Stealin' Home is the ninth solo album by British singer/songwriter Ian Matthews. The album is the first of Matthews' four solo albums released by Rockburgh Records. Matthews produced the album with the label's founder, Sandy Roberton, who previously produced "In Search of Amelia Earhart" (1972) for Matthews' band Plainsong, and later served as a producer for Matthews' solo albums "Siamese Friends" (1979), "Spot Of Interference" (1983), and "Shook" (1984).
Originally released on vinyl by Rockburgh Records on 11 August 1978 (catalogue # ROC 106), and in the US and Canada by Mushroom Records in September of that year (MRS 5012), "Stealin' Home" has been released over 40 times on vinyl, cassette, 8-track cartridge and CD, more than any other album in Matthews’ 50 plus years as a recording artist.
Expanded versions of the album featuring a 9-song live performance recorded at Texas A&amp;M University in November 1978 were released by Air Mail Archive in Japan in 2013 (AIRAC-1701) and US label Omnivore in 2014 (OVCD-98).
Background.
Recorded in the early summer of 1978 at Chipping Norton Recording Studios in the West Oxfordshire town of Chipping Norton, "Stealin' Home" was the result of Ian Matthews' first UK recording sessions since 1973 but in the opinion of Mark Deming of AMG, Matthews on "Stealin' Home" "dove headfirst into a polished pop sound that made the one-time British folkie sound like a member of the LA Mellow Mafia. [Though] recorded in Oxfordshire, 'Stealin' Home' re-created the meticulously crafted sound of West Coast pop with impressive accuracy."
Alan Mckay of MusicRiot.co.uk concurs that "with great session players, tasteful (bordering on minimal) FM radio-friendly arrangements and lyrics dealing with American themes [plus] a singer with a plaintive high tenor voice" it's obvious that "the album was aimed squarely at the American market". McKay further opines: "The theme running through the album was the failure of the American dreamMatthews picked out songs about the party set, car fanatics and sports groupies to form the backbone of this album. It's a melancholy album because it looks back at the unfulfilled promise of American lives in the same way that Bob Seger did with songs like 'Hollywood Nights" and 'Night Moves' and Jackson Browne did with 'The Pretender'."
While the lead US single off "Stealin' Home": "Shake It", was in the Top 40, Matthews would tell "Rolling Stone": "I don’t think I did anything different [to record a hit single]. I guess it's my reward. After all, I've been doing exactly what I want for 14 or 15 years." However Matthews would later acknowledge that on "Stealin' Home", "I tried to add just a couple of songs that had Top 40 potential, without compromising the rest of the material [and the album] did precisely what it was supposed to do: it raised my profile, without lowering my credibility." Matthews had heard the original version of "Shake It" from its composer Terence Boylan's self-titled album played on a Seattle FM radio station: after Matthews phoned the radio station for info on the track the disc jockey sent him a copy of the 1977 "Terence Boylan" album from which Matthews would select two songs: "Shake It" and "Don't Hang Up Your Dancing Shoes", to record for "Stealin' Home". "Don't Hang Up Your Dancing Shoes" would be the third single from the US release of "Stealin' Home", the immediate followup to "Shake It" being the Robert Palmer composition "Give Me an Inch": having heard the original version of "Give Me an Inch" - introduced on the 1975 Robert Palmer album "Pressure Drop" - Matthews had wanted to put his own spin on the song.
Co-produced by Matthews with Sandy Roberton, who had produced Matthews' 1972 Plainsong project, "Stealin' Home" had its UK release on Roberton's Rockburgh Records label as ROC 106 and was picked up for September 1978 release in the US and Canada by Mushroom Records as MRS-5012. Matthews would give credit to Mushroom for the success of the album's lead single "Shake It", which afforded Matthews his first solo Top 40 hit: ()"I've had potential hit singles on [earlier] albums... but there's never been the enthusiasm I've had from this record company. It [gave] me a hit single." Spearheaded by the success of "Shake It", "Stealin' Home" became Matthews' first album to rise above the lower end of the "Billboard" 200 album chart where it reached a #80 peak in February concurrent with the #13 "Billboard" Hot 100 peak of the "Shake It" single, which would remain Matthews' only Top 40 hit, the second single from the "Stealin' Home" album: "Give Me an Inch", peaking at #67 and proving Matthews final Hot 100 entry. (Matthews, who had reached #23 on the Hot 100 in 1972 fronting the Matthews' Southern Comfort single "Woodstock", had as a solo act had one prior Hot 100 entry with "Da Doo Ron Ron" also in 1972.) Matthews would be afforded his final appearance on a "Billboard" chart via the third single off "Stealin' Home": "Don't Hang Up Your Dancing Shoes", which peaked at #42 on the magazine's Easy Listening hit ranking, on which "Shake It" had reached #21 and "Give Me an Inch #43.
In the UK the album's lead single was the John Martyn composition "Man in the Station" which Matthews would in 2014 cite as one of his two favorite tracks off the album (the other being his own "Let There Be Blues"), with successive single release then afforded the tracks "King of the Night" and "Give Me an Inch" before "Shake It" was issued as a UK single in February 1979, the last-named then nearing its #13 US chart peak: none of these singles garnered interest in the UK where the parent "Stealin' Home" album was resultantly also overlooked.
Track listing (original 1978 album).
The lead track varies in name depending on the version release of the album. For example, on the Rockburgh Records vinyl release it is listed as "Gimme An Inch Girl" whereas on the Mushroom Records vinyl release it is just "Gimme An Inch". Similarly the Line Records CD release lists it as "Gimme An Inch Girl" whereas the Omnivore expanded CD release lists it as just "Gimme An Inch". The original song is the lead track on Robert Palmer's 1975 album "Pressure Drop" and is listed on that album as "Give Me An Inch".
Track listing (expanded reissue).
Expanded versions of the album featuring a 9-song live performance recorded at Texas A&amp;M University in November 1978 ('The Homecoming Concert') were released by Air Mail Archive in Japan in 2013 (AIRAC-1701) and US label Omnivore in 2014 (OVCD-98).
The penultimate track in the live set is incorrectly listed as "Call the Tunes" on the 2014 Omnivore expanded release artwork. It is a song from Plainsong's "In Search of Amelia Earhart" album and should be "Call The Tune".
References.
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