Sailor (band)

Sailor
General information
Genre (s)	pop
founding	1974, 1990
resolution	1979
Founding members
Vocals , guitar	Georg Kajanus (until 1995)
piano	Phil Pickett
Piano, keyboard	Henry Marsh (until 1999, since 2005)
Drums	Grant Serpell (until 2011)
Current occupation
Vocals, guitar	Oliver Marsh (2006–2009, since 2011)
piano	Phil Pickett
Piano, keyboard	Henry Marsh
Drums	Thomas Marsh (since 2011)

Sailor is a British pop group that was formed in 1973. Her biggest hits are A Glass of Champagne and Girls, Girls, Girls from the 1970s.

Band history

Beginnings

First, the Norwegian- born Georg Kajanus (born February 9, 1946) and Phil Pickett (born November 19, 1946) played together in the house band of the Parisian club Café de Matelot. At the request of the club owner, the group appeared in sailor costumes because a sailor had once saved his life. When the club burned down in the early 1970s, they both moved to London, where they founded the band Sailor together with keyboardist Henry Marsh (born December 8, 1948) and drummer Grant Serpell (born February 9, 1944). The group made their first appearances in 1974. First, Sailor went on tour with Kiki Dee and Cockney Rebel . The first album Sailor and the single Traffic Jam immediately achieved gold status in the Netherlands .

successes

In 1976 Sailor made his international breakthrough with A Glass of Champagne ; the single reached number two in the British and number three in the German single charts . In the same year Girls Girls Girls followed , which reached number two in Germany and number seven in Great Britain. Both were extracts from the Trouble album . In Germany, these two songs remained the only top 10 successes , only Stiletto Heels , also from 1976, still reached number twelve in the charts. In 1977, One Drink Too Many and Down by the Docks were released , which made it into the top 20 in Germany.

comeback

In 1979 the band split. In the early 1990s she made a comeback; the titles The Secretary and La Cumbia reached the top 40 in Germany. At the end of 1995 Georg Kajanus left the band. In his place as singer came Peter Lincoln, who had previously sung with Shakin 'Stevens and Cliff Richard , among others . In 1999 Henry Marsh also left the band. He was replaced first by Anthony England, later by Rob Alderton.

In November 2002 a live DVD Pirate Copy - Sailor Live in Concert was recorded. In mid-2005 Henry Marsh returned to the band. In the spring of 2006 the album Buried Treasure was released with old Sailor recordings. In September 2006 singer Peter Lincoln left the band to join Andy Scott's The Sweet . From October 2006 to April 2009 Oliver Marsh, the son of founding member Henry Marsh, sang in the band. He was replaced by Nick Parvin for two years, but returned to the band in May 2011, as did his older brother Thomas Marsh, replacing original drummer Grant Serpell, who left the band in early 2011.

music

On the first three albums ( Sailor 1974, Trouble 1975 and The Third Step 1976), Sailor presented a concept in which the band name was the program: The lyrics revolved around life as a seafarer, and the music was influenced by influences from different countries and epochs . Sailor used Latin rhythms (Out of Money) , waltz (The Old Nickelodeon Sound) and style elements of the twenties reminded (Two Ladies on the Corner) .

Georg Kajanus' lead vocal often alternated with polyphonic vowel passages (Girls, Girls, Girls) . Another characteristic of Sailor's style was that, in addition to piano, acoustic guitars and synthesizer sounds (especially for the bass), they used numerous non-pop instruments such as the honkytonk piano, glockenspiel, accordion, harp, marimba , dulcimer and autoharp .

On the later records Checkpoint (1977) and Hideaway (1978), Sailor turned away from the previous concept both in terms of content and music: more and more current pop elements flowed into their music, such as disco (Down by the Docks) and New Wave (Give Me Shakespeare) . In addition, electric guitars were used for the first time in the songs, which were no longer written by Georg Kajanus.

In order to be able to realize her arrangements even at concerts with only four musicians, Sailor developed the Nickelodeon , which looked like two pianos placed back to back. According to band member Henry Marsh, the instrument is a "tailor-made all-round machine that includes two opposing pianos, two synthesizers, mini-organs and chimes, all mechanically connected and housed in a wooden frame". Sailors Nickelodeon is not identical to the so-called pianola .

