Me"/"Gotta New Toy (remix) – both released in 1980.
In 1981 – the year before Culture Club
released its debut album, Kissing to Be Clever
– Howard teamed up with Culture Club producer Steve Levine
, a collaboration that resulted in another two 7" singles, "It's You I Want"/"Searching for Someone" and "And the World"/"Call on You."
, Maria Friedman
, Connie Francis
, Hazell Dean
, Sonia, Gary Glitter
, The Crickets
, Lonnie Donegan
, Madness
, Barry Manilow
and Sir Tim Rice.
Howard did record one album during this period, The Pros and Cons of Passion. The album – a collection of Howard originals and covers of songs by George Harrison
, Brian Wilson
, k.d. lang
, Stephen Sondheim
, Lou Reed
, Neil Young
, Paul McCartney
and Janet Hood/Bill Russell
– was slated for 1996 release on the Carlton label. But – as if to remind Howard that Murphy's law still was in effect – the label folded the week before the album's street date
, and the album remained unreleased until Howard released it himself in 2008.
subsidiary RPM Records
in September 2003 featured "Goodbye Suzie" – the song which, when it was released in October 1974, BBC Radio 1 had scuttled as being "too depressing" – on its compilation "Zigzag: 20 Junkshop Soft Rock Singles 1970–1974." Two months later, and nearly thirty years after the album's original release, RPM re-issued Kid in a Big World.
In early 2004, Uncut
magazine gave the re-issue a 5-star review, in which reviewer Paul Lester
wrote that
Howard, wrote Lester, is "the missing link between Noel Coward
and ... Momus."
Coward is a frequent reference in reviews of Howard's music. A couple of years after the re-issue of Kid, the Manchester poet Robert Cochrane – who collaborated as the lyricist on Howard's 2005 album The Dangerous Hours – observed that Kid is "Noel Coward getting fruit with Elton and Ziggy
," and that "[the album's] florid, glam piano balladry seemed more contemporary in the age of Rufus Wainwright
than it must have done at the height of pub rock
."
A few weeks after the Uncut review, a London show by Howard – organized by RPM to celebrate the re-issue of Kid – included in the audience Lawrence Hayward
of Felt
, Peter Astor
of The Weather Prophets
and rock biographer Nina Antonia
, further attesting to Howard's influence.
In 2004 and 2005, respectively, RPM issued the other two (unreleased) albums of the Kid trilogy – Technicolour Biography and Can You Hear Me OK? The first of these prompted a less predictable appearance by Coward, in a review by Anthony Reynolds
, who wrote that
During this period, Howard entered a second stage of creative output, recording and releasing more than seven albums' worth of new material from 2004 to the present.
In a four-star review of 2005's The Dangerous Hours, Howard's collaboration with Robert Cochrane and his first new album release in 30 years, Alexis Petridis wrote in The Guardian that
The album, wrote Stephen Thomas Erlewine in his own four-star review, has "all of the hallmarks of [Howard's] '70s work – big, sweeping, cinematic choruses, lush, sighing melodies, music that is once dramatic and intimate," and "Cochrane's words...flow like Howard's own." Musically "spare and simple, just Howard and his piano, occasionally embellished with a synthesizer and overdubbed vocals," the album is "a perfect soundtrack for either late-night introspection or a contemplative Sunday morning. The best thing about The Dangerous Hours...[is] that it proves that his skills as a craftsman are untarnished after all these years."
In late 2005, Howard released on RPM parent label Cherry Red what Erlewine called Howard's "true comeback" album, the wryly titled As I Was Saying, the first album collection of new, original all-Howard songs since 1975. The album features ex-Lush
bass guitarist Phil King on electric bass and Andre Barreau
– who plays George Harrison
in the Beatles
tribute band The Bootleg Beatles
and who also was the lead guitarist on Robbie Williams's
1997 single, "Angels" – on guitars.
"The voice," wrote Helen Wright, "is in peak condition – richer than in his youth but retaining all the character, and sounding more and more like a slightly posher John Lennon
." Wright singled out the song "Oh, Do Give It A Rest, Love" – which Dickon Edwards
had called the album's "epic centrepiece" – as "a tour-de-force, a seven minute epic of wit and bitchiness that manages to include pretty well the entire history of pop music."
Erlewine wrote that
The momentum of new songwriting and recording continued with Howard's 2006 album Same Bed, Different Dreams, released on the small French label Disques Eurovisions. Although the release of Same Bed was delayed until the summer of 2006 – the year after 2005's Dangerous Hours and As I Was Saying – Howard had laid down and sent to Eurovisions demos of all 14 of the album's songs in January 2004. So these actually were the first new songs that Howard recorded after the re-issue of Kid in a Big World in November 2003.
Reviewing Same Bed for the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles
, Celine Remy quipped that it "takes us back to a time when Elton John preferred writing to shopping," with Matthieu Grunfeld in another French magazine, Magic RPM, suggesting that the album "should find a strong echo among...the fans of Ben Folds."
