01	Meet Me On The Corner						02:39
	02	Alright On The Night						03:33
	03	Uncle Sam						02:58
	04	Together Forever						02:35
	05	January Song						04:13
	06	Peter Brophy Don't Care						02:47
	07	City Song						03:08
	08	Passing Ghosts						02:31
	09	Train In G Major						03:10
	10	Fog On The Tyne						03:26
	11	Scotch Mist						02:07
	12	No Time To Lose						03:14

Date of Release 1971

Si Cowe - acoustic, electric and 12-string guitars, mandolin, vocals
Alan Hull - acoustic, electric and 12-string guitars, keyboards, vocals
Ray Jackson - harmonica, mandolin, vocals
Rod Clements - electric bass, acoustic and 12-string guitars, violin
Ray Laidlaw - drums, etc

Produced by Bob Johnston

AMG EXPERT REVIEW: The album that turned Lindisfarne into a chart-topping act, and made their tour of the United States a foregone conclusion. This is an earthier album, a piece of urban English folk-rock with a gentle, easygoing feel very different from the first album. "Meet Me on the Corner" has one of the most delectable singalong choruses of any rock song you'll ever hear. Additionally, the lyrics of this song, as well as those of "Together Forever" and "Fog on the Tyne," display a clarity, vivid imagery, and emotional subtlety just about worthy of Bob Dylan, and it is easy to see how "Meet Me on the Corner" could've reached the number four spot. "January Song" is nearly as pretty as "Winter Song" on the first album. And the record is worth the price just for the instrumental break on "Fog on the Tyne." - Bruce Eder


Fog on the Tyne (1971)

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Side One:

1. Meet me on the corner Rod Clements 2:39 Lead Singer, Jacka
2. Alright on the night Alan Hull 3:32 Lead Singer, Alan, Jacka, Si
3. Uncle Sam Simon Cowe 3:01 Lead Singer, Jacka
4. Together Forever Rab Noakes 2:38 Lead Singer, Jacka
5. January Song Alan Hull 4:15 Lead Singer, Alan

Side Two:

1. Peter Brophy don't care Alan Hull/Terry Morgan 2:48 Lead Singer, Alan
2. City Song Alan Hull 3:10 Lead Singer, Alan
3. Passing Ghosts Alan Hull 2:29 Lead Singer, Alan
4. Train in G major Rod Clements 3:15 Lead Singer, Jacka
5. Fog on the Tyne Alan Hull 3:24 Lead Singer, Alan, Jacka, Si


Fog on the Tyne, the album that made it up to Number 1 in Great Britain in November 1971. It also contains the two songs which the band is immediately associated with: Meet me on the corner and Fog on the Tyne. A lot of music magazines declared Lindisfarne the most promising newcomer band of 1972 and chose Lady Eleanor as the single of the year. In March 1972 Meet me on the corner made it up to number 5 in the British charts. => see right side for US cover

Album Cover Info


ROD CLEMENTS Electric Bass, acoustic, electric and 12 string guitars, violin
ALAN HULL Acoustic, electric and 12 string guitars, keyboards, vocal
RAY JACKSON Harmonica, mandolin, vocal
SIMON COWE Acoustic, electric and 12 string guitars, mandolin, vocal
RAY LAIDLAW Drums, etc.

Produced by BOB JOHNSTON; Engineered by KEN SCOTT
Recorded at Trident Studios/Summer '71
Gear by Burman and Fender







