Waking Hours

Many Del Amitri fans consider Waking Hours to be the band's first "real" album. The post-punk influence of the first album, Del Amitri (1985), had produced a sound radically different to the remainder of the band's output. The first album had been extremely difficult to find for many years, before its 2003 CD reissue, leaving many who became fans in the 1990s totally unaware of its existence. Waking Hours arguably represents Del Amitri's first "mature" record, and was certainly the first to bring them any mainstream success.

Typically for Del Amitri (the group never made two albums with the same band members), Waking Hours featured some recently introduced personnel: new guitarist Mick Slaven and keyboard player Andy Alston, who would become a full member after the album's release.{{cite web|url=http://delamitri.blogspot.com/2015/03/interview-with-del-amitris-andy-alston.html|title=Interview With Andy Alston|website=delamitri.blogspot.com|date=24 March 2015|accessdate=24 June 2022}} Despite some important creative input (he contributed to the writing of "Kiss This Thing Goodbye" and "Hatful Of Rain") Slaven left the band before the album had even been released and was replaced by David Cummings. It would also be the last record for drummer Paul Tyagi, who was replaced by Brian McDermott. Both Cummings and McDermott appear on the album's front cover despite not having played on it.{{cite web|url=https://uofda.tripod.com/albums.htm|title=Music Classes: The Albums - Waking Hours|website=University of Del Amitri|accessdate=1 July 2022}}

On the heels of a US tour in 1986, where Del Amitri had absorbed classic rock radio{{cite web|url=https://magnetmagazine.com/2010/05/31/qa-with-del-amitris-justin-currie/|title=Q&A With Del Amitri's Justin Currie|website=Magnet|last=Rowland|first=Hobart|date=31 May 2010|accessdate=24 June 2022}} and picked up a diverse range of musical influences, the band began a musical evolution during an intensive period of songwriting.{{Cite web |url=https://www.delamitri.info/album-of-the-month-waking-hours-1989/ |title=Album of the Month: Waking Hours |website=delamitri.info|access-date=24 June 2022 }} From taking inspiration from bands such as the Fall, the Smiths, R.E.M. and the Feelies, they now started listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, John Mellencamp as well as country-influenced artists like Steve Earle and Lyle Lovett. "We always said that our "transformation" from indie art pop to mainstream pop rock was a natural thing," singer and bassist Justin Currie said in 2010. "Iain [Harvie] and I started writing separately instead of with the rest of the band, and our stuff sounded much more accessible and probably Americanized. Iain's guitar playing loosened up, started embracing blues and rock... And we then brought in a famous Glasgow guitarist called Mick Slaven, who plays like Robert Quine meets Nile Rogers meets Marc Bolan meets Jimi Hendrix. That we should sound a little different from before was inevitable."

Del Amitri made their first recordings with their new lineup in spring 1987, recording the tracks "Move Away Jimmy Blue" and "Talk It to Death" with producer Gil Norton at Park Lane studios in Glasgow. The sessions also produced a handful of demos, which led to a bidding war among various labels, and the eventual signing with A&M Records later in the year. In 1988, unsuccessful attempts in London and Los Angeles with producer David Kershenbaum at recording what would become Waking Hours,{{cite web|url=https://www.delamitri.info/biography/|title=Biography|website=delamitri.info|accessdate=1 July 2022}}{{cite magazine |last=Forrest |first=James |date=October 2013 |title=Stone Cold Sober with Justin Currie |url=https://en.calameo.com/read/00138299363205c99d186 |magazine=Amped Up |issue=2 |page=8 |access-date=1 July 2022}} left the band frustrated and disillusioned. The only track not scrapped from these sessions was the future B-side "The Return of Maggie Brown".{{cite web|url=https://harmonicariffraff.blog/2019/07/05/kiss-this/|title=Kiss This!|website=Harmonica Riff Raff|date= 5 July 2019|accessdate=1 July 2022}} But with the arrival of producer Hugh Jones, the project got back on track and recordings of "Nothing Ever Happens", "Empty" and "You're Gone" took place at Chipping Norton Recording Studios in Oxfordshire. Later, due to Jones' commitment to other projects, engineer Mark Freegard took over production and recorded the remaining tracks for the album at Great Linford Manor in Milton Keynes. By early 1989, recording for the album was completed.

Drummer Paul Tyagi, who left the band during the recording of Waking Hours, was replaced in the studio by Stephen Irvine of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, who contributed drums to five tracks,{{cite web|url=https://www.pressreader.com/ireland/irish-daily-mirror/20220211/282415582703153|title=Stephen was never one to create a Commotion.. but he'd like a Rattle at being back together|website=Daily Mirror|last=O'Toole|first=Jason|date=11 February 2022|accessdate=1 July 2022}} including "Stone Cold Sober". Other tracks such as "Kiss This Thing Goodbye" and "Opposite View" feature drum programming.{{Cite book|title=These Are Such Perfect Days: The Del Amitri Story|last=Rawlings-Way|first=Charles|publisher=Urbane Publications|year=2018|isbn=978-1911331414|pages=116-118}}{{cite web|url=https://justincurrie.com/austin-day-sixteen-2/|title=Austin, Day Eighteen|website=justincurrie.com|last=Currie|first=Justin|date=25 October 2012|accessdate=1 July 2022}} Bassists James O'Malley (of Fire Next Time) and Currie's occasional session stand-in Nick Clark were drafted in for certain tracks on the album,{{cite magazine |last=Quinn |first=Paul |date=August 1992 |title=Success The Long Way Round |url=http://delamitri.com/2003/04/success-the-long-way-round/ |magazine=Making Music |access-date=1 July 2022}} while Mick Slaven played bass on "When I Want You".{{Cite book|title=These Are Such Perfect Days: The Del Amitri Story|last=Rawlings-Way|first=Charles|publisher=Urbane Publications|year=2018|isbn=978-1911331414|page=174}} "The new songs demanded pretty tight bass playing and I really couldn't get my head round it then," Currie said in 1992. "But in the end I played on about five songs on the album."