Howard followed Same Bed, Different Dreams with his 2007 album, Barefoot With Angels. Released on the small Spanish label, Hanky Panky Records, the album includes the song, "The Exquisites," that Howard wrote for his 2005 London show at the Glam-ou-rama community's Night of a Thousand Ziggys. John Howard calls the song – which initially was inspired by Oscar Wilde's
dictum that "The future belongs to the dandy. It is the exquisites who are going to rule." –
Barefoot also includes the song "Magdalena Merrywidow," Howard's tribute to April Ashley.
Howard appeared as a pianist on two other albums in 2007: Anthony Reynolds's
British Ballads (Spinney) and Darren Hayman's
Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern (Track & Field
). Both albums tapped the contributions of musicians who had been extremely influential in 1980s British indie pop, with the Reynolds album featuring ex-Cocteau Twin
Simon Raymonde
and the Hayman album featuring Pete Astor, who had founded The Loft
and The Weather Prophets
.
2009's Navigate Home – which Howard wrote while waiting to move from Wales to Spain and completed recording in Spain – was the first album to reflect this new approach. Reviewing the album in Dusty Wright's
online pop culture magazine Culture Catch, Robert Cochrane observed:
Howard's tenth studio album, Exhibiting Tendencies, had its digital release in February 2011 and its CD release in May 2011.
He currently is at work on a new album, scheduled for release in 2012.
The next year, 2007, Howard and France moved from the United Kingdom to Murcia, Spain, where they continue to live.
"Anatomy of the Comeback Kid" (Culture Catch, 5 September 2006) and "A Most English Decline" (The Bad Press, 2004)
2011 and 2009 and 2008
With Helen Wright
October 2005
Culture Catch
Same Bed, Different Dreams
musicOMH and Snaz Music and Les Inrockuptibles (French) and Magic RPM (French)
As I Was Saying
musicOMH and AllRovi and Glam-ou-rama
The Dangerous Hours
The Guardian and musicOMH and AllRovi and Glam-ou-rama
Can You Hear Me OK?
musicOMH and AllRovi
Technicolour Biography
Uncut and musicOMH and AllRovi
Kid in a Big World
Uncut and musicOMH and AllRovi
Dickon Edwards
Club Bohemia @ Buffalo Bar, London, 24 September 2005
musicOMH
Cecil Sharp House, London, 26 August 2004
musicOMH
Jermyn Street Theater, London, 1 April 2004
The Guardian and musicOMH
CBS Records
CBS Records is a record label founded by CBS Corporation in 2006 to take advantage of music from its entertainment properties owned by CBS Television Studios. The initial label roster consisted of only three artists; rock band Señor Happy and singer/songwriters Will Dailey and P.J...
), Howard emerged as a late voice of the glam-pop wave of the early 1970s. Across a musical career that has included two main periods of recording activity – 1974-84 and 2004-present – Howard has released 11 studio albums.
Beginnings and early years, 1953–1973
John Howard was born Howard Michael Jones in BuryBury
Bury is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the River Irwell, east of Bolton, west-southwest of Rochdale, and north-northwest of the city of Manchester...
, a market town in North West England
North West England
North West England, informally known as The North West, is one of the nine official regions of England.North West England had a 2006 estimated population of 6,853,201 the third most populated region after London and the South East...
which historically is part of Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
and administratively is within Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...
.
Having started playing the piano at four years old, Howard began classical training at seven. He attended St. Gabriel's Roman Catholic High School in Bury, and in 1969 enrolled at the Accrington
Accrington
Accrington is a town in Lancashire, within the borough of Hyndburn. It lies about east of Blackburn, west of Burnley, north of Manchester city centre and is situated on the mostly culverted River Hyndburn...
College of Art.
Starting in March 1970 and continuing for the next three years, Howard – having adopted the professional moniker "Jon Howard" – played his own songs at universities and folk clubs, and at the Bolton
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...
Octagon Theatre
Octagon Theatre, Bolton
The Octagon Theatre is a producing theatre located in Bolton, Greater Manchester, England.-Programme:The Octagon produces between eight and nine professional theatre productions a year in its Main Auditorium...
.
At the Octagon, Howard often played support for the folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
/progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
band Spirogyra
Spirogyra (band)
This article refers to the British folk band. For the American jazz fusion band, see Spyro Gyra.Spirogyra are a British folk/prog band that recorded three albums between 1971 and 1973, with further original albums in 2009 and 2011.-History:...
. The band at the time was managed by Howard's contemporary, Max Hole
Max Hole
Max Hole is chief operating officer of UMGI since 1 July 2010. As head of central functions at UMGI's headquarters in London, he is also responsible for operations in territories and regions worldwide...
, who later, as an A&R
A&R
Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...
manager at WEA Records U.K.
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
in the early 1980s, went on to sign Howard Jones
Howard Jones (musician)
Howard Jones is a musician, singer and songwriter. According to the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums, "Jones is an accomplished singer-songwriter who was a regular chart visitor in the mid 1980s with his brand of synthpop. Jones, who was equally popular in the U.S., appeared at Live...
