Alan Bown (with Robert Palmer) - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1969-1970

Here's the second and last BBC Sessions album for the band Alan Bown. By chance, this album is great for highlighting the start of the career of Robert Palmer. So if you're a fan of his music, you may want to listen to this, even if you care nothing about Alan Bown.

Robert Palmer would later go on to much bigger fame and fortune with hits like "Addicted to Love" and "Simply Irresistible" in the 1980s. From 1966 to 1969, the lead vocalist for the band was Jess Roden. But he decided to leave in 1969 for a solo career. He was replaced by Palmer in time for the 1969 single "Gypsy Girl." That happens to be the third song here. Palmer left in October 1970 to join the band Vinegar Joe. It so happens the last song here was recorded in September 1970. The band stayed together until 1972, but if there are later BBC recordings, I don't have them.

As a result, the vast majority of the songs here are sung by Palmer. I think only the first one is not. Most of the songs are from the 1970 album "Listen." That was released in late 1970 as Palmer was leaving the band. They were recorded at the last minute by a new vocalist, so the Palmer versions have never been released. (Ironically, the exact same thing happened when he came into the band. Roden, the previous lead vocalist, had his album vocals wiped by Palmer's versions for most of the songs.) Because of that, one can hear the Palmer versions here, almost like a lost album from Palmer's long music career.

All but one of these versions of the songs here are officially unreleased. The one exception, "Movie Star Baby," has come out on a various artists compilation of obscure BBC recordings. However, the vast majority come from pristine transcription discs, so the sound quality is really good. There are three exceptions. Two songs, "Crash Landing" and "Make Up Your Mind," come from a BBC concert hosted by DJ John Peel. I'm guessing this was a longer show of at least half an hour yet somehow only two fell into my hands. If anyone has the rest of the show, please let me know. Also, the song "Curfew" comes from a BBC TV show called "Disco 2." That show later evolved into the better known "The Old Grey Whistle Test." I found that because a video of it survives on YouTube. Unfortunately the picture quality is crappy and it black and white even though the sound quality is fairly good. But even so, it's interesting, because it's probably the earliest TV footage from Palmer's long music career.

As with Volume One, many songs have "[Edit]" in their names. That's from the usual problem of BBC DJs talking over the music. As usual, I used the audio editing program X-Minus to fix that.

Personally, I like this volume more than the first one. For one thing, you have the Robert Palmer factor. But also, nearly all the songs are original (at least "I Got a Line on You" is a cover), and the band was moving into an interesting progressive rock direction. It's too bad they broke up not long after this. They probably would be a lot better known if they'd stuck around.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 My Friend [Edit] (Alan Bown)
02 Movie Star Baby [Edit] (Alan Bown)
03 Gypsy Girl [Edit] (Alan Bown)
04 I Got a Line on You [Edit] (Alan Bown)
05 Friends in St. Louis [Edit] (Alan Bown)
06 All I Can [Edit] (Alan Bown)
07 Loosen Up [Edit] (Alan Bown)
08 Strange Little Friend [Edit] (Alan Bown)
09 Crash Landing (Alan Bown)
10 Make Up Your Mind (Alan Bown)
11 Curfew (Alan Bown)
12 Make Us All Believe [Edit] (Alan Bown)
13 Pyramid [Edit] (Alan Bown)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15900475/AlanBwn_1969-1970_BBSessionsVolume2_atse.zip.html

I had to look high and low to find any decent photo of the band with Robert Palmer in it. I finally succeeded by searching the Facebook page of a fan club of the band. This is from 1969. Palmer is standing on the far right, holding a hand to his mouth, smoking a cigarette. It was in black and white, but I colorized it.