D.S. al Coda


National Health

"This record is a dedication to Alan Gowen who died on May 17th 1981. All the music is written by him during the period 1979 - 81 except Arriving Twice which was written previously and recorded on Gilgamesh's first album (Caroline 1975) and TNTFX which is to be found on their second album Another Fine Tune You've Got Me Into (Charly 1978).
Flanagan's People and Toad of Toad Hall had been played on gigs with National Health during 1979 and Shining Water had been played twice during this period.
Portrait of a Shrinking Man, Tales of a Damson Knight and Black Hat were rehearsed but never performed in public.
After his departure from National Health Alan rewrote and expanded some of the pieces for larger instrumentation. However, the familiarity gained from rehearsing these tunes in their earlier forms lessened the problems of feel and interpretation when dealing with the second draft. It is fortunate that these scores were almost complete and that very little except for the odd finishing touch was required to bring the pieces to a workable point.'
Phil Miller

Recorded at Matrix, 35 Little Russell St, London W!, Oct/Nov 1981
Produced by National Health and Nick Bradford; Engineered by Nick Bradford
Released: 1982
Label: Europa/Lounging Records
Cat. No. LA 02

Personnel:

Phil Miller (Guitars)
Dave Stewart (Organ, Pianos and Tone Generator)
John Greaves (Bass)
Pip Pyle (Drums and Simmons SDSV Electric drums)

Ted Emmett (Trumpet)
Annie Whitehead (Trombone)
Amanda Parsons, Barbara Gaskin (Backing Vocals)
Jimmy Hastings (Flute)
Elton Dean (Saxello)
Richard Sinclair (Vocals)

Tracklist

Side One

  1. Portrait of a Shrinking Man (5.35)
  2. TNTFX (3.11)
  3. Black Hat (4.52)
  4. I Feel a Night Coming On (6.38)
  5. Arriving Twice (2.20)

Side Two

  1. Shining Water (8.50)
  2. Tales of a Damson Knight (1.55)
  3. Flanagans People (7.31)
  4. Toad of Toad Hall (5.35)

Transcription and HTML by Andy Murkin

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