, whose birth name – ironically – is John Howard Jones. Hole currently serves as chief operating officer of Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...
International.
CBS Records, 1973–1976
Shortly after moving to LondonLondon
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...
in August 1973, Howard was playing at the Troubadour folk club, when he was spotted by "Hurricane" Smith's manager Stuart Reid, who was the head of pop at Chappell Music
Chappell & Co.
Chappell & Co. was an English company that published music and manufactured pianos.-History:It was founded in 1810 by Samuel Chappell in partnership with music professors Francis Tatton Latour and Johann Baptist Cramer. Cramer was also a well-known London composer, teacher and pianist...
. Reid signed Howard to a management contract – changing "Jon" to "John," in the process – and Howard signed with CBS at the end of that year.
Kid in a Big World (1975)
Kid in a Big World was the first of three albums that Howard recorded for CBS in 1974 and 1975. The album – recorded at Abbey Road
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...
and Apple Studio – was produced by ex-Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
drummer Tony Meehan
Tony Meehan
Daniel Joseph Anthony "Tony" Meehan was a founder member of the British group The Shadows with Jet Harris, Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch...
and Paul Phillips. Session players included founding Zombies
The Zombies
The Zombies are an English rock band, formed in 1961 in St Albans and led by Rod Argent, on piano and keyboards, and vocalist Colin Blunstone. The group scored a UK and US hit in 1964 with "She's Not There"...
and Argent
Argent (band)
Argent are an English rock band founded in 1969 by keyboardist Rod Argent, formerly of The Zombies.-Career:The first three demos from Argent, recorded in the autumn of 1968 featured Mac MacLeod on bass guitar though he was not meant to become a member of the group.Original members of the band were...
keyboardist Rod Argent
Rod Argent
Rod Argent is an English rock musician and a founding member of the 1960s English pop group The Zombies and the 1970s band Argent....
and founding Argent drummer Bob Henrit
Bob Henrit
Bob Henrit is an English drummer who has been a member of several musical groups, including Buster Meikle & The Daybreakers, The Hunters, Unit 4 + 2, The Roulettes, Argent and The Kinks....
.
CBS initially put considerable resources behind its new artist – promoting Howard's debut album with a major print advertising campaign, life-sized cardboard cutouts of Howard at record shops, and a launch concert for recording industry executives and press at the Purcell Room
Purcell Room
The Purcell Room is a concert and performance venue which forms part of the Southbank Centre, one of central London's leading cultural complexes. It is named after the 17th century English composer Henry Purcell and has 370 seats....
in London's Southbank Centre.
But BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
refused to play the first single, "Goodbye Suzie," calling it "too depressing," and also passed on the second single, "Family Man," calling it "anti-woman."
Technicolour Biography (recorded in 1975)
Following his debut album release in February 1975, Howard recorded two more albums of material for CBS that year. His second album – Technicolour Biography, produced by Paul Phillips – was a collection of songs in a vein similar to those on Kid in a Big World. Indeed, the songs on both of Howard's first two albums were among the group of songs, written between 1970 and 1973, that led CBS to sign Howard in late 1973. But after BBC Radio 1's rejection of the two singles from the debut album, CBS balked at this new set and shelved the project, with the songs never being developed beyond the initial "vocals and piano" demonstrations.
Can You Hear Me OK? (recorded in 1975)
At this point, CBS, anxious for a hit, paired Howard with Biddu
Biddu
Biddu or Biddu Appaiah is an Indian-British music producer, composer, song-writer and singer who produced and composed many hit records worldwide during a career spanning five decades...
, a producer best known for his pioneering work in disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
. Howard set about writing a new collection of songs, and the result was his third album, Can You Hear Me OK?
CBS's promotion of the only single, "I Got My Lady," from that fully produced third album included Howard's only live television appearance – on a December 1975 episode of the BBC television program The Musical Time Machine, which ran from 1975 to 1977. Also appearing on that episode were Johnny Mathis
Johnny Mathis
John Royce "Johnny" Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standards, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts...
and Lynsey de Paul
Lynsey De Paul
Lynsey de Paul is an English singer-songwriter. Allmusic journalist, Craig Harris stated, "one of the first successful female singer-songwriters in England, de Paul has had an illustrious career".-Early life:De Paul was born to Meta and Herbert Rubin, a property developer...
.
But when the single did not chart as well as CBS had hoped, CBS shelved that album too. Having failed to find an audience for Howard's music, CBS ultimately released only the first "installment" of Howard's first three albums – sometimes now referred to as the "Kid trilogy." Howard left the label in early 1976.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...
called this sequence of events one of the most extreme of examples of Murphy's Law in record company history."
Many years later, Howard's mentor Paul Phillips – who at the time was Howard's producer and A&R manager at CBS – had a more specific explanation. Phillips told Howard that his difficulty in getting radio airplay was due primarily to homophobia in the recording industry. Howard, who is gay, presented a louche and effete image at a time – the early 1970s – when, despite the shattering of gender stereotypes that was being heralded by the emergence of glam
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
and disco, record label executives and radio programmers still often expected gay male artists to conform to traditional ideals of masculinity and to keep their sexuality to themselves. Howard wrote about his experience of this dynamic in his 2007 song, "My Beautiful Days."
