Nights At The Roundtable - Ginhouse - 1971
By Gordonskene Monday Aug 17, 2009 9:24pm
(Ginhouse - The original vinyl lp is going for silly money)
For every band that has achieved fame and riches from their music, there are at least a thousand who recorded one single or one album and vanished without a trace. A lot have good reason for their obscurity, but a lot arrived at that status for no good reason.
Ginhouse were such a band. A power trio that weaved back and forth from Psychedelia to Prog-rock consisted of Geoff Sharkey, guitar - Stewart Burlison, Bass and Dave Whitacker on drums. Together a few short months in 1971 before splitting off in other directions. Sharkey was previously with the band Sammy who later morphed into Audience. Burlison and Whitacker are mysteries. But Ginhouse never had a single enter the charts and this one lp came and went with very little notice and wasn't even issued in the States. How I found out about them was something of an accident. I had done some work for Charisma Records (the label who had Genesis, Van Der Graaf Generator, Lindesfarne and many others) - they were distributed by B&C Records who dabbled in rock and Prog-rock but were primarily a Reggae label with the exception of bands like Atomic Rooster and Arnold Corn (David Bowie). The Press Officer for Charisma sent the album as an afterthought and I was hooked from Side One.
Luckily, the album has been reissued on CD by a couple of small labels in the U.K. since the original album has been seen going for hundreds of dollars on the collectors market.
This track, or actually two of them since they blend into each other are "The Journey" and "Portrait Picture".
File under Unjustified Neglect.
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Hi Gordonskene
i've got this album on vinyl in great condition apart from the fact that one side has an awful wine right thru the record.
with no track's on this side i wonder if you could find out why this is, iv'e had this album since the mid seventies,mainly because i roadied with Stu Burlison when i was about 17/18,with a band called Oasis, now this band won an award, gigged constantly round the north of england and played the Nashville in London. I thought they oozed class with a rich rock and harmony sound, but alas,sick of trying they quit and i feel cheated not to have an album. I do have a tape from there time, and some of the song's on it are brill. They did do a spot on Tyne Tees Television Friday Night Live in 1979, After that they played in various club band's. Burlison was a musician of great quality and writing and teamed up with the excellent guitarist Keith Nichol
Davey Whitaker also played the club scene with some really good band's
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