''When You Were Mine'' is the sixth studio album by English singer and musician

John Waite John Charles Waite (born 4 July 1952) is an English musician. As a solo artist, he has released ten studio albums and is best known for the 1984 hit single " Missing You", which reached No. 1 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and the top ten on ...

, released by

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

/Pure in 1997.

Background

Speaking to ''Songwriting Magazine'' in 2013, Waite said of the album: "''When You Were Mine'' was the best album I ever did. I kind of went country in an English way, but it's a beautiful record." He told ''Classic Rock Revisited'' that year: "''When You Were Mine'' has strong acoustic values, and tells stories. It was completely different to what I had done before."

Critical reception

Stephen Thomas Erlewine Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occ ...

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

considered the album to "tone down aite'shard rock influences in an attempt to regain the adult contemporary radio audience he once had". He concluded: "Although the results aren't entirely successful, there's enough well-crafted mainstream pop here to satisfy longtime fans."

Track listing

Personnel

* John Waite – lead and backing vocals * Chuck Kentis – Steinway grand piano, electric piano,

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

, programming (10) * Mindy Joysten –

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

, harmony vocals (5, 6, 11) *

Shane Fontayne Michael Barakan (born 29 April 1954, in London, England), known as Shane Fontayne, is an English rock guitarist. Active since the 1970s, he was the guitarist for Bruce Springsteen during the 1992–1993 "Other Band" Tour, as Springsteen had di ...

– electric guitars, acoustic guitar, 6-string bass *

Jeff Golub Jeff Golub (April 15, 1955 – January 1, 2015) was an American jazz guitarist who had a solo career and who led the band Avenue Blue. He worked as a sideman for a number of rock and pop musicians. He was arguably best known for his work with Rod ...

– electric guitars, acoustic guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar * Donnie Nossov – electric bass,

acoustic bass The acoustic bass guitar (sometimes shortened to acoustic bass or initialized ABG) is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually larger than a steel-string acoustic guitar. Like the traditional electric bass guitar a ...

* Tony Beard – drums * Tommy Funderburk – backing vocals (1, 10) *

Mark Spiro Mark Spiro (born March 28, 1957) is an American songwriter, record producer and recording artist. Represented on millions of records sold worldwide, Spiro has delivered songs to artists such as Julian Lennon, Cheap Trick, John Waite, Heart, Laura B ...

– backing vocals (1, 10) * Liz Constantine – harmony vocals (8)

Production

* John Waite – producer * Tony Phillips – engineer, mixing * Chad Bamford – assistant engineer * Milton Chan – assistant engineer * Peter Kepler – assistant engineer * Tom Schick – assistant engineer * Ken Villeneuve – assistant engineer *

Dave Collins David S. Collins (born October 20, 1952) is a former outfielder in Major League Baseball from to . Collins is one of three players to have made it to the major leagues who played for the Rapid City Post 22 American Legion baseball program in ...

– mastering * Andrew Garver – mastering assistant *

Mick Rock Michael David Rock (born Michael Edward Chester Smith; 21 November 1948 – 18 November 2021) was a British photographer. He photographed rock music acts such as Queen, David Bowie, Waylon Jennings, T. Rex, Syd Barrett, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and ...

– photography

References

{{Authority control 1997 albums John Waite albums Mercury Records albums