Amen Corner

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Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Round Amen Corner
  UK 26th 03/30/1968 (7 weeks)
Explosive Company
  UK 19th 11/01/1969 (1 week)
Singles
Gin House Blues
  UK 12 08/01/1967 (10 weeks)
The World of Broken Hearts
  UK 24 10/17/1967 (6 weeks)
Bend Me, Shape Me
  UK 3 01/23/1968 (12 weeks)
High in the sky
  UK 6th 08/06/1968 (13 weeks)
(If Paradise Is) Half as Nice
  UK 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 02/04/1969 (11 weeks)
  DE 12 04/01/1969 (6 weeks)
  AT 14th 04/15/1969 (4 weeks)
Hello Susie
  UK 4th 07/01/1969 (10 weeks)
  DE 14th 09/01/1969 (10 weeks)
  AT 14th 10/15/1969 (4 weeks)
  CH 7th 08/12/1969 (9 weeks)
(If Paradise Is) Half as Nice (Remix)
  UK 34 02/14/1976 (5 weeks)

Amen Corner was a British pop band that had some hit parades in Europe in the late 1960s.

history

The band was formed in 1966 by seven school friends in their hometown of Cardiff , Wales : Andy Fairweather-Low ( vocals ), Neil Jones ( guitar ), Allan Jones ( saxophone ), Derek John "Blue" Weaver ( keyboard ), Mike Smith ( tenor) Saxophone ), Clive Taylor ( electric bass ) and Dennis Bryon ( drums ). The name was adopted from a soul evening held at the Victoria Ballroom in Cardiff on Sunday nights. In the real sense, an “amen corner” in Protestant churches refers to places, usually near the pastor, where a group, to a certain extent an “ amen ” chorus, answers the sermon . Andy Fairweather-Low formed the characteristic sound of the band with his nasal singing voice, which was represented for the first time in the British charts in 1967 with the song Gin House Blues . The breakthrough came in 1968 with their own and differently structured version of the song Bend Me, Shape Me , which was known shortly before with the American band The American Breed . Her biggest hit was in 1969 (If Paradise Is) Half as Nice , originally an Italian song by La Ragazza 77 & Ambra Borelli ( Il paradiso della vita ).

Until 1969 the band had a lot of success, especially in teenage circles. a. also with their own television shows "A Night with Amen Corner" and "Stars in Their Eyes". She made a film appearance in 1970 alongside Christopher Lee , Peter Cushing and Vincent Price in Scream and Scream Again (Eng. Title: The living corpses of Dr. Mabuse ) and wrote the song of the same name for it. The band members lived together in a stately country house and maintained an exclusive lifestyle with expensive cars and racehorses.

At the end of 1969 the group broke up and Andy Fairweather-Low formed the band Fair Weather , which again included Neil Jones, Blue Weaver, Clive Taylor and Dennis Bryon - the core of the old band, who did not use their established name because the band "Amen Corner" was still under contract with Immediate Records . With Natural Sinner the group had a direct hit in 1970 (number 6 in the UK charts), but it broke up again in 1971. Andy Fairweather-Low then started a successful solo career. Dennis Bryon joined the Bee Gees in the summer of 1972 . Blue Weaver first went to the Strawbs and was also a permanent member of the Bee Gees from 1974.

Members

  • Andy Fairweather-Low (born August 2, 1948 in Cardiff), vocals
  • Neil Jones (born March 25, 1947), guitar
  • Allan Jones (born February 6, 1947), tenor saxophone
  • Derek John "Blue" Weaver (born March 11, 1947 in Cardiff), keyboard
  • Mike Smith (born November 4, 1949), saxophone
  • Clive Taylor (born April 27, 1949), bass guitar, piano
  • Dennis Bryon (born March 14, 1949), drums

Discography

Singles

  • 1967: Gin House Blues (first pressings of Gin House ) (Deram)
  • 1967: The World of Broken Hearts (Deram)
  • 1968: Bend Me, Shape Me (Deram)
  • 1968: High in the Sky (Deram)
  • 1969: (If Paradise Is) Half as Nice (Immediate)
  • 1969: Hello Susie (also spelled Hello Suzie ) (Immediate)
  • 1969: Get Back (Immediate)

Albums

  • 1968: Round Amen Corner (Deram, republished in 1990)
  • 1969: The National Welsh Coast Live Explosion Company (Immediate, re-released on Repertoire Records in 1992)
  • 1969: Farewell to the Real Magnificent Seven (Immediate, re-released in 1993 by Repertoire Records)
  • 1969: The World of Amen Corner (Decca)
  • 1970: Chart Busters (EMI)
  • 1976: Return of the Magnificent Seven (Immediate)
  • 1977: Greatest Hits (Immediate)
  • 1993: All the Hits ... and More (EMI)

literature

  • Barry Graves , Siegfried Schmidt-Joos, Bernward Halbscheffel: Rock-Lexikon , Volume 1 + 2: ABBA - ZZ Top , Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek 2003.
  • Julia Edenhofer : The Big Oldie Lexicon . Weltbild, Augsburg 1991, ISBN 3-89350-720-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b chart sources DE AT CH UK
  2. ↑ a b The Amen Corner Story. In: clivetaylorsound.com. 2017, accessed on May 4, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Horror film with Amen Corner . In: Musikexpress . No. 164 , August 1969, News from all over the world, p. 17 .
  4. ↑ Barry Graves, Siegfried Schmidt-Joos: Das neue Rock Lexikon - Vol. 1 , Rowohlt, Reinbek 1990, ISBN 3-499-16320-9 , p. 38.
  5. ↑ http://www.officialcharts.com/artist/14093/fair-weather/

Web links