{{Tracklist

| total_length =

| all_writing = Justin Currie, except as noted

|title1= Kiss This Thing Goodbye

|writer1=Currie, Iain Harvie, Mick Slaven

|length1=4:35

|title2= Opposite View

|length2=4:52

|title3=Move Away Jimmy Blue

|writer3=Currie, Harvie

|length3=3:47

|title4= Stone Cold Sober

|length4=4:57

|title5= You're Gone

|writer5=Currie, Harvie

|length5=5:10

|title6=When I Want You

|length6=4:32

|title7=This Side of the Morning

|length7=4:21

|title8= Empty

|length8=4:38

|title9= Hatful of Rain

|writer9=Currie, Harvie, Slaven

|length9=5:01

|title10= Nothing Ever Happens

|length10=3:53

}}

;Disc 1

• as per the original album

{{Tracklist

|total_length =

|headline = Disc 2

|extra_column = Producer(s)

|title1= No Holding On

|note1= B-side to "Kiss This Thing Goodbye"

|extra1 = Del Amitri

|length1=3:54

|title2= Slowly, It's Coming Back

|note2= B-side to "Kiss This Thing Goodbye"

|extra2 = Del Amitri

|length2=4:02

|title3=Fred Partington's Daughter

|note3= B-side to "Kiss This Thing Goodbye"

|extra3 = The Groovey Tubes

|length3=3:40

|title4= The Return of Maggie Brown

|note4= B-side to "Stone Cold Sober"

|extra4 = David Kershenbaum

|length4=3:44

|title5= Talk It to Death

|note5= B-side to "Stone Cold Sober"

|writer5=Currie, Harvie

|extra5 = Gil Norton

|length5=4:26

|title6=So Many Souls to Change

|note6= B-side to "Nothing Ever Happens"

|extra6 = The Groovey Tubes

|length6=3:57

|title7=Don't I Look Like the Kind of Guy You Used to Hate

|note7= B-side to "Nothing Ever Happens"

|extra7 = The Groovey Tubes

|length7=2:50

|title8= Evidence

|note8= B-side to "Nothing Ever Happens"

|extra8 = The Groovey Tubes

|length8=3:10

|title9= Another Letter Home

|note9= B-side to "Move Away Jimmy Blue"

|extra9 = The Groovey Tubes

|length9=4:08

|title10= April the First

|note10= B-side to "Move Away Jimmy Blue"

|extra10 = The Groovey Tubes

|length10=2:53

|title11= More Than You'd Ever Know

|note11= B-side to "Move Away Jimmy Blue"

|extra11 = The Groovey Tubes

|length11=2:28

|title12= This Side of the Morning

|note12= live in the car park at 2 a.m.) (B-side to "Move Away Jimmy Blue"

|extra12 = Mark Freegard

|length12=4:19

|title13= Spit in the Rain

|note13= non-album single, 1990

|extra13 = Norton

|length13=3:45

|title14= The Return of Maggie Brown

|note14= version 2) (B-side to "Spit in the Rain"

|extra14 = Kershenbaum

|length14=3:47

}}

Credits adapted from the album liner notes.{{cite AV media notes |title=Waking Hours |others=Del Amitri |date=1989|publisher=A&M}}

;Del Amitri

• Justin Currie – vocals, bass
• Iain Harvie – guitar
• Mick Slaven – guitar, bass (uncredited)
• Paul Tyagi – percussion, drums

;Additional musicians

• Andy Alston – piano, organ
• Blair Cowan – accordion, synthesizer
• Will Mowat – sequencing, keyboards
• Nick Clark – bass (thanked in the album credits for "invisible bass guitar")
• James O'Malley – bass
• Stephen Irvine – drums
• Julian Dawson – harmonica
• Robert Cairns – violin
• Caroline Lavelle – cello

;Technical

• Mark Freegard – producer (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9), additional recording (3, 5, 8, 10)
• Gil Norton – producer (3)
• Hugh Jones – producer (5, 8, 10)
• Julian Mendelsohn – mixing
• Kevin Westenberg – photography
• Sarah Southin – design
• Jeremy Pearce – design

{{Certification Table Top}}

{{certification Table Entry|type=album|region=Australia|artist=Del Amitri|title=Waking Hours|award=Platinum|certyear=1990|relyear=1989|access-date=24 June 2022}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=United Kingdom|type=album|award=Platinum|artist=Del Amitri|title=Waking Hours|relyear=1989|certyear=1991|id=8034-1686-2|accessdate=24 June 2022}}

{{Certification Table Bottom|nosales=true}}

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.delamitri.com Official Del Amitri homepage]
• {{youTube|BylpEQbMfxc|Del Amitri - 'Kiss This Thing Goodbye' (Going Live!)}}

{{Del Amitri}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Del Amitri albums

Category:1989 albums

Category:A&M Records albums

Category:Albums produced by Gil Norton

Category:Albums produced by Hugh Jones (producer)