R.I.P. Steve Harley

Last weekend it was announced one Steve Harley, a musician whose wongs I grew up with died aged 73.

Steve had been activity musically be it recording or performing live from the start and ineed up to November last year had been touring when it was announced he was putting that on hold while he was being treated for cancer.

While some starts have brief period of fame followed by a greater period outside of the business or moving elsewhere in the entertainment industry, that wasn't him.

I was buying new recordings by him in the 80's as much as the likes of Radio One treated him as a has been.

Stephen Malcolm Ronald Nice, known by his stage name Steve Harley, was an English singer-songwriter and frontman of the glam rock group Cockney Rebel. He had six UK hit singles with the band in the mid-1970s, including "Judy Teen", "Mr. Soft", and the number one "Make Me Smile".

That album, originally issued in 1980 and compiled under the great Colin Milesremains the perfect compilation covering all three periods of Cockney Rebel the band that backed him and to which famously he was something of a perfectionist of when it came to their backing.

It covered everything from the earliest singles like the other worldy Sebastian from 1973 to his last single of 1979 taking in the big sellers like Mr. Soft, Judy Teen here in its singles version, and his inspired remake of Here Comes The Sun from 1976 which was an early EMI 12" single.

That was reissued in EMI Records Fame mid price series in 1982 but keeping the original vinyl cutting by Harry T Moss at Abbey Road, one of the finest in the business of cutting records and that is my copy.

I played this on Wednesday thinking about that music, part of the great soundtrack of the mid 70's childhood we had.