The 'Fickle Heart' LP was a real team effort. Initially,
demos were brought to Chiswick Records by
drummer/producer Lou Salvoni. Though more
associated with the bar band and punk end of music,
Chiswick was much more musically diverse. There is a
drive in the lead track ‘Driver’s Seat’ which was the
signature sound of what was a tougher record than
much of the similar music around it. Engineer Barry
Farmer was brought in from Pathway Studios, where he
had been at the controls for some earlier Chiswick
releases as well as those on Stiff. This was older
school than the new upstarts and the band was made
up of some of the top musicians around London at the
time. Much of it was recorded at Regents Park Studio,
where Steve Lipson joined the production team.
• ‘Driver’s Seat’ first came out in the UK in October 1978,
as well as in Spain, Holland and Germany, where it
charted. But it was the July 1979 US release through
Atlantic when it really took off, with a Top 20 chart
position. The album came out in November of that year.
• Though ‘Driver’s Seat’ is the featured track, it is far
from being a one-track album, with confident
arrangements and musicianship throughout and
production that all adds up to an enduring record of
great songs. Though set in its period, it transcends it,
still sounding fresh today, some 43 years after its
release.
• The album hasn’t been available on vinyl since 1995;
remastered from the original tapes, it sounds better
than ever.
