A Short Bio:
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The Canterbury scene spawned many
talented keyboard players - to name but a few : David
Sinclair, Mike Ratledge, Dave MacRae, Alan Gowen, Peter
Lemer... - but for many of us Dave
Stewart deserves the most
consideration. And although he has moved away from this
musical genre in the last two decades, to launch a successful
career in pop music with his partner Barbara Gaskin, his
essential contribution to the music of Hatfield and the
North and National Health is still fondly remembered.
David Lloyd Stewart was born in Waterloo (London) in 1950. Developing
an interest for rock and pop in his early teens, he soon
took up the guitar, until that fateful day when he made the
acquaintance of Steve Hillage and Mont Campbell, two other
pupils at the City Of London School. When Hillage and
Campbell decided to form a band together, Stewart, who also
wanted to be involved, decided - given Hillage's precocious
talents on the guitar - to switch to organ. Thus with the
recruitment of drummer Clive Brooks, Uriel was founded. At
that point, one of Stewart's major
influences was The Nice, the organ trio led by Keith
Emerson, so he added a light classical touch to Uriel's
mainly blues-oriented repertoire. When Hillage left
following a summer residency at the Ryde Castle Hotel on the
Isle of Wight, the band became a trio and renamed itself
Egg.
With Campbell developing writing skills,
Egg eventually dropped cover versions in favour of an
entirely original repertoire. Although writing credits on
both the band's albums on Deram - Egg (1970) and
The Polite Force (1970) - were collective, Stewart later admitted
that "95% of Egg's music [had been] written by Mont
Campbell". In fact, the first outlet for his own
compositions was provided by a parallel venture named The
Ottawa Music Company, a large rock orchestra he formed with
then-flatmate Chris Cutler (later of Henry Cow). This was a
sort of "rock composers' orchestra" which was active around
1971, and at various times involved the members of Egg, Khan
and Henry Cow, and others. Pieces by various members of the
orchestra, plus covers of Robert Wyatt and Frank Zappa
material, were performed, but in total only a handful of
gigs took place. It would be a couple more years before Stewart
would be able to put his writing skills to good use, with
Hatfield and the North.
Egg eventually came to an end in the
Spring of 1972, at which point they had been dropped by
Decca and Mont Campbell had lost faith in the band. For a
while, Stewart and Brooks thought they might continue with
another bass player (the name of Hugh Hopper was
considered), but Stewart later confessed
he didn't feel confident enough to become the main writer in
a group. Having guested on the debut album by Steve
Hillage's new band Khan, he accepted Hillage's offer to join
Khan, and toured with them until the guitarist went off to
tour France with Kevin Ayers, then Gong. The following
months (late 1972-early 1973) were very hard for
Stewart, who after recording a demo with the ex-Khan
rhythm section was involved in a series of "menial" non-musical jobs, until an unexpected telephone call from
one Pip Pyle came to rescue him.
It was by then February 1973, and Dave
Sinclair had just left Hatfield and the North, who were now
looking for a keyboard player. Following a quick audition,
Stewart
was offered the gig, and accepted. With a pedigree of Phil
Miller (ex-Matching Mole), Richard Sinclair (ex-Caravan) and
Pip Pyle (ex-Gong), the band was quickly signed to the
emerging Virgin label and recorded two albums -
Hatfield and the
North (1974) and The Rotters Club (1975)
- and a single - "Let's Eat (Real Soon)" (1974) - and toured
Europe extensively. Although the composing duties were
shared equally by band members, Stewart was the most
prolific writer, providing Hatfield with complex epics such
as "(Son Of) There's No Place Like Homerton" or
"Mumps".
While a member of Hatfield,
Dave
also took part in other musical ventures. One was the embryo
of a later fertile musical relationship with fellow keyboard
player Alan Gowen. Already acquainted with Phil Miller,
Gowen wrote special arrangements for two double-quartet gigs
by Hatfield and his own band Gilgamesh, which took place in
November 1973 in Leeds and London. This was the precursor to
National Health. Stewart was also
offered the opportunity of reforming Egg for a final album
(containing mainly material dating from 1971 and previously
unrecorded), The Civil
Surface (1974), released on
Virgin's subsidiary label Caroline. Also in 1974, he guested
on Steve Hillage's debut solo album, Fish Rising (1975) -
which included some leftovers from the pair's Khan days -
and at Robert Wyatt's legendary Drury Lane comeback
concert.
After Hatfield and
the North split up in early June 1975, Stewart joined Gong for
a brief spell, staying with the band in France for a tour later that month
until Patrice Lemoine was recruited as new keyboard player. "Steve
Hillage and I were school mates, and when he joined Gong, Hatfield and
the North would often play concerts on the same bill. These gigs were
great fun, and sometimes we'd all jam together during the encore... After
Hatfield split, I did a few gigs with Gong, and spent a bit of time with
them in France, but it was just a temporary thing - highly enjoyable though".
Then, having kept in touch with Alan
Gowen and helped produce Gilgamesh's debut album, he and
Gowen decided to form a new band together, National Health
(named after Dave's glasses!). The original plan was to have
nine musicians - two guitarists, two keyboard players, one
bass player, one drummer and three vocalists - but, though
the first line-up included seven musicians, it was
progressively trimmed down to just four. Similarly, the
band's musical direction changed over the years. Under
Stewart's influence, it became more melodic and got away
from the neo-classical, ultra-complex pieces written by Mont
Campbell (the former bass player of Egg, who shared the
composition work with Stewart and Gowen until
his departure in mid-1976), and the improvisational leanings
of jazz-influenced Alan Gowen, who also left in early 1977
(although he appeared on the first album in a full member
role, albeit with a guest credit). While a member of
National Health, Stewart found time to
appear on Hugh Hopper's solo album, Hoppertunity Box.