Post-Kid singles, 1977–1984
After leaving CBS, Howard spent a brief time playing London's fashionable restaurants and piano bars – including a regular stint, for several months in 1976, at April AshleyApril Ashley
April Ashley is an English model and restaurant hostess. She was the first British person to be outed as a transsexual, which was by the Sunday People in 1961...
's AD8 club.
In late 1976, Howard suffered a fall in which he broke his back and feet. But after a period of recuperation and recovery, he resumed recording and released a number of singles over the next several years.
Howard's work with the producer Trevor Horn
Trevor Horn
Trevor Charles Horn CBE is an English pop music record producer, songwriter, musician and singer. He was born in Houghton-le-Spring in north-east England....
in 1977 and 1978 resulted in two 7" singles – "I Can Breathe Again"/"You Take My Breath Away" (Ariola, 1978) and "Don't Shine Your Light"/"Baby Go Now" (SRT, 1979) – that were among Horn's earliest commercially released production credits.
And a brief return to CBS in late 1979 led to two more 7" singles – "I Tune Into You"/"Gotta New Toy" and "Lonely I, Lonely Me"/"Gotta New Toy (remix) – both released in 1980.
In 1981 – the year before Culture Club
Culture Club
Culture Club are a British rock band who were part of the 1980s New Romantic movement. The original band consisted of Boy George , Mikey Craig , Roy Hay and Jon Moss...
released its debut album, Kissing to Be Clever
Kissing to Be Clever
Kissing to Be Clever is the debut album by new wave soul band Culture Club, released in 1982.-Overview:The album was anchored by the international hit "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me". The album's first two singles were "White Boy" , and "I'm Afraid of Me"...
– Howard teamed up with Culture Club producer Steve Levine
Steve Levine
Steve Levine is a British record producer, most famous for his work on Culture Club's studio albums.Levine also has produced work for John Howard, China Crisis, Motorhead, Ziggy Marley, Westworld, The Beach Boys, and Gary Moore....
, a collaboration that resulted in another two 7" singles, "It's You I Want"/"Searching for Someone" and "And the World"/"Call on You."
A second life in A&R, 1985–2000
But by the mid 1980s, Howard had stopped recording and moved to the business side of music, where he forged a successful career in A&R for fifteen years, before "retiring" to Pembrokeshire, Wales, in 2000. Among the artists Howard worked with during this period were: Elkie BrooksElkie Brooks
Elkie Brooks is an English singer, formerly a vocalist with Vinegar Joe, and later a solo artist. Elkie has been nominated twice for Brit Awards' top female singer. She is known for her powerful husky voice...
, Maria Friedman
Maria Friedman
Maria Friedman is an English actress working in television, musical theatre, and concerts. She has won three Olivier Awards for her stage work.-Early years:...
, Connie Francis
Connie Francis
Connie Francis is an American pop singer of Italian heritage and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1950s and 1960s. Although her chart success waned in the second half of the 1960s, Francis remained a top concert draw...
, Hazell Dean
Hazell Dean
Hazell Dean is a British dance-pop singer, who achieved her biggest success in the 1980s as a leading Hi-NRG artist. She is best known for the top ten hits "Searchin' ", "Whatever I Do " and "Who's Leaving Who"...
, Sonia, Gary Glitter
Gary Glitter
Gary Glitter is an English former glam rock singer-songwriter and musician.Glitter first came to prominence in the glam rock era of the early 1970s...
, The Crickets
The Crickets
The Crickets are a rock & roll band from Lubbock, Texas, formed by singer/songwriter Buddy Holly in the 1950s. Their first hit record was "That'll Be the Day", released in 1957....
, Lonnie Donegan
Lonnie Donegan
Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...
, Madness
Madness (band)
In 1979, the band recorded the Lee Thompson composition "The Prince". The song, like the band's name, paid homage to their idol, Prince Buster. The song was released through 2 Tone Records, the label of The Specials founder Jerry Dammers. The song was a surprise hit, peaking in the UK music charts...
, Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, producer, conductor, and performer, best known for such recordings as "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana ."...
and Sir Tim Rice.
Howard did record one album during this period, The Pros and Cons of Passion. The album – a collection of Howard originals and covers of songs by George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
, 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...
, k.d. lang
K.D. Lang
Kathryn Dawn Lang, OC , known by her stage name k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter and occasional actress...
, Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
, Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
, Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
and Janet Hood/Bill Russell
Bill Russell (lyricist)
Bill Russell is an American librettist and lyricist. Russell's works include Side Show Playbill Critics Circle , Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens , and Pageant .Russell received a Tony...
– was slated for 1996 release on the Carlton label. But – as if to remind Howard that Murphy's law still was in effect – the label folded the week before the album's street date
Street date
In business, a street date is the date a particular product is to be released for sale to the general public.Typically, retailers receive shipments of stock prior to its street date release, so that the product can be placed on display shelves for store opening that day...
