Release Date: 16 December 2016
Label: Weatherbox
Packaging Type: Hard Back book
No of Units: 2
Barcode: 5038622135416
Description
Colin Vearncombe first stepped onto a stage as Black in January 1981 and a journey began. Over the course of the next decade, four Black albums and more than a dozen singles were released by three independent labels and two major record companies resulting in several million record sales. 'Wonderful Life' and 'Sweetest Smile' being amongst the highlights. By 1992 he'd been to most of the places he'd ever had a hankering to visit, endured the terrible highs and fabulous lows of fame and learned many things -- largely about himself. Two of these self-realisations were that first; he had no desire to follow a path that was commercially interesting to a modern record label and second; he craved the creative freedom and control over his work that he could only obtain by owning his own label and copyrights. Nero Schwarz was formed for that exact purpose and has since released eight studio albums, four live albums and one collection of mainly unreleased recordings and now it's time to compile a record that represents some of the highlights of the journey -- so far.
Tragically that journey ended on 26th January 2016. Colin never regained consciousness following a road traffic accident 16 days earlier. In tribute Volume 2 of the vinyl, brings another 8 tracks from the fans online poll and the 2LP 14track Hardback Edition completes the selection that makes up the 2CD deluxe package.
Time to choose - Thirty years of songwriting means the choice of what to include (and what to leave out) was agonisingly hard. Too hard. We couldn't do it. We decided to let the fans choose instead, but with over 120 recordings to select from, we needed a shortlist. We asked for help from the die-hard supporters who had made up the studio audience for two live performances in London at the end of October 2010. Their shortlist wasn't exactly short. They suggested seventy different tracks. It was apparent that they were having as hard a time trying to pick their favourites as we were. It also became clear that while Colin's music is often stubbornly non-genre and is even sometimes perceived as being anti-commercial, every single song in the catalogue is passionately loved by somebody, somewhere. Trying to select seventy minutes of music to represent a wide-ranging body of work was starting to look impossible. But we couldn't give up so we chose the top 25 from that list, created an online poll and then asked everyone on the Blacklist (Colin's mailing list -- no pun left unpunned) to vote for their favourites.
That's when the complaints started: 'Oh but you haven't included. . . that's his best song ever!' and 'but you can't leave off. . . I got married to that!' and so on. All of which goes to prove that not only can you not please everyone all the time, you can't please anyone, ever. However, three weeks and thousands of votes later, some songs had naturally risen to the top of the list - including the Nero Schwarz-owned re-recordings of Wonderful Life and Sweetest Smile. This compilation is the result. Here are the top fifteen tracks as voted by the fans plus, as an added bonus, a brand-new re-mix of a song from Colins studio album, Water On Stone; Tomorrow is Another Night and a second disc of 10 further tracks.
Tracklisting
Norma Waterson & Eliza Carthy With The Gift Band
Nic Jones
Eliza Carthy & The Wayward Band
Martin Simpson
June Tabor
Various Artists
Sarah Jane Morris
Anne Briggs
Black
Black
