''Fool's Mate'' is the debut solo album by

Peter Hammill Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill (born 5 November 1948) is an English musician and recording artist. He was a founder member of the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. Best known as a singer/songwriter, he also plays guitar and piano and ...

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

band

Van der Graaf Generator Van der Graaf Generator are an English progressive rock band, formed in 1967 in Manchester by singer-songwriters Peter Hammill and Judge Smith, Chris Judge Smith and the first act signed by Charisma Records. They did not experience much commerc ...

. The title is both a

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

and

tarot The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots, ...

reference. It was produced by

Trident Studios Trident Studios was a British recording facility, located at 17 St Anne's Court in London's Soho district between 1968 and 1981. It was constructed in 1967 by Norman Sheffield, drummer of the 1960s group the Hunters, and his brother Barry. ...

' in-house producer John Anthony. The album was recorded in 1971, in the midst of one of Van der Graaf Generator's most prolific periods. Hammill used the album to record a backlog of songs which were much shorter and simpler than his Van der Graaf Generator material, and declared on the original album sleeve: "This isn't intended to be any kind of statement of my present musical position, but at the same time, it is an album which involves a great deal of me, the person, basically a return to the roots." Guest musicians on the album included the members of Van der Graaf Generator, members of his label mates

Lindisfarne Lindisfarne, also called Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD; it was an important ...

, and guitarist

Robert Fripp Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is a British musician, songwriter, record producer, and author, best known as the guitarist, founder and longest-lasting member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. He has worked extensively as a session ...

. ''Fool's Mate'' includes one of Hammill's most celebrated love songs, "Vision", which he still performs in concert. Both "Vision" and "The Birds" were re-worked for Hammill's 1984 album '' The Love Songs''. In 2005 ''Fool's Mate'' was issued in remastered form by

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...

Virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...

Records, supplemented with bonus demo recordings of several songs.

Cover art

The cover was designed by

Paul Whitehead Paul Whitehead is a British painter and graphic artist known for his surrealistic album covers for artists on the Charisma Records label in the 1970s, such as Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator. __TOC__ Life and work England: Liberty Records ...

who at the time was the favourite cover artist for Van der Graaf Generator and fellow

Charisma Charisma () is a personal quality of presence or charm that compels its subjects. Scholars in sociology, political science, psychology, and management reserve the term for a type of leadership seen as extraordinary; in these fields, the term "ch ...

band

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...

Reception

The UK music press was generally very positive about ''Fool's Mate''.

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...

saw it as "one of THE albums of the year". Paul Stump, in his ''History of Progressive Rock'', called ''Fool's Mate'' "a revamped corpus of pre-Van der Graaf Generator and pre-university songs of plumptious psychedelic pop hedging its bets between

Syd Barrett Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett (6 January 1946 – 7 July 2006) was an English singer, songwriter, and musician who co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd in 1965. Barrett was their original frontman and primary songwriter, becoming known for his ...

and

Al Stewart Alastair Ian Stewart (born 5 September 1945) is a Scottish born singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician who rose to prominence as part of the British folk revival in the 1960s and 1970s. He developed a unique style of combining folk-rock so ...

." He remarked that some of the songs seem more like "warm-up exercises" for longer, better works, but he found the tunes "Summer Song in Autumn" and "Sunshine" very catchy and pleasing, and praised the "spine-tingling" three-part organ chord which concludes the album.

Track listing

All tracks composed by Peter Hammill, except for songs with asterisks, which are by Hammill and Chris Judge Smith. Bonus tracks on 2005 reissue: #

"Re-Awakening" ''(early demos)'' – 4:37 #"Summer Song (In The Autumn)" ''(early demos)'' – 2:50 #"The Birds" ''(early demos)'' – 3:23 #"Sunshine" ''(early demos)'' – 3:54 #"Happy" ''(early demos)'' – 2:49

Personnel

Adapted from liner notes. *

Guy Evans Guy Randolph Evans (born 17 June 1947) is an English drummer and a member of the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. Career Whilst at the University of Warwick (1965–68), Evans played in the university band which was called The ...

– drums, percussion (1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11) *Martin Pottinger – drums (1, 2, 4, 10) *

Hugh Banton Hugh Robert Banton (born April 1949) is a British musician and electronic organ builder, most widely known for playing organ and keyboards with the group Van der Graaf Generator. Career Banton was born in April 1949 in Yeovil, Somerset, into a ...

– piano, organ (1, 3, 5–9, 11) *

Rod Clements Roderick Parry Clements (born 17 November 1947 in North Shields, Northumberland) is a British guitarist, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He formed the folk-rock band Lindisfarne with Alan Hull in 1970, and wrote "Meet Me on the Co ...

– bass, violin (2, 4, 10) *

Nic Potter NIC may refer to: Banking and insurance companies * National Insurance Corporation, Uganda * NIC Bank, a commercial bank in Kenya Politics, government and economics * National Ice Center, an agency that provides worldwide navigational ice a ...

– bass (1, 3, 6–9, 11) * Ray Jackson –

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...

, mandolin (2, 4, 10) * David Jackson – alto and tenor saxophones, flute (1, 3, 6–8, 10) *

– electric guitar (1, 7, 8, 10–12) *

– tam tam (10) *Peter Hammill – all lead vocals (1-12); acoustic guitar, piano (1-4, 6–10, 12) * Fluctuating Chorale: Guy, Hugh, Dave, Ray, John, Norman, Alastair, John, Peter

Technical

* John Anthony – producer *Robin Cable – engineer (

, London) *

– artwork *Sebastian Rich – photography

References

External links

Album information on the unofficial VdGG site
{{Authority control Peter Hammill albums 1971 debut albums Charisma Records albums Albums produced by John Anthony (record producer) Albums recorded at Trident Studios