, and the album remained unreleased until Howard released it himself in 2008.
Rediscovering the muse, 2003–2005
The album cover of Kid in a Big World was featured in Matsui Takumi's 2002 book, In Search of the Lost Record: British Album Cover Art of 50's to 80s. This turned out to be one signpost of a revival of interest in Howard's early work. Responding to this, Cherry Red RecordsCherry Red
Cherry Red is a London-based independent record label formed in 1978.-History:Cherry Red grew from the rock promotion company founded in 1971 to promote rock concerts at the Malvern Winter Gardens...
subsidiary RPM Records
RPM Records (UK)
RPM Records is a record label founded in 1991, and based in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England. The label specialises in reissues under the slogan: "Brought to you by collectors for collectors." It forms part of the Cherry Red group....
in September 2003 featured "Goodbye Suzie" – the song which, when it was released in October 1974, BBC Radio 1 had scuttled as being "too depressing" – on its compilation "Zigzag: 20 Junkshop Soft Rock Singles 1970–1974." Two months later, and nearly thirty years after the album's original release, RPM re-issued Kid in a Big World.
In early 2004, Uncut
UNCUT (magazine)
Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...
magazine gave the re-issue a 5-star review, in which reviewer Paul Lester
Paul Lester
Paul Lester is a British music journalist, author and broadcaster from Elstree, North London.- Career :He began his career as a freelance, writing for Melody Maker in the early 1990s, as well as City Limits, 20/20 , Sky Magazine and The Jewish Chronicle...
wrote that
Kid in a Big World is a magnificent collection of rococo balladry and florid vignettes from a singer-songwriter who might have rivalled EltonElton JohnSir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
or BowieDavid BowieDavid Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
had his record company managed to market him right during that strange nether-period between glam and punk.
Howard, wrote Lester, is "the missing link between Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
and ... Momus."
Coward is a frequent reference in reviews of Howard's music. A couple of years after the re-issue of Kid, the Manchester poet Robert Cochrane – who collaborated as the lyricist on Howard's 2005 album The Dangerous Hours – observed that Kid is "Noel Coward getting fruit with Elton and Ziggy
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
," and that "[the album's] florid, glam piano balladry seemed more contemporary in the age of Rufus Wainwright
Rufus Wainwright
Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. He has recorded six albums of original music, EPs, and tracks on compilations and film soundtracks.-Early years:...
than it must have done at the height of pub rock
Pub rock (UK)
Pub rock was a rock music genre that developed in the mid 1970s in the United Kingdom. A back-to-basics movement, pub rock was a reaction against progressive and glam rock. Although short-lived, pub rock was notable for rejecting stadium venues and for returning live rock to the small pubs and...
."
A few weeks after the Uncut review, a London show by Howard – organized by RPM to celebrate the re-issue of Kid – included in the audience Lawrence Hayward
Lawrence Hayward
Lawrence Hayward , known simply as Lawrence, his surname never used in credits or press, is best known as the singer, songwriter and guitarist of British indie band Felt.-Felt:...
of Felt
Felt (band)
Felt were a 1980s British alternative rock band led by Lawrence, whose surname was never listed in any credits or press; the band's name was inspired by Tom Verlaine's emphasis of the word "felt" in the Television song "Venus"...
, Peter Astor
Peter Astor
Pete Astor is a British songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his work with The Loft, The Weather Prophets and Ellis Island Sound.- History :...
of The Weather Prophets
The Weather Prophets
The Weather Prophets were a British indie band formed in London in 1986 after the break-up of The Loft. After two studio albums, the band split up, with singer Peter Astor going on to a solo career.- History :...
and rock biographer Nina Antonia
Nina Antonia
Nina Antonia is an English music journalist and author. She has written articles and books about punk-rock era recording artists, including Johnny Thunders and Peter Perrett and has contributed to Mojo and Spiral Scratch magazines, written liner notes for The Stooges live recording Studio Sessions...
, further attesting to Howard's influence.
In 2004 and 2005, respectively, RPM issued the other two (unreleased) albums of the Kid trilogy – Technicolour Biography and Can You Hear Me OK? The first of these prompted a less predictable appearance by Coward, in a review by Anthony Reynolds
Anthony Reynolds
Anthony Reynolds is a Welsh musician. He has worked as a solo artist, and also in collaboration with others in his bands Jack and Jacques.-Jack:...
, who wrote that
Technicolour Biography's "title track...sound[s] like the hangover to the night out of the preceding track. Grand, grand piano and a masterful vocal hinting at distant choirs and philharmonics, telling of wide-screen sagas of beaches and car lots, of premieres at empty cinemas. It's like Coward writes Kerouac."
During this period, Howard entered a second stage of creative output, recording and releasing more than seven albums' worth of new material from 2004 to the present.