Solo projects

Drummer Grant Serpell

Georg Kajanus released three albums with the pop band DATA in the 1980s, one album with NOIR and a solo album in the 1990s; Henry Marsh composed music for television; Grant Serpell taught chemistry; Phil Pickett joined Culture Club and is co-author of their worldwide hits Karma Chameleon and It's a Miracle .

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	NL
1974	Sailor	-	-	-	-	NL2 (21 weeks) NL
1975	Trouble	DE3 (40 weeks) DE	AT5 (16 weeks) AT	-	UK45 silver (8 weeks)UK	NL4 (9 weeks) NL
1976	The third step	DE11 (22 weeks) DE	-	-	UK- silver UK	-
1977	Check point	DE44 (2 weeks) DE	-	-	-	-

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

More albums

• 1978: Hideaway
• 1980: Dressed for Drowning
• 1991: Sailor
• 1992: Street Lamp
• 1996: Legacy (Greatest & Latest)
• 2002: Live in Berlin
• 2005: Live - One Drink Too Many
• 2006: A Glass of Champagne - Live
• 2008: Traffic Jam: Sound and Vision (CD + DVD)

Compilations

• 1978: Greatest Hits
• 1990: Girls Girls Girls - The Very Best of Sailor
• 1994: hits & highlights
• 1995: Greatest Hits
• 2005: Best - Down by the Docks
• 2007: Buried Treasure
• 2007: A Glass of Champagne (2 CDs)
• 2007: Treasure Trove - Anthology 1975-2005 (2 CDs)
• 2008: Sailor & Trouble
• 2009: The Third Step & Checkpoint
• 2009: First Original Recordings (19 ACC files)

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	NL
1974	Traffic Jam Sailor	-	-	-	-	NL4 (9 weeks) NL
1975	Sailor Sailor	-	-	-	-	NL2 (10 weeks) NL
	A Glass of Champagne Trouble	DE3 (26 weeks) DE	AT8 (20 weeks) AT	CH3 (15 weeks) CH	UK2 silver (12 weeks)UK	NL5 (10 weeks) NL
1976	Girls, Girls, Girls Trouble	DE2 (27 weeks) DE	AT3 (24 weeks) AT	CH2 (19 weeks) CH	UK7 (8 weeks) UK	NL2 (10 weeks) NL
	Stiletto Heels The Third Step	DE12 (20 weeks) DE	-	-	UK11 (6 weeks) UK	-
1977	One Drink Too Many The Third Step	DE22 (13 weeks) DE	AT21 (4 weeks) AT	-	UK35 (4 weeks) UK	-
	Down by the docks checkpoint	DE24 (9 weeks) DE	-	-	-	-
1978	Give Me Shakespeare Hideaway	-	AT21 (4 weeks) AT	-	-	-
1990	The Secretary Sailor	DE33 (17 weeks) DE	-	-	-	-
1991	La Cumbia Sailor	DE25 (16 weeks) DE	AT24 (4 weeks) AT	-	-	NL6 (9 weeks) NL
1992	Latino Lover Street Lamp	DE61 (6 weeks) DE	-	-	-	-

More singles

• 1975: Blue Desert
• 1975: Let's Go to Town
• 1977: Cool Breeze
• 1978: Romance
• 1978: All I Need Is a Girl
• 1978: The Runaway
• 1978: Stay the Night
• 1979: Stranger in Paris
• 1980: Don't Send Flowers
• 1980: Runaway
• 1981: Danger on the Titanic
• 1981: Hat Check Girl (Promo)
• 1991: Music
• 1991: Knock Knock
• 1992: It Takes 2 to Tango
• 1992: Precious Form
• 1996: Karma Chameleon (Promo)

Videos

• 2003: Pirate Copy: Live! In concert
• 2005: Live in Concert at the Swan Theater
• 2008: Live in Concert

Awards

RSH gold

• 1992: in the category "Comeback of the year"

swell

1. ↑ http://www.capitalmusic.de/sailor/
2. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: Singles albums UK NL Singles NL albums
3. ↑ ^{a b} UK gold / platinum database

Web links

• Website about the band
• Sailor at Allmusic (English)
• Sailor at Discogs (English)
• Discography at 45cat.com