By mid-1978, however, and the sessions
for Of Queues And
Cures, Stewart had started to
lose faith in National Health. This was due both to the hard
financial situation of the band, and conflicting views with
the other members on its musical direction. So in November
1978, he left and soon joined up with Bill Bruford.
Stewart
had already collaborated with Bruford (the original drummer
in National Health, and also, of course, the former drummer
with Yes and King Crimson) on his debut solo album,
Feels Good To Me, and the other two main contributors to that
album - Allan Holdsworth (guitar) and Jeff Berlin (bass) -
were invited to join the new band. Although Stewart helped a lot
with the arrangements, and wrote or co-wrote several pieces,
he was however frustrated with not being the leader and main
writer, and worked on his own projects as a sideline.
One of these projects was a collaboration
with Hatfield/National Health's roadie and live sound
engineer Rick Biddulph, also a bass player and vocalist.
This resulted in the formation of a parallel band, Rapid Eye
Movement, with Pip Pyle on drums and Jakko Jakszyk on guitar
and vocals. It was mainly active for a series of concerts in
1980-81 after Bruford (the band) had more or less ground to
a halt following the second of two summer American tours. At
that point, National Health had also split up.
R.E.M. (not to be confused, of course,
with the American band of the same name) would be
Stewart's last band venture, as during that period he
started working on solo material which eventually led to his
partnership with Barbara Gaskin. The starting point was a
cover of Jimmy Ruffin's hit "What Becomes Of The
Brokenhearted", which he toyed around with and eventually
recorded, in an instrumental form, during spare time at a
friend's studio. Several singers (including Robert Wyatt and
Julie Tippetts) were approached and declined, until Colin
Blunstone (Zombies, Alan Parsons Project and solo artist)
could be convinced to perform on it for no money. Although Stewart
failed to attract any label attention with the song, he was
offered a distribution deal by Rough Trade and created his
own label, Broken Records. The single was thus released and
was an instant success (reaching #13 in the British charts),
thanks notably to the support of Radio One who started
playing it several times a day. This resulted in an
appearance on 'Top Of The Tops' in March 1981 and
considerable sales.
For the follow-up, Stewart asked his
longtime friend Barbara Gaskin (one of Hatfield's
'Northettes') to sing, in her typically English way, on a
cover version of "It's My Party" which, with its eccentric
and unusual arrangement, was another big hit, both in Great
Britain (#1 in September 1981) and Germany (#1 in November
1981). During that period, Stewart took part in
the reformation of National Health to pay homage to the late
Alan Gowen, playing three concerts and recording an album -
D.S. Al Coda - of his unreleased material. And towards the end
of 1981, work started on Stewart-Gaskin's first
album.
Unfortunately, the
duo took six months to produce Disappear, and by the time they
approached record companies looking for a contract (August 1982), they
were no longer interested. Thus Stewart-Gaskin remained independent,
releasing their works on Broken Records via license contracts with British,
American, Japanese and German labels. Up From The Dark (1985),
released by Rykodisc in the US, mixed excerpts from the never-released
Disappear and tracks from various singles released inbetween ("Busy
Doing Nothing", "Leipzig" and "I'm In A Different World"). Broken Records
- The Singles, a collection of singles' A and B sides, was released
by Midi in Japan. Finally, As Far As Dreams Can Go, also on Midi,
provided listeners with the remainder of the Disappear tracks,
plus two extra songs (a cover of "The Locomotion", featuring Jimmy Hastings'
sampled sax, and "Make Me Promises"). Between 1987 and 1989, the first
Stewart-Gaskin album conceived as such, The Big Idea (1989), was
recorded, and in 1991, Spin followed. It was promoted with a 12-date
American tour in October 1991 (with guitarist Andy Reynolds supporting
the duo) as well as dates in Japan.
The duo's visibility
would diminish in subsequent years however, apart from the odd live appearances
(one London gig in 1996 and a short Japanese tour in 2001). Stewart
kept busy helping friends on their recording projects. This included production
credits for Jakko Jakszyk (and notable performances on his 2006 album
The Bruised Romantic Glee Club), Peter Blegvad, Nigel Planer
(of Neil's Heavy Concept Album fame), regular collaborations
with Phil Miller (on tracks from his Cutting Both Ways, Split Seconds
and Conspiracy Theories albums) and Pip Pyle's solo album, Seven-Year
Itch (1998). Stewart has also contributed string arrangements for several albums by Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson and Anathema.
The long-awaited
new album by Stewart-Gaskin, Green And Blue, was released on March
27th, 2009, via Burning Shed. Stewart himself described it as their
"most varied" to date, "combining heart-rending
ballads, poppy toe-tappers, lengthy musical explorations and a heavy-metal
thrash", yet is "united by the duo's trademark musicality".
Apart from one cover version it consists entirely of original material,
and includes contributions by longtime collaborators Andy Reynolds (guitar),
Gavin Harrison (drums) and Peter Blegvad (narration). |
