Murray Head - Nigel Lived (1973) [2018 SACD]

45th Anniversary Edition of Murray Head’s groundbreaking 1972 classic!

Murray Head’s Nigel Lived is a groundbreaking classic and one of the boldest, most daring and inventive albums of all time. Recorded by the great recording engineer Phill Brown, Nigel Lived is from the golden era of all-analog recording, a sonic and musical masterpiece that every music lover and audiophile simply must have.

In Spring of 1972 Murray Head was just 25, coming off amazing success on the stage and screen, when he recorded his debut album, Nigel Lived. And Nigel isn’t just any album, it’s an ambitious, experimental album full of great songs that required stunningly diverse recording techniques and instrumentation on every track. There are beautiful acoustic works that draw a straight line to Murray’s later albums like “Ruthie” and “When You Wake Up In The Morning,” there are straight-up rockers and amazingly innovative tracks like “Religion” and the sprawling “Junk.”
Nigel’s story arc unfolds as a three-act play in which Nigel leaves a small town for the big city, finds love and success before crashing into addiction and despair. The background locations, characters and scenes change sonically throughout as Nigel was a adventurous and pioneering effort in blending studio recording with an incredible array of location recordings captured all over London’s West End.

In the same way that films today operate on the “found footage” motif, Murray’s ahead-of-its-time conceptual treatment for Nigel consisted of hand writing a “diary” for Nigel that was then “found” by Murray, who put Nigel’s life to song. It’s a brilliant narrative tool that allowed Murray to weave aspects of his own rich experiences in the whirlwind of late 60s London into the songs. Murray saw great success, making a splash on stage in “Hair” and on-screen in films like “The Family Way” and John Schlesinger’s avant-garde “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” And he saw the depths working in a drug-addiction clinic and watching friends disappear into and eventually succumb to heroin.

Nigel Lived is driven by Murray’s tremendous energy, and the songs are witty, intense, achingly beautiful and exceptionally well-recorded.

This reissue would not have been possible without the overwhelming generosity of Phill Brown, who introduced Intervention Records to Murray and supplied the master tapes.


Tracks:

01. Pacing On the Station 04:55
02. Big City 03:29
03. Bed & Breakfast 02:29
04. The Party 03:14
05. Ruthie 03:20
06. City Scurry 01:58
07. When You Wake Up in the Morning 03:08
08. Why Do We Have to Hurt Our Heads 03:14
09. Pity the Poor Consumer 02:29
10. Dole 03:08
11. Nigel, Nigel 02:12
12. Miss Illusion 02:18
13. Religion 04:47
14. Junk 08:52