The Dangerous Hours (2005)
In a four-star review of 2005's The Dangerous Hours, Howard's collaboration with Robert Cochrane and his first new album release in 30 years, Alexis Petridis wrote in The Guardian that
the intervening decades have done nothing to blunt the edge on Howard's songs. Nor have they dulled the flamboyance of his delivery ... Thirty years on, he still sounds astonishing – a man making up for lost time with enviable panache."
The album, wrote Stephen Thomas Erlewine in his own four-star review, has "all of the hallmarks of [Howard's] '70s work – big, sweeping, cinematic choruses, lush, sighing melodies, music that is once dramatic and intimate," and "Cochrane's words...flow like Howard's own." Musically "spare and simple, just Howard and his piano, occasionally embellished with a synthesizer and overdubbed vocals," the album is "a perfect soundtrack for either late-night introspection or a contemplative Sunday morning. The best thing about The Dangerous Hours...[is] that it proves that his skills as a craftsman are untarnished after all these years."
As I Was Saying (2005)
In late 2005, Howard released on RPM parent label Cherry Red what Erlewine called Howard's "true comeback" album, the wryly titled As I Was Saying, the first album collection of new, original all-Howard songs since 1975. The album features ex-Lush
Lush (band)
Lush were an English alternative rock band, formed in 1987 and disbanded in 1998. They were one of the first bands to attract the "shoegazing" label...
bass guitarist Phil King on electric bass and Andre Barreau
Andre Barreau
-The Bootleg Beatles:Following the final show of the West End musical Beatlemania, Barreau formed The Bootleg Beatles with fellow cast members Neil Harrison and David Catlin-Birch...
– who plays George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
in 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...
tribute band The Bootleg Beatles
The Bootleg Beatles
The Bootleg Beatles are a Beatles tribute band. They have performed over 4,000 times since their establishment in March 1980.- History :The band's first performance was at a small student gathering in Tiverton, Devon, England. Following more low-profile gigs, the band performed a 60-date tour of...
and who also was the lead guitarist on Robbie Williams's
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter "Robbie" Williams is an English singer-songwriter, vocal coach and occasional actor. He is a member of the pop group Take That. Williams rose to fame in the band's first run in the early- to mid-1990s. After many disagreements with the management and certain group members, Williams...
1997 single, "Angels" – on guitars.
"The voice," wrote Helen Wright, "is in peak condition – richer than in his youth but retaining all the character, and sounding more and more like a slightly posher John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
." Wright singled out the song "Oh, Do Give It A Rest, Love" – which Dickon Edwards
Dickon Edwards
Dickon Edwards is a London-based indie pop musician, writer, critic, DJ and online diarist. Although his parents named him Richard Edwards, they also chose to call him by the archaic derivative of Richard, "Dickon"...
had called the album's "epic centrepiece" – as "a tour-de-force, a seven minute epic of wit and bitchiness that manages to include pretty well the entire history of pop music."
Erlewine wrote that
Howard's writing is as strong as it was in the '70s – clever...in his lyrics and graceful in his melodies....Howard is clearly an older songwriter, and has become more sentimental with time, but instead of turning him saccharine, it has given him a warm, hazy glow appropriate for his sweet melodicism, which has not diminished over time....[I]t's a quiet, understated gem of a comeback.
Same Bed, Different Dreams (2006)
The momentum of new songwriting and recording continued with Howard's 2006 album Same Bed, Different Dreams, released on the small French label Disques Eurovisions. Although the release of Same Bed was delayed until the summer of 2006 – the year after 2005's Dangerous Hours and As I Was Saying – Howard had laid down and sent to Eurovisions demos of all 14 of the album's songs in January 2004. So these actually were the first new songs that Howard recorded after the re-issue of Kid in a Big World in November 2003.
Reviewing Same Bed for the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles
Les Inrockuptibles
Les Inrockuptibles is a French cultural magazine. Started as a monthly magazine in 1986, it became weekly in 1995. The name is a play on "Les Incorruptibles", the French title of the American television series The Untouchables...
, Celine Remy quipped that it "takes us back to a time when Elton John preferred writing to shopping," with Matthieu Grunfeld in another French magazine, Magic RPM, suggesting that the album "should find a strong echo among...the fans of Ben Folds."
Barefoot With Angels (2007)
Howard followed Same Bed, Different Dreams with his 2007 album, Barefoot With Angels. Released on the small Spanish label, Hanky Panky Records, the album includes the song, "The Exquisites," that Howard wrote for his 2005 London show at the Glam-ou-rama community's Night of a Thousand Ziggys. John Howard calls the song – which initially was inspired by Oscar Wilde's
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
dictum that "The future belongs to the dandy. It is the exquisites who are going to rule." –
my take on how glam rock saved pop music in the early ‘70s after the Beatles had left the scene and the ‘60s had ended with a whimper. T. Rex, Bowie, Roxy MusicRoxy MusicRoxy Music was a British art rock band formed in 1971 by Bryan Ferry, who became the group's lead vocalist and chief songwriter, and bassist Graham Simpson. The other members are Phil Manzanera , Andy Mackay and Paul Thompson . Former members include Brian Eno , and Eddie Jobson...
and their gorgeous chart-colleagues brought fun, great singles and beauty back to a pop scene badly in need of a polish.
