Shamrock Diaries
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| Allmusic |    link |
Shamrock Diaries is the seventh studio 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 the Top 20 in several countries including Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The album was also successful in Australia, where it reached number one.
Summary
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" is a track that Rea has re-recorded many times. The semi-acoustic version released on the original LP was replaced in later CD editions by the "disco" version, which is an edit of "Josephine (La version Francais)" AKA "Josephine Extended French re-record". The original LP version was later made available on the French release "The Best of Chris Rea" in 1998. Soon after the original LP was released, Josephine was released as a single, the 7-inch version of which was a completely different, rockier version. This version appeared again in 2001 on the album "The Very Best of Chris Rea". The original video for Josephine uses this version but is approximately twenty seconds longer at the start. Then in 1988 two further versions were released for "New Light Through Old Windows". The version on the European and UK album is undoubtedly the most well known and was also made available on the 1994 "The Best of Chris Rea". For the US album a different, faster recording was released and is the rarest of all renditions. Finally in 2008 another re-recording was released on the Germany-only "Fool (If You Think It's Over) - The Definitive Greatest Hits"
"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.
- "Steel River" – 6:15
- "Stainsby Girls" – 3:51
- "Chisel Hill" – 4:03
- "Josephine" – 4:26 (3:56 in later pressings)
- "One Golden Rule" – 4:29
- "All Summer Long" – 4:09
- "Stone" – 4:23
- "Shamrock Diaries" – 4:55
- "Love Turns To Lies" – 4:11
- "Hired Gun" – 8:03
Certifications
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Germany (BVMI)[1] | Gold | 250,000^ |
| United Kingdom (BPI)[2] | Silver | 60,000^ |
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* Sales figures based on certification alone. | ||
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
Singles
- "Stainsby girls" b/w "And when she smiles", "Sunrise", "Dancing shoes", "September blue"
- "Josephine" b/w "Josephine (Remix)", "Everytime it rains"
- ^ "Gold-/Platin-Datenbank (Chris Rea; 'Shamrock Diaries')" (in German). Bundesverband Musikindustrie.
- ^ "British album certifications – Chris Rea – Shamrock Diaries". British Phonographic Industry. Select albums in the Format field. Select Silver in the Certification field. Type Shamrock Diaries in the "Search BPI Awards" field and then press Enter.