KEVIN COYNE : IN LIVING BLACK AND WHITE

 

Disc One

  1. Case History No. 2
  2. Fat Girl
  3. Talking To No One
  4. My Mother's Eyes
  5. Ol' Man River
  6. Eastbourne Ladies
  7. Sunday Morning Sunrise
  8. One Fine Day
  9. Marjory Razorblade

Disc Two

  1. Coconut Island
  2. Turpentine
  3. House On The Hill
  4. Knockin' On Heaven's Door
  5. Saviour
  6. Mummy
  7. Big White Bird
  8. America

Label : Virgin

Release Year : 1976

Venue : New London Theatre, London, UK + Town Hall, Middlesbrough, UK + The Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, UK

Recording Date : 1976

Review (AllMusic) : Recorded live during 1976, as Kevin Coyne toured to promote his Heartburn album, In Living Black & White is a superlative souvenir of one of Britain's most idiosyncratic singer/songwriters at the peak of his abilities. In the three years that had elapsed since the critical breakthrough of Marjory Razorblade, Coyne's roughshod take on anguished blues-flavored art rock had developed a tautness akin to listening with a cheese wire wrapped around your eardrums, with the fine edge of the concert experience tightening the noose even further. The result, while able to deliver only one half of the full experience (the dyspeptic visuals are necessarily absent), ranks among the most exciting live albums of the age. Four sides of vinyl round up a well-chosen skim through all three of Coyne's albums since the epochal Marjory Razorblade, with that album's brutally churning "Eastbourne Ladies" the first of innumerable highlights encountered as the album wears on - it emerges out of a superbly slovenly "Old Man River" that, like "Knocking on Heaven's Door" later in the cycle, illustrates just how fine an interpretive singer Coyne was when he put his mind to it (cover versions are at a premium in his repertoire, but when he does tackle one, it is his forever). Further pivotal moments include electrifying renditions of "Talking to No One," "Turpentine," and "Mummy," while the closing salvo of "Big White Bird" and "America," both from Heartburn, is simply breathless, wrapping up the album on a knife edge that leaves you wishing only that there were more to come. In the event, it would be another decade before Coyne's next live album, the blink-and-you'll-miss-it Rough - Live. And that was a decade too long.

Review (The World Of Kevin Coyne) : The record sleeve says the shows were recorded in 1976 in London, Middlesborough and Edinburgh, UK but Case History No.2 was recorded in Manchester on Apr 6 1976. Kevin Coyne with Zoot Money (piano), Andy Summers (guitar), Steve Thompson (bass) and Peter Woolf (drums). Very powerful band. The first (UK) side with Zoot Money is, to me, Kevin Coyne at his very best. No one can beat him there.