John Howard & the Night Mail (LP, Tapete)

In 1975, piano prodigy John Howard, blessed with a golden voice, released his debut LP, Kid In A Big World, on CBS. But the early masterpiece (reissued in 2003) falls somewhere between glam and pub rock. The world may be ready for David Bowie’s androgynous games, but it’s far from ready for gay pop stars. 40 years later, pop chronicler Robert Rotifer brought this living singer-songwriter legend back to England from exile in Spain for the joint project John Howard & The Night Mail. Alongside Rotifer on guitar, Andy Lewis (Paul Weller’s bassist) plays bass and Mellotron and Ian Button (Papernut Cambridge, formerly of Death In Vegas and Thrashing Doves) plays drums. Except for the cover version of the Roddy Frame song “Small World”, all songs were written together with John Howard. We hear the late rebirth of an almost forgotten hero of British pop history. The LP comes with a CD.