The Blue Nile
| The Blue Nile | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Glasgow, Scotland |
| Genres | Art rock,sophisti-pop,synthpop |
| Years active | 1981–present |
| Labels | RSO, Linn, Virgin, Warner Bros., Sanctuary |
| Website | thebluenile |
| Members | Paul Buchanan Robert Bell |
| Past members | Paul Joseph Moore |
The Blue Nile is a musical group from Glasgow, Scotland. The group's early music was built heavily on synthesizers and electronic instrumentation and percussion, although later works featured guitar more prominently. Following early championing by established artists such as Rickie Lee Jones and Peter Gabriel (both of whom the band later worked with), the Blue Nile gained critical acclaim, particularly for their first two albums A Walk Across the Rooftops and Hats, and some commercial success in both the UK and the US, which led to the band working with a wide range of musicians from the late 1980s onwards. The band members have also gained a reputation for their avoidance of publicity, their idiosyncratic dealings with the recording industry, and their perfectionism and slow work rate which has resulted in the release of just four albums since the group's formation in 1981. The group appears to have disbanded since the release of their fourth album High in 2004, although there has never been any official confirmation that this is fact.
Paul Buchanan (born 16 April 1956, Edinburgh, Scotland) and his childhood friend Robert Bell grew up together in Glasgow and both attended the University of Glasgow in the late 1970s (Buchanan gaining his degree in literature and medieval history; Bell in mathematics). Buchanan's civil servant father had been a semi-professional musician and had musical instruments in the house, but it was only after he and Bell had graduated that Buchanan began to think seriously about a career in music.
Although Buchanan had grown up in the same neighbourhood as Paul Joseph "PJ" Moore, it was only at university, where Moore was studying electronics, that they became well acquainted, and the three friends became part of a band, first known as McIntyre (named after the John McIntyre Building, the university's administrative offices) and then Night by Night, although Buchanan later commented that Night by Night only played "twice, maybe three times" in their short existence. The band struggled to retain a settled line-up, and by 1981 Buchanan, Bell and Moore were the only remaining members. The trio decided not to recruit anybody else, trading in a guitar for an effect pedal, and borrowing an old drum machine that only played Hispanic American music rhythms. Buchanan later recalled: "We went and gigged, because we needed the money, we'd do gigs where we'd do cover versions with the cassette of Latin American rhythms. And we were terrible. But we picked songs that were so completely durable and well known that people recognized them. No matter how badly we mangled them."
...
Wikipedia