Barefoot also includes the song "Magdalena Merrywidow," Howard's tribute to April Ashley.
Howard appeared as a pianist on two other albums in 2007: Anthony Reynolds's
Anthony Reynolds
Anthony Reynolds is a Welsh musician. He has worked as a solo artist, and also in collaboration with others in his bands Jack and Jacques.-Jack:...
British Ballads (Spinney) and Darren Hayman's
Darren Hayman
Darren Russell Hayman is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as the lead singer and guitarist in Hefner...
Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern (Track & Field
The Track & Field Organisation
The Track & Field Organization is a London based independent record label, founded in 1999 by Steven Drew and Paul Wright. The label's first release was Kicker's "Said and Done" / "Chancifer" single, in April 2000, and The Tyde's debut album, Once, in March 2001.-Artists:* Beatnik Filmstars* The...
). Both albums tapped the contributions of musicians who had been extremely influential in 1980s British indie pop, with the Reynolds album featuring ex-Cocteau Twin
Cocteau Twins
Cocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative rock band active from 1979 to 1997, known for innovative instrumentation and atmospheric, non-lyrical vocals...
Simon Raymonde
Simon Raymonde
Simon Philip Raymonde is an English musician and record producer. He is the son of the late arranger and composer, Ivor Raymonde.-Career:...
and the Hayman album featuring Pete Astor, who had founded The Loft
The Loft (band)
The Loft were a British indie band, whose debut single was one of the earliest releases on Creation Records.- History :Formed in 1980 as The Living Room by Peter Astor , Bill Prince , Andy Strickland and Dave Morgan , the band changed its name when they discovered a local music venue also called...
and The Weather Prophets
The Weather Prophets
The Weather Prophets were a British indie band formed in London in 1986 after the break-up of The Loft. After two studio albums, the band split up, with singer Peter Astor going on to a solo career.- History :...
.
Truly solo, 2008-present
After releasing four new albums on small independent labels from 2005 to 2007, Howard began recording, releasing and selling CDs of his music on his own label, Kid in a Big World, with digital releases of his entire catalog through AWAL.Navigate Home (2009)
2009's Navigate Home – which Howard wrote while waiting to move from Wales to Spain and completed recording in Spain – was the first album to reflect this new approach. Reviewing the album in Dusty Wright's
Dusty Wright
Dusty Wright is an American musician and writer who co-founded the audio podcasting and video webcasting online pop culture magazine CultureCatch.com featuring his interview series The Dusty Wright Show...
online pop culture magazine Culture Catch, Robert Cochrane observed:
John Howard has in his early fifties reached a point of creative maturity few achieve, especially after almost twenty-five years in the "dump-bin" and it is a further irony that this album is entitled Navigate Home. During the period of its gestation, he was a temporary resident of transitory homes: the home of the past, the home within his head, and a home as yet unbuilt. Waiting to emigrate to Spain, he realized a series of songs sublimely inhabited by English ghosts, a haunting and restful work, completed and refined in his new country, but without even a hint of sunshine or sangria, only suggestions of clouds and summer showers. Knowing he was leaving England allowed him to plunder his past with a fresh and concise perspective. These songs have a longing and a sense of focused regret. Nostalgia is too obvious and unsubtle a label. There is a strange air of resolution and refinement present. It is a gathering up of half a century's memories, his most personal album so far, but free of anger and misery. Tranquil in tone, but pulled by the magnets of retrospection and anticipation, these songs have a striving but restful nature, a certain sadness, but balanced by a spirit of joyful projection. These are kindly conversations sung into an unsuspecting ear.
- Dry Run (2011)
- In October 2011, Howard released the original demos for Navigate Home as a separate album, Dry Run: The "Navigate Home" Demos. This album includes demos of two additional songs, "Genius" and "In Your Dreams," that did not make it onto the original album.
Exhibiting Tendencies (2011)
Howard's tenth studio album, Exhibiting Tendencies, had its digital release in February 2011 and its CD release in May 2011.
He currently is at work on a new album, scheduled for release in 2012.
Personal life
In 2006, Howard and retired theatre actor and director Neil France – Howard's partner of now 25 years – were married in a civil partnership ceremony in Pembrokeshire.The next year, 2007, Howard and France moved from the United Kingdom to Murcia, Spain, where they continue to live.
