Tall Ships (album)
| Tall Ships | ||||
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| Studio album by Show of Hands | ||||
| Released | 1990 | |||
| Recorded | 1990 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Label | Self-released | |||
| Producer | Show of Hands | |||
| Show of Hands chronology | ||||
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Tall Ships is the second album by Show of Hands, released in 1990 on cassette only. It contains the band's 22 minute medley "Tall Ships". Songs from the album appear on Backlog 1987-1991, a 1995 album containing songs from the band's earlier material for the first time on CD. This was due to Tall Ships going out of print later in 1990. Tall Ships, as well as Show of Hands and Out for the Count, are overlooked these days, as they are treated as "cassette albums" with Beat about the Bush being seen as the band's debut album.
Steve Knightley said that "Tall Ships" is set in a small West Country fishing village in the years just after the Napoleoniac Wars. Some of "Tall Ships" appears on their debut Show of Hands, albeit in a different recording. The full 22 minute version appears again on Backlog 1987-1991 and Roots - The Very Best of Show of Hands.
The album is sometimes referred to as Tall Ships/Six O Clock Waltz, as "Tall Ships" takes up all of Side A whilst "Six O Clock Waltz" opens Side B.
Show of Hands, a Devon-based folk duo of Steve Knightley and Phil Beer, formed in 1986. Nonetheless, having known each other since 1972, they had performed before hand, for example Knightley's contribution to Beer's first live album with Paul Downes, Live in Concept (1980), and Beer's role in Knightley's pub rock bands of the 1980s, Short Stories, The Cheats and Total Strangers, when members of those bands could not appear. This is in addition to Knightley joining Beer and Downe's early 1980s band Arizona Smoke Revue. Beer joined The Albion Band in 1984, this halting collaborations between the two for a while. Nonetheless, Beer found some free time in 1987 and suggested to Knightley they form a duo.
For the recording their first album, 1987's Show of Hands, they set up their own recording studio, known as Catsley Home. The album was recorded in January 1987 to coincide with their first tour, and was sold on the tour as a cassette. Being such a small-key release, it did not attract any attention from local publications. It, and the tour, did, nonetheless, gained the band a small following. It would be three years, however, until the band could follow up the album, due to Beer losing free time due to The Albion Band reculling after their short hiatus, who recorded albums in each year from 1987 to 1990. Show of Hands successfully regrouped in 1990 to record their second album, centered around an expanded song suite, "Tall Ships", which Knightley had written prior and used with Show of Hands.
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