Cliff Richard's "I'm Nearly Famous": with Brian Bennett?

[iefje]

Does anyone know if Brian Bennett played drums on the recording sessions for Cliff's album "I'm Nearly Famous"? He is listed as drummer on those sessions in the book "The Complete Recording Sessions 1958-1990", but is not in the liner-notes to the 2001 UK remastered edition of the album.

[Unsospero]

Hope this helps:
Guitars: Terry Britten
Bass: Alan Tarney
Drums: Clem Cattini
Keyboards: Graham Todd

Graham

[Timcooper555]

I saw it says Brian Bennett in “The Complete Recording Sessions” too.

But I think it’s the musicians that Graham mentions.

The original lp doesn’t give any musician credits at all, which I’m very surprised at, never really noticed before.
Apart from the arranger and producer, and Tony Rivers for vocal group arrangement.
Especially as the two other lps produced by Bruce, “Every Face Tells a Story” and “Green Light” both have full credits in the sleeve notes.

One interesting (or maybe not so interesting!) information about the track “I Can’t Ask For Anymore Then You”.
According to Tony River’s great book “I’m Nearly Famous (The Tales of a Likely Lad)”, Bruce liked the co-writer of the song, Mick Denne’s guitar riff on the demo, he got him to re-record it for Cliff’s version.
They had a bit of a problem apparently as Mick wasn’t a member of the Musicians Union, so to get the record released he had to join the Union!

[iefje]

Thank you both Graham and Tim for your information.

[Unsospero]

Just for completeness, I got the info from the 2001 remastered CD which has much more comprehensive sleeve notes and includes the following bonus tracks:

Love Enough
Love On (Shine On)
Honkey Tonk Angel
Wouldn't You Know It
It's Only Me You Left Behind
You're The One

All produced by Marvin, Welch & Farrar. Same band as the rest of the album except for Honky Tonk Angel which had Trevor Spencer on drums and Dave Macrae on Piano. All these tracks were recorded earlier in 1975 than the 12 I'm Nearly Famous tracks which as we know were superbly produced by Bruce and lead to what has become acknowledged as an effective relaunch of Cliffs career including chart success in the USA.

Graham

[alewis41]

Just for completeness, I got the info from the 2001 remastered CD which has much more comprehensive sleeve notes and includes the following bonus tracks:

Love Enough
Love On (Shine On)
Honkey Tonk Angel
Wouldn't You Know It
It's Only Me You Left Behind
You're The One

All produced by Marvin, Welch & Farrar. Same band as the rest of the album except for Honky Tonk Angel which had Trevor Spencer on drums and Dave Macrae on Piano. All these tracks were recorded earlier in 1975 than the 12 I'm Nearly Famous tracks which as we know were superbly produced by Bruce and lead to what has become acknowledged as an effective relaunch of Cliffs career including chart success in the USA.

Graham

Love On (Shine On) is from 1976 - too late to be a MWF production. It was the 'B' side of Devil Woman and was produced by Bruce Welch. It features an excellent guitar solo from Terry Britten!

Andrew

[alewis41]

[Moderne]

As well as producing, did MWF do backing vocals on any of these songs; I'm sure I can hear John Farrar on Wouldn't You Know It?

Superb songs! Not wishing to take anything away from Bruce's production on I'm Nearly Famous but these songs definitely give the lie to the 'everything Cliff recorded for years before INF was bland MoR' myth.

[alewis41]

As well as producing, did MWF do backing vocals on any of these songs; I'm sure I can hear John Farrar on Wouldn't You Know It?

Superb songs! Not wishing to take anything away from Bruce's production on I'm Nearly Famous but these songs definitely give the lie to the 'everything Cliff recorded for years before INF was bland MoR' myth.

Hey Clive. So certainly MWF feature on Honky Tonk Angel
and It’s Only Me…

Also Dave Mackay should take a lot of credit for producing the 31st of February album which has some great songs and preceded INF.

Andrew

[iefje]

As well as producing, did MWF do backing vocals on any of these songs; I'm sure I can hear John Farrar on Wouldn't You Know It?

Yes, I think you're right about that. Also, I'm fairly certain that John sang backing vocals on the studio version of "Power To All Our Friends".