On This Day 20/03/1987 Howard Jones

On this day, 20 March 1987, synth pop singer/songwriter Howard Jones played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall on his One-to-One tour promoting his album of the same name.

South Wales Echo

One to One was his third studio album, released on 13 October 1986 by Elektra Records. The album contains the singles "You Know I Love You... Don't You?" (US top twenty), "All I Want" (top 40 in many European countries) and "Little Bit of Snow" (top 75 in the UK).

The CD release also contains the single version of "No One Is to Blame", a song included in its original form on Jones's previous studio album, Dream into Action (1985), which had been re-recorded and released as a single earlier in 1986. This version features Genesis' Phil Collins on drums and backing vocals. One to One reached number 10 on the UK Albums Chart.

Band Members: The 1987 tour lineup featured Trevor Morais (drums), Roy Jones (keyboards), Jingles Jhingoree (bass/guitar), Afrodiziak (backing singers), and Jed Hoile (mime/movement).

On This Day 19/03/1987 Simply Red

On this day, 19 March 1987, Pop/soul band Simply Red played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall. Support was provided by Terence Trent D'Arby.

The band had just released their 2nd album Men and Women which peaked at #2 in the UK album charts
Five singles were released from the album. "The Right Thing" was the first to be released, peaking at number 11 in the UK Singles Chart. "Infidelity" was the second single, which reached number 31, followed by "Maybe Someday..." which became Simply Red's first single to fail to reach the UK top 75, peaking at number 88.

The next single, "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye", a cover of the Cole Porter song, returned the band to the top 20 where it peaked at number 11. "I Won’t Feel Bad" was the fifth and final single from the album, peaking at number 68 (although the song was originally released as the B-side of "Holding Back the Years" in 1985 and was credited to Stewart Levine as producer, and despite "I Won't Feel Bad" not having been rerecorded for Men and Women, Alex Sadkin receives production credit on the album and the single).

On This Day 30/09/1983 Depeche Mode

On this day, 30 September 1983, electro-rock band Depeche Mode played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall on the band’s Construction Time Again Tour.

Construction Time Again was the group’s third studio album and the first to feature Alan Wilder as a member, who wrote the songs "Two Minute Warning" and "The Landscape Is Changing". The album's title comes from the second line of the first verse of the track "Pipeline".

It was recorded at John Foxx's Garden Studios in London, and was supported by the Construction Time Again Tour.

Review - South Wales Echo

In January 1983, shortly before the release of the "Get the Balance Right!" single, songwriter Martin Gore attended an Einstürzende Neubauten concert, giving him the idea to experiment with the sounds of industrial music in the context of pop.

This album introduced a transition in lyrical content for the group. Construction Time Again would include a bevy of political themes, sparked by the poverty Gore had seen on a then-recent trip he had taken to Thailand.

The album also saw a dramatic shift in the group's sound, due in part to Wilder's introduction of the Synclavier and E-mu Emulator samplers. By sampling the noises of everyday objects, the band created an eclectic, industrial-influenced sound, with similarities to groups such as the Art of Noise and Einstürzende Neubauten (the latter becoming Mute labelmates in 1983)

Review - South Wales Argus

Setlist

Everything Counts

Now, This Is Fun

Two Minute Warning

Shame

See You

Get the Balance Right

Love, in Itself

Pipeline

The Landscape Is Changing

And Then...

Photographic

Told You So

New Life

More Than a Party

Encore:

The Meaning of Love

Just Can't Get Enough

Encore 2:

Boys Say Go!

On This Day 19/09/1995 The Everly Brothers

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On this day, 19 September 1995, rock and pop legends The Everly Brothers played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.

The American rock duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. Consisting of Isaac Donald "Don" Everly and Phillip "Phil" Everly, the duo combined elements of rock and roll, country, and pop, becoming pioneers of country rock.

The duo was raised in a musical family in Central City, Kentucky, first appearing on radio singing with their father Ike Everly and mother Margaret Everly as "The Everly Family" in the 1940s. They gained the attention of Chet Atkins through Merle Travis and subsequently moved to Knoxville, Tennessee while still in high school. Nashville musicians like Atkins began to promote them for national attention.

They began writing and recording their own music in 1956, and their first hit song came in 1957, with "Bye Bye Love", written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. The song hit No. 1 in the spring of 1957, and additional hits would follow through 1958, many of them written by the Bryants, including "Wake Up Little Susie", "All I Have to Do Is Dream", and "Problems". In 1960, they signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records and recorded "Cathy's Clown", written by the brothers themselves, which was their biggest selling single. The brothers enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1961, and their output dropped off, though additional hit singles continued through 1962, with "That's Old Fashioned (That's the Way Love Should Be)" being their last top-10 hit.

Long-simmering disputes with Wesley Rose, the CEO of Acuff-Rose Music, which managed the group, and a growing drug usage in the 1960s, as well as changing tastes in popular music, led to the group's decline in popularity in its native U.S., though the brothers continued to release hit singles in the U.K. and Canada and had many highly successful tours throughout the 1960s. In the early 1970s, the brothers began releasing solo recordings, and in 1973 they officially broke up. Starting in 1983, the brothers got back together and continued to perform periodically until Phil's death in 2014. Don died seven years later.

