Shamrock Diaries

Untitled

Shamrock Diaries is an album by Chris Rea, released in 1985.

This album represents the beginning of a creative and commercial zenith for Rea. Shamrock Diaries was a huge seller in Europe, reaching number one in several countries including Germany and The Netherlands, it reached the Top 20 in Great Britain. The album was also successful in Australia, where it, too, reached number one.

The track "Stainsby Girls" was written as a tribute for his wife Joan, a former student of the Stainsby Secondary Modern School.

One of the album's most popular tracks, "Josephine," was written by Rea for his daughter of the same name. Rea would later pay the same compliment to his youngest daughter, Julia, on the album Espresso Logic (1993).

"Josephine" was also sampled in 2000 by Superfunk for their song "Lucky Star", with Ron Carroll, although the samples comes from another (shorter) version of the song.

Track listing

All songs by Chris Rea.

1. "Steel River" – 6:15
2. "Stainsby Girls" – 3:51
3. "Chisel Hill" – 4:03
4. "Josephine" – 4:26
5. "One Golden Rule" – 4:29
6. "All Summer Long" – 4:09
7. "Stone" – 4:23
8. "Shamrock Diaries" – 4:55
9. "Love Turns To Lies" – 4:11
10. "Hired Gun" – 8:03

Personnel

• Chris Rea - vocals, guitar, organ, keyboards, synthesizer, slide guitar, producer
• Robert Ahwai - guitar
• Simon Nicol - guitar
• Eoghan O'Neill - bass
• Kevin Leach - keyboards
• Max Middleton - keyboards
• Annie Whitehead - trombone
• Dave Mattacks - drums
• Adrian Rea - drums
• Martin Ditcham - percussion
• David Richards - producer, engineer
• Barry Hammond - engineer