Show of Hands Live
| Show of Hands Live | ||||
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| Live album by Show of Hands | ||||
| Released | 1992 | |||
| Recorded | 8 June 1992 | |||
| Venue | The Bull Hotel, Bridport | |||
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| Length | 76:01 | |||
| Label | The Road Goes to Forever (1994), Hands on Music (1999) | |||
| Producer | Mike Trim | |||
| Show of Hands chronology | ||||
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Live (also known as Live '92 and Show of Hands Live) is the first live album by English acoustic roots duo Show of Hands. After the duo had recorded three studio albums on cassette from 1987–1991, the last of these being Out for the Count, the duo set on recording a live album for their first Compact Disc release. They enlisted Mark Trim to engineer and produce a live album of the duo's performance at The Bull Hotel, Bridport, in the duo's native Devon. The album features all sixteen songs from the performance which featured numerous guest musicians, including the band's long-time collaborator Matt Clifford and Beer's sporadic collaborator Paul Downes.
The album was released in 1992 by independent record label The Road Goes on Forever, before falling out of print and being re-released in 1999 by the duo's own record label Hands on Music. It received very favourable reviews from critics, and broke the band into the festival circuit in 1993. The duo also hired Trim to produce their subsequent studio album Beat about the Bush (1994) due to his engineering work on the album. Today, Show of Hands Live is often seen as the duo's first albums, with their three cassette albums being dropped from the duo's "canon". A 2007 poll on the duo's internet forum established "The Blind Fliddler" as fans' favourite track from the album, and it was subsequently included on the duo's best of album Roots: The Best of Show of Hands (2007) as a result.
In 1987, Devonian folk musicians Steve Knightley and Phil Beer formed the duo Show of Hands. The musicians had been friends for a long time and had worked together before. Their first recorded collaboration featured on Beer's first live album with Paul Downes, 1980's Live in Concept. Show of Hands formed whilst Beer was a member of The Albion Band. The duo's first album, Show of Hands, was released on cassette in 1987, followed by Tall Ships in 1990. The two albums were sold only at the duo's live performances. Later on in 1990, Beer left The Albion Band, letting Show of Hands become a full musical partnership, recording the third and final cassette album, Out for the Count in The Old Court in 1991. Although the duo continued to perform live throughout 1992, that same year they formed the band Alianza with Dave Townsend with three exiled Chilean musicians, exploring a fusion between English folk music and Chilean music.
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