Kevin Coyne & Brendan Croker

Kevin Coyne & Brendan Croker – Life Is Almost Wonderful

A sublime duo for a high-end blues!

 

The CD “Life Is Almost Wonderful” was only sold at concerts by the duo they played together back in 2002 in Belgium and Netherlands. If they had set out to be invisible Coyne and Croker couldn’t have planned it much better. But they were two artists not bothered about record company deals, distribution and other practical matters. Never mind, the main thing is this marvellous acoustic album.

 

Although “recorded by post” (Croker sent the basic guitar tracks and Kevin improvised the lyrics on top), the album is an amazing symbiosis, as if the two were on exactly the same wavelength. There are too many great titles to detail here. “Life Is Almost Wonderful” is a masterpiece where Coyne, with Croker’s acoustic backing (some lavish guitar-harp included), conjures up wartime memories, the ’50s of his childhood, catholic schools and other peculiar subjects such as the multicoloured eyes of parrots and the story of an English clerk trying to dig through his garden to Australia.

 

The album is completed by a bonus DVD with insights from their 2002 concerts in Leffinge, Belgium and Hardenberg, Netherlands, which have never been available on DVD before.

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Tracklist:

CD:

1. Life Is Almost Wonderful 02:46
2. Pass Me The Memories 01:55
3. Old King Cole 01:30
4. Martha & Arthur 02:54
5. Looking From My Window 01:50
6. Whispers In The Night 03:44
7. I Want To Sit With The Girls 02:19
8. Oceans Of Love 02:50
9. Searching For A Friend 02:44
10. Strange Pictures 01:56
11. Be Your Sugar Daddy 02:07
12. How It Burns 01:57
13. The Eisenhower/Churchill Blues 02:54
14. I Know Who You Are 01:47
15. This Is Not A Joke 03:15

Total: 36:28

DVD:

Live @ De Zwerver, Leffinge (Belgium),

13^th Nov. 2002

1. Life is Almost Wonderful
2. Martha & Arthur
3. Looking From My Window
4. How It Burns
5. I Want To Sit With The Girls
6. Whispers In The Night
7. Strange Pictues

Live @ Troubadour, Hardenberg (Netherlands),

1^st Dec. 2002

8. Be Your Sugar Daddy
9. I Know Who You Are
10. Karate King
11. LunaticLive @ De Zwerver, Leffinge (Belgium),13^th Nov. 2002
12. We’ve Got A Love Of Our Own

Total: approx. 60 min.