4. Adam FaithI Survive
At the beginning there is a huge guitar freak out by Ritchie Blackmore, a guitar odyssey. What I love about this record is that it is a singer songwriter album, but production-wise it’s dry as a bone. I try to make my own vocals as dry, and these vocals are upfront. It’s more in my area, a non-singer, a talk-singing vocal. I identify with Adam Faith as he was such a superstar yet had a meagre voice. I remember from when I was growing up that he suffered a lot of criticism from people saying he couldn’t sing, and I would think, ‘What are they talking about?’ He understood he had a slight voice early on and got into acting straight away, so became known as an actor more than a singer. He hadn’t made a record for a long time but had a crash in his Rolls-Royce and nearly died, and I am so glad he didn’t, because there was so much more to do. He got into business early on, and ended up managing people, like Leo Sayer, whose first album is good, Faith produced that with this guy David Courtney, one of the best songwriters, who wrote Dollar’s big hit ‘Shooting Star’. It’s a brilliant song and one of the first electropop singles, just before the synth revolution took off.
