Marshall Hain - Free Ride (1979)

Alas these two are known mainly for the single "Dancing In The City" and possibly for the follow-up "Coming Home" both started life here as part of this wonderful pop set stuffed full of great songs.  I discovered these guys by accident.  I was given tickets to see a long forgotten Polydor act that were being pushed (but I have to say not very hard) by the label at the time.  If free tickets flowed down to my level you could tell that management commitment wasn't that great.  Shame because they were talented too.  Anyway MH were the headline on the back of "Dancing" which had hit the charts and was all over the radio.  The band came on to the piano intro "Take My Rumba" and segued into "Free Ride".  This brilliantly set the tone for a run through of the whole album.  The songs were great, the band were tight and the vocals from Kit Hain impeccable.  I particuarly like "Take My Number" which is a morning after the night before song.  They disbanded after the one album and no out takes or "lost" tracks have materialised over the years.  Kit Hain has had a solo career as a writer and singer and is featured elsewhere here for two solo albums which again have creative merit but received little commercial success.  The albums "School For Spies" (which features her original of "Perfect Timing" a smallish hit for Kiki Dee) and "Spirits Walking Out" both on Decca are worthy of a search.  Not sure what happened to Julian Marshall.


 I realised over the next couple of years after this that I was starting to like a great deal of tracks produced by Christopher Neil - he worked on a number of out and out pop acts (Dollar, Buck Fizz) but they always had wonderful productions.

From The Lost Record Covers Club

I like the artwork used here as it seems to tell a story of it's own.


Harvest - SHSP 4087

PS (April 2011) - Cherry Red have just issued this on CD - about time too!