Two new gems from Think Like A Key: Paul Archer and Duffy Power & Argent

Interest declared: I had some involvement in both of these…

Almost the last of what for a long time seemed to be a seemingly endless seam of unreleased music by the late, great Duffy Power from his original 1959-73 career was a double CD worth of material recorded by the production team of ex-Zombies Rod Argent & Chris White for a proposed CBS album in 1970-71. (I say *almost* because a tranche of unreleased mid-60s recordings, from the ‘Innovations’ sessions, has since turned up…) All that was released from the CBS recordings at the time was a single… twice! Once in 1970 and then the sides flipped in 1971.

Several of the lost tracks appeared alongside other lost gems from the 60s on an RPM album compiled by Duffy with the splendid Mark Stratford in 1995, but the original LP as conceived by Argent & White has never appeared until now. I tried for a few years to interest various UK and European labels in a 2CD set of the album plus a second disc of alt takes and unused songs, and/or a single LP of the planned album – but for various reasons, no one was biting on this particular project.

On the other hand, Repertoire said yes to a 3CD ‘Duffy Power Live at the BBC’ set and also to an expanded single-CD version of the 1971 ‘Innovations’ collection of mid-60s ‘supergroup’ recordings – both of which were most welcome – and the excellent Malcolm Holmes’ Talking Elephant provided a home for a superbly packaged and mixed/mastered expansion of Duffy’s 1972-73 recordings for producer Adrian Miller… which deserves far more attention than it’s had so far.

At last, the exceptionally relaxed yet laser-focused Roger Houdaille – owner of boutique US label Think Like A Key – said ‘Yes, let’s do it!’ I believe it’s now out – both a 2CD and a single LP, titled ‘Hell Hound: The Lost 1971 CBS Album’ – with Duffy backed variously by the band Argent plus two members of Pentangle, guitar hero Ollie Halsall and Soho bluesman Sam Mitchell. And it looks like Roger has had an AI video created for one of the tracks (in the comments).

On to Paul Archer… Literally, off the back of my discussion with Roger about Duffy & Argent last year, I happened to mention my good pal Paul Archer – a Bangor alt rock / cosmic soul man who has had a long and winding career with bands since 1995, beginning in Belfast with Disreali Gears and then moving to England and performing/recording with first the Ghears [sic] and then Burning Codes, ending with a fabulous Codes album ‘Liberator’ in 2018. Paul then moved back to Bangor for family reasons… then Covid…

But a chance meeting I had with Paul last year, plus the encouragement of his partner Elaine, led to a set of circumstances that produced the new (out 8 August) album ‘Art’, credited to Paul Archer for the first time – a solo LP after 25 years of bands. It was conceived as a vinyl album – one side of pure, euphoric rock (recorded at The Nave in Leeds, with previous collaborators) and one side more reflective material, recorded mostly in Belfast with producer/guitarist Rick Bleakley and a string of carefully selected guests – Duke Special on keys, a string trio scored by Big Bill Campbell on one track, Celtic soul/Americana vocalist Janet Henry on BVs on two tracks. Oh, and Horslips’ Jim Lockhart provides terrific Tull-esque flute on one of Side A’s rock numbers. These are wholly new textures for an Archer album. In my opinion, it’s his best yet – born of adversity in a way, but brimming with joy. I don’t know how he does it…

Marry Waterson, scion of *those* Watersons and an amazing video animator, created a promo for one of the songs, ‘Fear Destroyer’ – again, in the comments.

I’m thrilled to have been associated with both releases. 🙂

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