Please Don't Touch, Steve Hackett's first solo album after quitting Genesis, featured many high profile guest vocalists such as Steve Walsh from 'pomp' rockers, Kansas; gravel voiced Ritchie Havens and soul singer Randy Crawford, perhaps indicating Steve's dissatisfaction with his own vocalising? It was the instrumental suite on side two that was the main thrust of this album though, as the sweeping, classical-tinged, Crawford-vocalised ballad,
Hoping Love Will Last seemlessly ran into the haunting prelude of
Land Of A Thousand Autumns, the drifting timelessness of which ill-prepared those with a weak heart for the dramatically startling entry of the title track (Steve even put a warning on the cover to this effect!) and it's a segue that really does make your heart jump. The frantic, burning instrumental
Please Don't Touch had been foolishly rejected by the Genesis committee when deciding on the track listing for
Wind & Wuthering a few years earlier but it finds a good home here, oddly cutting into an experiment with then cutting edge computer technology demonstrated on
The Voice Of Necam. The other songs on this album are generally glossy affairs, displaying high technical skill and another Hackett acoustic classic for good measure, in the shape of the guitar/flute duet,
Kim.
A year later, in 1979, Hackett hit an early peak on a more band-oriented album, recorded with his brother John on flute, Nick Magnus (ex-Enid) on keyboards, Dik Cadbury (ex-Decameron) on bass and John Shearer on drums. Still shunning most of the vocals, Pete Hicks took over that role for Steve on the song selections and Spectral Mornings proved to be something of a tour-de-force, putting Steve firmly on the map, and the charts, as a recognised solo artist. Opening with the glorious Every Day, Steve's distinctive, golden-toned guitar soared wild, high and free, the coda in particular being a singular delight as he improvised over the ever-circling chord sequence. His questing thirst for world music began to show in his impressive mastery of that Japanese instrument ,t he koto, on the evocative The Red Flower Of Tachai Blooms Everywhere, with its oriental motifs and keening string washes. It provided the perfect prelude for the more aggressive, Clocks-The Angel Of Mons, featuring some signature Hackett riffing and doom-laden bass pedals from brother John, along with creepy swathes of mellotron from Magnus. Steve's humour and his prowess on the harmonica were aptly demonstrated in the whimsical, Ballad Of The Decomposing Man (featuring The Office Party) which closed side one.
The second side of the album is largely instrumental ,with more Hackett acoustic frippery on the Moorish sounding, Lost Time In Cordoba, leading into the two-part epic, Tigermoth , on which Steve turns his guitar playing into a plane crash, following a brilliant display of sonic aviation with pounding, razor-sharp riffs, buoyed by dark-hued mellotronics from the keyboard department. The second half of the piece is a song, describing a heavenly scenario after a World War One fighter goes down in the drink. Wonderful, imaginative stuff! The title track closes a fine album in some style, with a dense, disciplined band performance, topped with some truly spectral guitar from Steve.
For Defector in 1980, Steve chose the concept of a Soviet dissident and his tribulations and attempted to illustrate this in a series of instrumental and vocal pieces, which for the most part worked well. The opening track, The Steppes, is a highlight and creates an instrumental depiction of the Russian heartland of great power and beauty. The guitar/flute unison of the main melody combines into a smoothly unified sound and the contrast of this soaring evocation with the slow-paced, heavy drums and bass drone creates a tangible tension and air of apprehension. Other peaks on this album are the tricky instrumental workout, Jacuzzi, with its odd time signatures and the deeply moving Hammer In The Sand, a brilliant piece of composition for piano, mellotron and guitar that is extremely subtle, carrying a real pathos and is the standout track for me. Some of the vocalised link tracks feel a bit makewight but serve to glue together the loose concept and although Defector only occasionally hits the highs previously sustained on Spectral Mornings, it is still an album well worth your attention and provided Steve with his one and only placing in the Top Ten of the album chart in 1980.
More Hackett later when I will take a look at his eighties output...by the way, thanks to those who expressed an appreciation of my earlier skim through Steve's Genesis years - hope you find this brief sketch of his early solo career of interest too.
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Steve Hackett - Solo Years '78-'80
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