Steve Hiett Down On The Road By The Beach

• 1. Blue Beach - Welcome To Your Beach
• 2. Never Find A Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)
• 3. By The Pool
• 4. Roll Over, Beethoven - Out Of The Beach
• 5. In The Shade
• 6. Looking Across The Street
• 7. Long Distance Look
• 8. Hot Afternoon
• 9. Crying In The Sun
• 10. The Next Time
• 11. Miss
• 12. Walks Away
• 13. Sleep Walk
• 14. Standing There

A career devotee of Brian Wilson’s ground breaking harmonies, Hie. shot The Beach Boys for Rolling Stone - as well as The Doors, Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix (in one of his final performances at the 1970 Isle Of Wight Festival) - while establishing himself as a fashion photographer. Decamping to Paris in 1972, he began what would become 20-year collaborations with Vogue Paris and Marie Claire, printing his signature warm, saturated and vibrantly hued snapshots.

In 1982, representatives from Tokyo’s Galerie Watari visited him to propose a solo exhibition. Asking if he could insert a 7” of original music into the back of the exhibition catalogue, Hie. laid down ‘Blue Beach - Welcome To Your Beach’ in a Parisian radio station, playing all of the instruments himself, and two more cuts in New York with Yoko Ono, The Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan hired-gun Elliot Randall. Once dispatched, the phone began ringing off the hook with requests for him to fly to Tokyo. Assuming these long-distance callers were wanting him to check proofs for the book, it wasn’t until he arrived that he discovered CBS/Sony had facilitated an entire album. Heiit hastily gripped some petty cash, bought a guitar and retreated to his hotel room to start writing.

Entering the studio the following day, he was further surprised by a waiting room of session players known as Moonriders - one of Japan’s most acclaimed rock bands of the 1980s. Intimidated by their indecipherable sheet music, Hiett suggested Randall join them and with money being no object for major labels at the hight, his wingman was on the next plane out of New York to finalise the high production indulgence. Near-ambient arrangements that float in a space between The Durutti Column, Steve Cropper and Ashra, Down On The Road By The Beach also crowns Hiett the master of recontextualization with his zero-gravity blues visions of Roll Over Beethoven, Santo & Johnny’s Sleep Walk and the 1967 Eddie Floyd soul hit Never Found A Girl.

First re-issue since its original release in Japan in 1983, remastered from the original masters, 140g vinyl, gatefold sleeve, 16 page photography book with liner notes.