Old Enough to Forget

I really can't say I've ever listened to Marianne Faithfull. The first thing that really jumped out at me, aside from the nearly horrific condition of the record, was her voice. Particularly her vibrato. I know this was something of a hallmark in the early '60s among some folk singers but dang it, it just makes me think of running my finger up and down my Adam's apple while trying to sing. Of course the Germans have a word for this. They seem to have a word for everything to describe any situation. So off to the internet I went. Originally I was looking for a word my mum used to use that sounded a bit like "hecka" that she said described the sound a chicken made just before you chopped off its head. As you'd expect that search came up with a lot, A LOT of unusable trivia. However, eventually I settled on Die Schwebung , which roughly translates to a "floating" or "hovering" vibrato. In German acoustic terms, a Schwebung happens when two...

The late Rupert Hine was a producer of the highest order who made incredible albums with SAGA, The Fixx, Howard Jones and Eight Seconds to name just a few. I knew he had a solo career that was a bit sporadic, but never heard any of his stuff. He released a trio of albums in the '80s, starting with this one, Immunity in '81. Then he would drop another in '82 and finally one more in '83, and then he'd take over a decade before releasing his last solo album in 1994. I bought this as a curiosity, and really had no idea what to expect. Sometimes a producer's fingerprints are unmistakable and are everywhere regardless of the act they're working with. Yeah, I'm thinking of David Foster ... although I do have to say The Tubes were the exception to the rule ... but you know what I mean. Rupert Hine's work with other artists was transparent. His style seemed to provide focus to the band he was producing, and he brought out their best work. Immunity is an odd...