Prefab Sprout are an English pop rock band from Witton Gilbert, County Durham, England who rose to fame during the 1980s. Eight of their albums have reached the Top 40 in the UK Albums Chart, and one of their singles, "The King of Rock 'n' Roll", peaked at number seven in the UK Singles Chart.^[1] The band formed in 1978 in Newcastle.^[1]

Prefab Sprout had minimal chart success in the United States. Their 1985 album Steve McQueen was released in the US with the title Two Wheels Good and peaked at number 180 in the Billboard 200. Frontman Paddy McAloon has been hailed as one of the great songwriters of his era.^[2]

Career[link]

Prefab Sprout debuted in 1982 with their self-released single, "Lions In My Own Garden: Exit Someone" - songwriter Paddy McAloon wanted a song title where the first letters of the words spelled out Limoges, the French city where his former girlfriend was staying at the time.^[2] Music journalist Stuart Maconie, described the track as "enigmatic, melancholy, tuneful and therefore perfect for a jobless literature graduate with girlfriend problems".^[3] Their debut album, Swoon, was released on the Kitchenware label in March 1984.^[2] The following album, the Thomas Dolby-produced Steve McQueen, (released in America as Two Wheels Good after McQueen's estate expressed their displeasure with the title) was highly praised by critics.^[2] Their Protest Songs album was recorded next, but was not released until 1989. It included the song "Life of Surprises", which later became the title track for their greatest hits compilation album.

Their biggest commercial success in the UK came with the 1988 single "The King of Rock 'N' Roll", taken from the album From Langley Park to Memphis. It reached #7 in the UK Singles Chart, their only single to reach the Top 10. From Langley Park to Memphis included guest appearances from Stevie Wonder and Pete Townshend.^[1]

In 1990, Jordan: The Comeback, again produced by Thomas Dolby, was nominated for a BRIT Award. Though the music was more accessible than their earlier material, the lyrics and subject matter remained characteristically oblique and suggestive (McAloon has often cited Stephen Sondheim as an influence).^{[citation needed]} McAloon has alluded in interviews to several albums-worth of songs that he has written but are unreleased/unrecorded including amongst others, concept albums based on the life of Michael Jackson (Behind the Veil), the history of the world (Earth: The Story So Far) and (Zorro the Fox) about a fictional superhero.^{[citation needed]}

Their greatest hits, A Life of Surprises - The Best of Prefab Sprout, gave them their biggest US hit, "If You Don't Love Me", which spent several weeks in the Top 10 on the dance chart. McAloon joked in the album liner notes about the band's lack of touring over the past decade.

Prefab Sprout released Andromeda Heights in the UK in 1997 and embarked on a short UK tour in 2000. This tour, and the subsequent album, did not feature Wendy Smith, who by this time had reportedly left the band. A double album anthology, the 38 Carat Collection was released by CBS in 1999 as the group was leaving the record label.^[2] Unexpectedly, the group's US label, Epic, belatedly reissued this set as The Collection in early 2001.^[2] Smith left the group during this period, after the birth of her first child.

In 2001 the band released The Gunman and Other Stories a concept album themed on the American Wild West. The opening track "Cowboy Dreams" was a hit for the British actor-singer Jimmy Nail. Though critically acclaimed, neither enjoyed major commercial success.

After being diagnosed with a medical disorder that seriously impaired his vision, Paddy McAloon released the album I Trawl The Megahertz under his own name in 2003 on the EMI Liberty label. As of 2006, McAloon had suffered another setback: his hearing had deteriorated, reportedly due to Ménière's disease. In early 2007 a remastered Steve McQueen was released in a two-CD package, containing new versions of eight of the songs from the original album, in radically different arrangements performed by McAloon on acoustic guitar.

Prefab Sprout's first album of new material since 2001, Let's Change the World with Music, was released on 7 September 2009. Reviews in the UK press were favourable (e.g. 5/5 in The Times, 4/5 in The Guardian, 4/5 in Record Collector). The release was also accompanied by a few interviews (e.g. Mojo).

Band name[link]

According to the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums, the band's name was a mondegreen from the Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood song, "Jackson", misheard by frontman Paddy McAloon.^[1] The correct opening lyrics for "Jackson" are "We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout", which McAloon misinterpreted as 'hotter than a prefab sprout'. However, Allmusic reckons that the prosaic truth is that "an adolescent McAloon had devised the meaningless name in homage to the longwinded and equally silly band names of his late 1960s / early 1970s youth". But it is equally valid that, because of the proliferation of pre-fabricated houses in the North East (due to World War II - and commonly called Prefabs), the former is true due to word association.^[2]

Core members[link]

• Paddy McAloon (born Patrick Joseph McAloon, 7 June 1957, Durham^[4]); vocals / guitars / keyboards
• Wendy Smith (born 31 May 1963,^[4] Middlesbrough); vocals / guitars / keyboards
• Feona Attwood (born, Chester-le-Street, County Durham); vocals - now Professor Attwood teaching Media and Communication Studies at Sheffield Hallam University.^[5]
• Martin McAloon (born 4 January 1962, Durham^[4]); bass guitar
• Neil Conti (born 12 February 1959,^[4] Luton); drums / percussion
• Michael Salmon (born Durham); the band's first drummer and co-founder - left January 1983 replaced by Graham Lant. Steve Dolder joined in mid 1983 before Conti joined in late 1984^[6]

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• All chart positions takes from Chart Log UK <http://www.zobbel.de/cluk/CLUK_P.HTM>

Singles[link]

Sources[link]

• Myths, Melodies & Metaphysics: Paddy McAloon's Prefab Sprout - ISBN 978-0-9558832-0-0