Studio albums
- Kid in a Big World (CBS, 1975; RPM Records reissue, 2003; AWAL (digital), 2009)
- Technicolour Biography (CBS, 1975, unreleased; RPM Records, 2004; AWAL (digital), 2009)
- Can You Hear Me OK? (CBS, 1975, unreleased; RPM Records, 2005; AWAL (digital), 2010)
- The Dangerous Hours (Bad Pressings, 2005; AWAL (digital), 2006)
- As I Was Saying (Cherry Red Records, 2005; AWAL (digital), 2010)
- Same Bed, Different Dreams (Euro Visions, 2006; AWAL (digital), 2007)
- Barefoot With Angels (Hanky Panky and AWAL (digital), 2008)
- The Pros and Cons of Passion (Carlton, 1996, unreleased; Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2008)
- Navigate Home (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2009)
- Dry Run: The "Navigate Home" Demos (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2011)
- Exhibiting Tendencies (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2011)
Studio EPs
- Walk on the Wild Side (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2007)
- My Beautiful Days (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2007)
- The Bewlay Brothers (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2007)
- Songs for the Lost and Found (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2008)
- Songs for a Lifetime (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2009)
Solo
- "Goodbye Suzie," from Kid in a Big World (CBS, 1974; Tony MeehanTony MeehanDaniel Joseph Anthony "Tony" Meehan was a founder member of the British group The Shadows with Jet Harris, Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch...
, producer) - "Family Man," from Kid in a Big World (CBS, 1975; Paul Phillips, producer)
- "I Got My Lady," from Can You Hear Me OK? (CBS, 1975; BidduBidduBiddu or Biddu Appaiah is an Indian-British music producer, composer, song-writer and singer who produced and composed many hit records worldwide during a career spanning five decades...
, producer) - "I Can Breathe Again" / "You Take My Breath Away" (Ariola, 1978; Trevor Horn, producer)
- "Don't Shine Your Light" / "Baby Go Now" (double A-side) (SRT, 1979; Trevor Horn, producer)
- "I Tune Into You" / "Gotta New Toy" (CBS, 1980; Nicky GrahamNicky GrahamNicky Graham is a musician, songwriter and music producer from the UK.He played keyboards for David Bowie throughout most of 1972 including on the Spiders from Mars tour, August and September 1972. He was A & R Manager at CBS Records UK during the 1980s when he signed The Clash...
, producer) - "Lonely I, Lonely Me" / "Gotta New Toy (remix)" (CBS, 1980; Nicky Graham, producer)
- "Nothing More To Say" / "You Keep Me Steady" (Loose Records, 1984)
As Quiz (with Steve Levine)
- "It's You I Want" / "Searching for Someone" (Hit City, 1981; Steve LevineSteve LevineSteve Levine is a British record producer, most famous for his work on Culture Club's studio albums.Levine also has produced work for John Howard, China Crisis, Motorhead, Ziggy Marley, Westworld, The Beach Boys, and Gary Moore....
, producer) - "And the World" / "Call On You" (Hit City, 1981; Steve Levine, producer)
Collections
- Sketching the Landscape: Demos, 1973–1979 (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2008)
- Creating Impressions: Singles & Rarities, 1980–1990 (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2008)
- These Fifty Years: The Best of John Howard (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2009)
- Making Tracks: Curios & Collectables, 2001–2009 (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2010)
Live albums
- In the Room Upstairs: Live at the Briton's Protection (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2007)
- More from the Room Upstairs: Live at the Briton's Protection (Kid in a Big World and AWAL (digital), 2008)
Original songs
- "Goodbye Suzie" on Zigzag: 20 Junkshop Soft Rock Singles, 1970–1974 (RPM Records, 2003)
- "Goodbye Suzie" on 15-Track Pick of the Best Recent Music (Uncut magazine, June 2004)
- "Missing Key" on Best of 2004 Reissues, vol. 2 (Uncut magazine, December 2004)
Cover versions
- "Beautiful Lies" on Songs for the Next Generation, Michael Weston King tribute album (ARC Music Group, 2007)
- "The Bewlay Brothers" on Rebel Rebel: A Tribute to David Bowie (Uncut magazine, June 2008)
- "Something" on While My Guitar Gentle Weeps: Covers, Curios & the Music That Inspired George Harrison (Uncut magazine, August 2008)
Other album contributions
- Anthony Reynolds: British Ballads (Spinney, 2007) – piano
- Darren Hayman: Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern (Track & Field, 2007) – piano
Official
Articles
Robert Cochrane"Anatomy of the Comeback Kid" (Culture Catch, 5 September 2006) and "A Most English Decline" (The Bad Press, 2004)
Interviews
With Peter Steward2011 and 2009 and 2008
With Helen Wright
October 2005
Album reviews
Navigate HomeCulture Catch
Same Bed, Different Dreams
musicOMH and Snaz Music and Les Inrockuptibles (French) and Magic RPM (French)
As I Was Saying
musicOMH and AllRovi and Glam-ou-rama
The Dangerous Hours
The Guardian and musicOMH and AllRovi and Glam-ou-rama
Can You Hear Me OK?
musicOMH and AllRovi
Technicolour Biography
Uncut and musicOMH and AllRovi
Kid in a Big World
Uncut and musicOMH and AllRovi
Performance reviews
12 Bar Club, London, 18 January 2006Dickon Edwards
Club Bohemia @ Buffalo Bar, London, 24 September 2005
musicOMH
Cecil Sharp House, London, 26 August 2004
musicOMH
Jermyn Street Theater, London, 1 April 2004
The Guardian and musicOMH