The Humblebums

The Humblebums were a folk - / pop - band from Glasgow , Scotland , which released three albums in 1969 and 1970 as a whole.

history

The band was founded in 1965 by the later comedian and actor Billy Connolly ( vocals , guitar , banjo ) and Tam Harvey (guitar, mandolin ). Both musicians were well-known figures in the folk scene in Glasgow and the duo soon appeared successfully in small clubs and pubs. At their first gig, Connolly introduced himself and his partner as follows:

“My name's Billy Connolly, and I'm humble. This is Tam Harvey, he's a bum. "

Humorous inserts like this cemented the duo's success and became an integral part of the live program, with which they only appeared locally for a few years. In the original formation and with Ronnie Rae on bass, the debut album First Collection of Merry Melodies was created , which was released in February 1969 on Transatlantic Records .

For a short time the violinist Aly Bain was an unofficial member of the band, a little later Gerry Rafferty joined and officially made the Humblebums a trio. With Rafferty, who previously played in the beat formation Fifth Column, the band was enriched by a talented songwriter who led the music style towards pop . His own compositions soon made up a large part of the repertoire, which led to differences of opinion with Tam Harvey, who then left the group about half a year after Rafferty's arrival. The second album, The Humblebums , was aptly titled The New Humblebums for release in the United States and was released in September 1969.

While Connolly's love for bluegrass and American pop music of the 30s still influenced the quirky, humorous style of the first work, the majority of the songs on the second album came from Rafferty's pen. Connolly only contributed four pieces that can be assigned to folk or bluegrass; Rafferty's compositions, on the other hand, are pieces in the style of Paul McCartney with slightly psychedelic overtones. Brass and woodwind instruments were used for the recordings .

Thanks to Rafferty's songwriting and his flair for pop music, the group developed more and more into a successful live act and soon they were playing concerts with bands such as Atomic Rooster , MC5 , Black Sabbath and The Edgar Broughton Band . On February 23, 1970, the Humblebums played a session for the radio show by well-known DJ John Peel on BBC Radio 1 . In total, Connolly and Rafferty, along with musicians Daryl Runswick , Bernie Holland and Mike Travis, recorded five songs in the Peel sessions, four of which were released in 2005 on the compilation Please Sing a Song for Us .

A third album was produced, this time with a number of session musicians supporting the duo. Of course, this gave the recordings a fuller sound, but it also made it more difficult to recreate the sound and feel on stage. In June 1970, Open Up the Door was supposed to be the last album of the group, on which elements from folk, bluegrass, country and also blues were mixed together.

Billy Connolly, who was constantly joking, soon wanted to go more in the direction of stand-up comedy when performing live and annoyed his introverted musician colleagues on stage with increasingly longer monologues and anecdotes between the songs. Connolly had found his true calling as a comedian while Rafferty wanted to create music. The duo didn't fit together anymore and so their musical career together only lasted about one and a half years. In early 1971, soon after the last album was released, The Humblebums broke up and the two musicians went their separate ways. Billy Connolly later had great success as a comedian and actor, Rafferty concentrated on his music and was able to book some hits both with his following band Stealers Wheel and as a solo artist.

In 1972 a sampler was released with the title A Stereo Introduction to the Exciting World of Transatlantic , on which, in addition to the Humblebums with the song Shoeshine Boy, some other Transatlantic Records artists such as Pentangle , John Renbourn , Bert Jansch , Steve Tilston, Stray and others were presented were. In November 2005, a double CD entitled Please Sing a Song for Us - The Transatlantic Antology was released , which included all tracks from the three studio albums, the single "Saturday Round About Sunday", five previously unreleased outtakes from the third album and contains four recordings of the John Peel sessions. This makes this release the most complete Humblebums collection to date.

The Humblebums

contents

history

Discography

Albums

Web links