Steve Lewis at Virgin Music got to hear tracks I'd worked on with Andy Fraser and thought I would be a good fit for producing Virgin's new signing Climax Blues Band. There are two songs that I brought to the band actually because of Andy Fraser. "Listen to The Night" was written by Graham Lyle who I'd met at Andy's house when they were writing together and also "I'm Ready" that Andy had co written with Frankie Miller.Reviewers of this album have questioned the connection with Andy Fraser and this is the reason.
Also talking of connections Tony Brinsley who was another Torquay lad had been there manager and also the Bass player in Cat Iron who I'd shared a house with on my move to London in 1972. So I'd met the band years before at Air Studios. We did about a week of pre production in Stafford before we headed of to Gus Dudgeon's former studio The Mill in Cookham, Berkshire. At this point it had been bought by Jimmy Page but still run by Stuart Epps and technical engineer Rod Duggan. It was a wonderful place to record set in this old Mill with a custom MCI JH500 console and MCI multitrack.
After the initial week of recording John Cuffley departed the project after recording just one song "Heaven and Hell".
Henry Spinetti and Dave Marquee became the rhythm section with Robin George guesting on Bass on "Movie Queen" with George Glover on keyboards.
My dear friend Adrian Lee escaped from Mike and Mechanics and did a wonderful synth string arrangement on "Seven Seas". Pete Haycock shared with me about a year before he passed he regarded this song as the finest of his career.
We did all the recording and mixing at The Mill (or Sol as named in Jimmy's ownership).
In 2012 I was involved in a material selection process that would have brought a reunion of Derek Holt and Pete Haycock together with Charlie Morgan and Robin George. Sadly egos still had not healed and the planned project in Nashville did not happen.
R.I.P. Colin and Pete happy memories of our time making "Sample and Hold".