The group was highly influential with the music of the generation that followed it. Many of the top acts of the 1960s were heavily influenced by the close-harmony singing and acoustic guitar playing of the Everly Brothers, including the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Bee Gees, and Simon & Garfunkel. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked the Everly Brothers No. 1 on its list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time.

On This Day 23/07/1990 Aztec Camera

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On this day, 23 July 1990, Scottish band Aztec Camera played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall. The band or more notably leader and songwriter Roddy Frame had just released his fourth album Stray.

Stray was praised for its diversity of songs and styles, and for the assured nature of Roddy Frame's lyrics (which had been considered the weak-point of some of his earlier material). Its understated production was also received positively, particularly coming after the group's previous album Love, which sold well in the United Kingdom but had been criticised by some for being too sanitised and glossy.

Review - South Wales Echo

Stray peaked at No. 22 in the UK Albums Chart. The single "Good Morning Britain", a collaboration with Mick Jones, reached No. 19 in the UK Singles Chart.

Stray Tour Band (1990)

• Roddy Frame – guitar, vocals

• Eddie Kulak – keyboards

• Gary Sanford – guitars

• Clare Kenny – bass guitars

• Frank Tontoh – drums

On This Day 10/05/1995 Tanita Tickaram

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On this day, 10 May 1995, British pop/folk singer-songwriter Tanita Tickaram played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.

She had recently released her fifth studio album Lovers in the City. Jennifer Warnes provided backing vocals on four tracks on the album. One of these songs, "I Might Be Crying", was released as lead single.

A video for this single was filmed in Vietnam. The album reached No. 75 in the UK charts. "I Might Be Crying" was the first single to be released from the album, and peaked at number 64 in the UK.

"Wonderful Shadow" was the second single to be released and peaked at number 198 in the UK. "Yodelling Song" was the third and last single to be released and then only in some countries in continental Europe.

Review - South Wales Echo

Upon its release, John Harris of NME praised Lovers in the City as "shockingly decent", with Tikaram "coming out of it looking like someone who's worthy of sharing lunch with Tori, Bjork or Kate Bush". He commented on how Tikaram had "binned most of the forced intellectualism that made her sound like an eternal undergraduate" and "turned her straining, fractured baritone into something of an asset".

Setlist

You Make the Whole World Cry

Men & Women

Hot Stones

Out on the Town

Feeding the Witches

Happy Taxi

Heal You

Elephant

World Outside Your Window

Twist in My Sobriety

Good Tradition

Yodelling Song

Preyed Upon

On This Day 29/04/1993 Boney M

On this day, 29 April 1993, disco greats Boney M played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.

Founded in 1974, the band achieved popularity during the disco era of the second half of the 1970s. The band was created by German record producer Frank Farian, who was the group's primary songwriter and singer.

Originally based in West Germany, the four original members of the band's official line-up were Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett from Jamaica, Maizie Williams from Montserrat, and Bobby Farrell from Aruba. Since the 1980s, various line-ups of the band have performed with different members.

The band has sold millions of records worldwide and is known for international hits including "Daddy Cool", "Ma Baker", "Belfast", "Sunny", "Rasputin", "Rivers of Babylon/Brown Girl in the Ring", "Hooray! Hooray! It's a Holi-Holiday", "Mary's Boy Child/Oh My Lord" and "Gotta Go Home".

1992 saw a renewed interest in Boney M.'s music with the Boney M. Megamix single returning the group to the UK Top 10 for the first time since 1980, and a subsequent Greatest Hits album, Gold – 20 Super Hits, reaching the UK Top 20 in 1993. While Marcia Barrett, by then living in Florida, had cancer and was unable to perform, Boney M. toured the world with a line-up of Liz Mitchell, Carol Grey, Patricia Lorna Foster and Curt Dee Daran (replaced by Tony Ashcroft in 1994). They released the single Papa Chico but failed to chart. Maizie Williams assembled her own Boney M. with an ever-changing line-up. Bobby Farrell also toured with varying trios of female performers.

Liz Mitchell was touring the world with her line-up of Boney M., which was the only line-up officially supported by Farian; the court ruling of 1990 stated that all four members are entitled to perform their own Boney M. shows. Bobby Farrell and Liz Mitchell have released solo albums containing their own re-recordings of Boney M.'s classic hits.

On This Day, 07/04/1989 The Commodores

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The members of the group met as mostly freshmen at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in 1968, and signed with Motown in November 1972, having first caught the public eye opening for the Jackson 5 while on tour.

The band's biggest hit singles are ballads such as "Easy", "Three Times a Lady", and "Nightshift"; and funk-influenced dance songs, including "Brick House", "Fancy Dancer", "Lady (You Bring Me Up)", and "Too Hot ta Trot".

Commodores were inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and Vocal Group Hall of Fame. The band has also won one Grammy Award out of nine nominations. The Commodores have sold over 70 million albums worldwide.

The group gradually abandoned its funk roots and moved into the more commercial pop arena. In 1984, former Heatwave singer James Dean "J.D." Nicholas assumed co-lead vocal duties with drummer Walter Orange.

That line-up was hitless until 1985 when their final Motown album Nightshift, produced by Dennis Lambert (prior albums were produced by James Anthony Carmichael, who would continue to work with Richie on his albums), delivered the title track "Nightshift", a loving tribute to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson, both of whom had died the previous year. "Nightshift" hit no. 3 in the US and won the Commodores their first Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals in 1985.