Lindisfarne barely commands more than a footnote in most rock reference books. During the early '70s, however, Lindisfarne was one of the hottest folk-based rock bands in England, with chart placements on two of their albums that rivaled Jethro Tull, and had them proclaimed one of the most important groups of the decade. With a sound that mixed plaintive folk-like melodies, earthy but well-sung harmonies, and acoustic and electric textures, the group seemed poised for international success, when a series of unfortunate artistic decisions, followed by a split in their lineup, left them bereft of audience and success. Singer/guitarist Alan Hull (b. Feb. 20, 1945), guitarist Simon Cowe (b. Apr. 1, 1948), mandolin player Ray Jackson (b. Dec. 12, 1948), bassist/violinist Rod Clements (b. Nov. 17, 1947), and drummer Ray Laidlaw (b. May 28, 1948) all hailed from Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, and the surrounding area. At some point, they were known as Downtown Faction, but they took their familiar musical form under the name Brethren. The band became a very popular act on the college circuit, playing what was known as "good time" music, singalong numbers resembling (or directly derived from) pub songs in which audiences could luxuriate, usually with Jackson's harmonica honking along. Alan Hull had a background in folk music which enabled him to freely incorporate that influence, and he was the major songwriter and singer in the band. In 1968, they discovered that an American group was already using the name "Brethren," and the Newcastle group rechristened itself Lindisfarne, taken from the name of an island off the coast of Northumberland in Northern England - the island Lindisfarne (also known as "Holy Island") is most famous for its early medieval monastery and castle and the ancient "Lindisfarne Gospels" medieval manuscript. The new name fit the times and the group's sound, which was evolving in the direction of folk-style music. The group was signed to Tony Stratten-Smith's Charisma Records, England's premiere progressive rock label, in 1970. They released their first (and best) album, Nicely Out of Tune, that same year. Their debut album captured the group's best attributes, a rollicking, upbeat, optimistic collection of hippie/folk music, somewhere midway between Fairport Convention and the early Grateful Dead, with a peculiarly urban, English working-class ambience. Their "Englishness," coupled with the occasionally uneven quality of their songwriting, may explain one major reason why Lindisfarne never achieved more than a tiny cult following in the United States. Nicely Out of Tune contained one wistfully romantic number, "Lady Eleanor," which became a favorite number in the band's concert repertory, and seemed destined to find an audience. The album and the "Lady Eleanor" single failed to chart, but the group's live shows only grew in popularity - by the end of 1970, they were able to ask for Ј1500 a night from promoters, a far cry from the Ј300 they had been getting on the college circuit. Their second album, Fog On The Tyne, released in 1971, marked their commercial breakthrough - a collection of earthy, folk-type pub songs, Fog On The Tyne entered the British charts in October of that year and began a slow climb into the middle reaches. In February of 1972, however, the group's label belated issued a single off of the album, "Meet Me On The Corner." That record was number five on the charts the following month, while Fog On The Tyne suddenly rose to the number one spot. Within a matter of weeks, Nicely Out Of Tune entered the charts for the first time and eventually hit number eight; "Lady Eleanor," reissued in June of 1972, made it to number three. That was when the media hype kicked in, raising expectations and aspirations for a group that, until four months earlier, had been a pleasant folk-rock outfit with a solid cult following. Alan Hull was referred to in the press as the most important new songwriter since Bob Dylan, and Lindisfarne was saddled with the designation as "the 1970s Beatles." Up to this time, the group had played in England and Wales, but, apart from one show in Scotland and individual forays to Paris and Holland, its members hadn't even pondered the notion or implications of an international career. It all seemed too good to last, and it was. Later in 1972, after a frantic period capitalizing on one massive success after another, the band released their third album, Dingly Dell. The album was troubled from the start. The record's producer was Bob Johnston, the American who had worked on Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding, among many other records, and who had also produced Fog On The Tyne. The band had a falling out with Johnston over Dingly Dell, and remixed the album themselves immediately prior to release. The resulting record had a very crisp sound, very upfront, and more of a mainstream hard rock sound than their previous two long-players. Unfortunately, this was not the move that the critics had wanted