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Sproutnet" - with media and message boards
• "The longest running Prefab Sprout fansite" - now largely archival and rarely updated^{[dead link]}
• "Life of Surprises" in English and Spanish

Faron Young
Capitol Records promotional photo
Background information
Birth name	Faron Young
Also known as	The Hillbilly Heartthrob The Singing Sheriff The Young Sheriff
Born	(1932-02-25)February 25, 1932
Origin	Shreveport, Louisiana, United States
Died	December 10, 1996(1996-12-10) (aged 64)
Genres	Country music
Occupations	singer, songwriter, movie actor
Instruments	guitar
Years active	1951–1994
Labels	Gotham, Capitol, Mercury, MCA, Step One

Faron Young (February 25, 1932 – December 10, 1996) was an American country music singer and songwriter from the early 1950s into the mid-1980s and one of its most successful and colorful stars. Hits including "If You Ain't Lovin' (You Ain't Livin')" and "Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young" marked him as a honky-tonk singer in sound and personal style; and his chart-topping singles "Hello Walls" and "It's Four in the Morning" showed his versatility as a vocalist. Known as the Hillbilly Heartthrob, and following a movie role, the Young Sheriff, Young's singles reliably charted for more than 30 years. He committed suicide in 1996. Young is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Biography[link]

Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Young was the youngest of six children. He grew up on a dairy farm that his family operated outside the city. He began singing at an early age. He performed at the local Optimist Club and was discovered by Webb Pierce, who brought him to star on Louisiana Hayride on KWKH-AM in 1951. He graduated from Fair Park High School that year and attended Centenary College of Louisiana.

Recording career[link]

Young recorded in Shreveport, but his first releases were on Philadelphia’s Gotham Records.^[1] By February 1952, he was signed to Capitol Records, where he recorded for the next ten years. His first Capitol single appeared that spring.

Young moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and recorded his first chart hit, "Goin’ Steady", in October 1952, but his career was sidetracked when he was drafted into the US Army the following month. The song hit the Billboard country charts while Young was in basic training. It peaked at No. 2, and the US Army Band took the young singer to replace Eddie Fisher on tours—its first country music singer—just as "If You Ain’t Lovin’" was hitting the charts.^[1] He was discharged in November 1954.

From 1954 to 1962, Young recorded many honky-tonk classics for Capitol, including the first hit version of Don Gibson’s "Sweet Dreams". Most famous was "Hello Walls," a 1961 crossover hit for Young written by Willie Nelson.^[1] It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.^[2]

During the mid-1950s, Young starred in four low-budget movies: Hidden Guns, Daniel Boone, Trail Blazer, Raiders of Old California and Country Music Holiday. He appeared as himself in cameo roles and performances in later country music movies and was a frequent guest on television shows throughout his career, including ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee. His band, the Country Deputies, was one of country music's top bands and they toured for many years. He invested in real estate along Nashville's Music Row in the 1960s and, in 1963, co-founded, with Preston Temple, the trade magazine, Music City News.

The same year, Young switched to Mercury Records and drifted musically, but by the end of the decade he had recaptured much of his fire with hits including "Wine Me Up". Released in 1971, waltz-time ballad "It's Four In The Morning" written by Jerry Chesnut^[3] was one of Young’s finest records and his last number one hit, also becoming his only major success in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at No. 3 on the pop charts. By the mid-1970s his records were becoming overshadowed by his behavior, making headlines in 1972 when he was charged with assault for spanking a girl in the audience at a concert in Clarksburg, West Virginia, who he claimed spat on him,^[4] and for other later incidents. In the mid-70s, Young was the spokesman for BC Powder.^[5]

Later years[link]

Young signed with MCA Records in 1979 but the association lasted only two years. Nashville independent label Step One signed him in 1988 where he recorded into the early 1990s (including a duet album with Ray Price), then withdrew from public view. Though new country acts including BR549 were putting his music before new audiences in the mid-1990s, Young apparently felt the industry had turned its back on him.^[1] That and despondency over his deteriorating health were cited as possible reasons why Young shot himself on December 9, 1996. He died in Nashville the following day and was cremated. His ashes were spread by his family over Old Hickory Lake outside Nashville at Johnny and June Carter Cash's home while the Cash's were away.^[6]

Legacy and influence[link]

• A live performance video clip of Young's "It's Four in The Morning" was the first music video to air on CMT when it was launched on March 6, 1983.
• In 1985, British rock group Prefab Sprout's album, Steve McQueen, included the song "Faron Young" with the refrain, "You give me Faron Young four in the morning/Forgive me Faron Young four in the morning..."
• A Country Music Song written by Tex Garrison mentions Faron Young in his opening lyrics and contains the lines "Got a stack of records when I was one, listened to Hank Williams and Faron Young.
• In 2000, Young was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
• The cat owned by Peanuts comic strip character Frieda was named "Faron" after Young, whom Charles Schulz "admired very much",^[7] but made few appearances in the strip.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

Singles[link]

B-sides[link]

Movie roles[link]

• 1956 Hidden Guns
• 1956 Daniel Boone, Trail Blazer
• 1957 Raiders of Old California
• 1958 Country Music Holiday
• 1966 Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar
• 1966 Nashville Rebel
• 1967 What Am I Bid?
• 1967 The Road to Nashville
• 1977 That's Country

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Cooper, Daniel (2004), In The Encyclopedia of Country Music, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-517608-7 ., p. 606-7
• Diekman, Diane. "Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story." Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007, p. 27

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Faron Young at the Country Music Hall of Fame
• Faron Young biography and links
• Faron Young biography at CMT.com
• Faron Young obituary at CountryStandardTime.com
• The short film Country Style USA Recruitment: Episode 19 is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• The short film Country Style USA Recruitment: Episode 35 is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• Faron Young at the Internet Movie Database