The Minor Fall, The Major Lift - Album by Claire Hamill

Claire Hamill is, for the first time, bringing together her greatest works of the last thirty-five years. The Minor Fall, The Major Lift: The Best of Claire Hamill spans Claire’s extraordinary career in music, from her beginnings as a teenage ingénue in the early ‘70s to her turn-of-the-century classic, ‘You Take My Breath Away’.

Born in Middlesbrough, 16-year-old Claire was discovered singing in a local club in 1971. Her pure and beautiful voice shone out and weeks later she was whipped down south and signed by Island Records supremo Chris Blackwell. “My manager, John McCoy, told Chris Blackwell about me and Chris said ‘No, she’s too young.’

So me and John drove down to London and went to the Island Records office anyway. I sang Chris some of my songs and that changed his tune on the spot,” says Claire, now relaxing in her studio on the South Coast.

Within months she’d recorded her first album, One House Left Standing, and started appearing on TV – notably alongside The Who on The Old Grey Whistle Test. ‘Baseball Blues’ is a standard from that era and has since featured on “Baseball’s greatest Hits” an album released In the states on Warner bros. records.

By the mid-seventies Claire had developed a reputation as a folk-rock wild child, producing albums packed with timeless songs, touring America with Procul Harum and partying with the likes of Ginger Baker and Tim Buckley. “I was the oldest of seven kids whose Dad had abandoned us – I went from having nothing in a tiny house in Middlesbrough to recording in huge London studios and living in the Hyatt Hotel on Sunset Strip.” Kinks legend Ray Davies swiped Claire from Island and made two albums with her on his own Konk label, which have become highly-prized collector’s items.

Her reputation growing, she moved to Sussex and started experimenting with new electronic instruments – synthesizers and early samplers. Now based in her own studio, she had the technology to think outside the folk-rock genre, and signed to influential label Coda, who instantly understood her new atmospheric, texture-based sound.

Voices

Nearly two decades before Björk was to take critical accolades for doing the same, in 1987 Claire released the ground-breaking album Voices, building up layer upon layer of her vocals to create haunting, beautiful soundscapes. No instruments or backing singers were used. It struck an immediate chord with TV producers, who used it to great effect on big-budget productions including The Domesday Book. She then recorded her own version of Pachelbel’s Canon which was used to soundtrack nature programmes on Channel Four and struck a chord with the audience. “This got such a great public reaction that the Saturday kids show Going Live asked me to make a video singing in front of these penguins – but I think they were expecting someone else, because when they saw the result they said ‘the penguins look fine, but can we have a version without Claire please?!’”

As the 80s turned into the 90s Claire unwittingly found herself at the centre of the indie-dance explosion. Cult DJ Andy Weatherall, producer of Primal Scream’s classic Screamadelica album, sampled her song ‘Tides’ for a remix of My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Soon.’ “The first I knew of it was when a friend phoned me up and said ‘turn on the radio – you’re on Radio 1!’ Well, it was ‘Tides’ all right, but all chopped up and looped around. Andy Weatherall hadn’t asked my permission, but in the end that wasn’t so bad for me because I had quite a nice financial settlement from Sony Records when they bought the My Bloody Valentine catalogue!”

Settling into life bringing up her three daughters, Claire continued to write and record until in 2003 Eva Cassidy’s version of Claire’s song ‘You Take My Breath Away’ appeared on Eva’s platinum-selling album American Tune and established Claire as a
world class songwriter.

Now Claire has taken all aspects of her music career into her own hands. Claire’s album masters have been returned to her ownership after years of being under the control of record labels, finally giving her the chance to compile and release The Major Fall, The Minor Lift: The Best of Claire Hamill on her own terms. “The songs on the album have been chosen because of what they mean to me and my fans. It’s strange to be looking back on thirty-five years in the business but it feels good to be in control of my own material for the first time. I hope I’ve got another thirty-five years of singing and songwriting in me!”

From innocent teen songstress, to atmospheric innovator, to the political folk-rock commentator, Claire Hamill is a best-selling singer-songwriter who continues to delight and enchant.