or expected of the band - they wanted a richer, more progressive folk-type sound, in some ways closer to Fairport Convention, not the harder, more basic sound that they found here. Additionally, the songwriting didn't match the prior two albums, and nobody was drawing comparisons between Alan Hull and Dylan over the songs on Dingly Dell. Ironically, this album came out at just about the time the group was in the process of gaining a small following in America, although they never really had much chance of succeeding. Their association with Charisma Records meant that they were afforded a listen by the American progressive rock audience, and to some limited extent their mixture of folk and rock was "progressive." In reality, Lindisfarne was closer in spirit and music to such hard-rocking bands as Brinsley Schwarz, Bees Make Honey, and Eggs Over Easy, utterly lacking the pretensions needed for a prog-rock band. Under other circumstances, the album would have been passed over by most critics as nothing more than a slightly disappointing lapse, but reviewers and journalists seemed bent on revenge for the group's failure to rise to the praise and hype lavished on them over the previous year. The record and the group were universally savaged, although it still got to number five on the charts and yielded one modest hit, "All Fall Down." The band toured America, but discovered that American listeners and critics found their sound too peculiarly English - in the wrong ways - to really accept Lindisfarne. The group was never remotely as popular as their Charisma labelmates Genesis, who were eagerly snapped up by Atlantic Records once their Charisma contract was up. Cowe, Laidlaw, and Clements exited the band in early 1973 and formed a new group called Jack The Lad, which specialized in a harder, more basic pub-rock sound, and went on to release three albums on Charisma. A live Lindisfarne album, featuring the original lineup and songs mostly off of the first three albums, was issued by Charisma in 1973, but it was at best a holding action. Later that year, Alan Hull and Ray Jackson were back leading a new Lindisfarne line-up, featuring Ken Craddock on guitar, keyboards, and vocals, Charlie Harcourt on guitars, Tommy Duffy on bass and vocals, and Paul Nichols on drums. Their first album, Roll On Ruby, was a critical and commercial failure. Hull embarked on a solo recording career at around this same time, which seemed to draw away still more of Lindisfarne's original audience. As the principal songwriter and voice of the group, and one of two original members, he held Lindisfarne's public better than the new Lindisfarne did. The band switched to Warner Bros. for their next album, Happy Daze, but it fared no better. By 1977, Jack The Lad had called it quits and Cowe, Clements, and Laidlaw were back with Lindisfarne. Hull also recorded with Laidlaw and Craddock under the group name Radiator on the Rocket label, releasing a single album, entitled Isn't It Strange. Lindisfarne switched labels again to Mercury and debuted with a double live album, Magic In The Air, with songs drawn from the group's first three albums. The band remained intact, and on Mercury, for two more long-players, Back & Fourth (1978), which yielded a pair of modest hits in Alan Hull's "Run For Home," a song that sounds more like Springsteen than Springsteen does, and "Warm Feeling"; and The News (1979), all to little lasting commercial avail. They remained a reasonably popular concert attraction - especially in Newcastle and the surrounding area - into the early '80s, and have continued to record and reunite for concerts periodically in the years since. During the early '80s, they organized Lindisfarne Musical Productions and began releasing their work on the LMP label, including a live album cut in 1983. Their live recordings, featuring new renditions of their classic early '70s material, seem to draw the greatest enthusiasm. Alan Hull has also maintained a separate solo career, and fans of the group should definitely own his Back to Basics CD, on which he does live acoustic versions of his best songs from 1970 onward. - Bruce Eder


1970 Nicely out of Tune Elektra
1971 Fog on the Tyne Elektra
1972 Dingly Dell Elektra
1973 Lindisfarne Live Charisma
1973 Roll on Ruby Elektra
1974 Happy Daze Asylum
1975 Finest Hour Charisma
1978 Magic in the Air Mercury
1979 Back and Fourth Atco
1979 The News Mercury
1982 Sleepless Nights LMP
1983 Lindisfarntastic 1 LMP
1984 Lindisfarntastic 2 LMP
1984 Dance Your Life Away Castle
1987 C'mon Everybody Stylus
1988 Peel Sessions Dutch East
1989 Amigos Black Crow
1994 Lindisfarne Live 1990 Demon
1994 Caught in the Act Castle
1995 Live Code 90
1995 On Tap Castle
1995 Another Fine Mess Grapevine
1996 Elvis Lives on the Moon Castle
1996 Other Side of Mooncrest
1997 The Cropredy Concert [live] Mooncrest
1998 Here Comes the Neighbourhood Park
1998 Dealer's Choice Pilot
1998 We Can Swing Together Pilot
2001 Live at the Cambridge Folk Festival Import
Dance Your Life Away [Lindisfarne] Lindisfarne