Lieutenant Pigeon — The Decca Years

Lieutenant Pigeon stand as one of the more unlike and quirky bands to chart in the UK pop charts of the 1970s. The four piece from Coventry focused its sound around honky tonk piano playing, which was wavering at times nearly out of tune. This was blended with upfront & simplistic percussion, mumbled at times rather creepy male vocals, and some rather wacky themes. Here from 7T’s Cherry Red’s 1970s pop/ rock label is a double CD set that brings together the band's first three albums, as well as a good selection of rarities.

The two CDs come packaged in a colourful glossy six-panel digipak- this has a primal day-glow orange and purple colour scheme, with small reproductions of the three albums on the front cover. Also featured is a twenty-page glossy inlay booklet- with a write-up about the band, the hit singles,  and the three albums. With a good selection of single labels, covers, and band pictures.

Lieutenant Pigeon(an anagram of Genuine Potential) where formed in Coventry in 1972, as a spin-off from avant pop/rock band Stavely Makepeace. The band was fronted by Rob Woodward on piano, guitar, tin whistle, and vocals, and featured his mother Hilda on piano, Nigel Fletcher on drums, and Stephen Johnson on bass, vocals, and tin whistle. They released a total of four albums in the 1970s, with all but one- Westerns: Diesel Hydraulics on the Western Region in 1974 not featured here, though this bizarrely it was a field recording album of train sounds?!.

The first CD takes in a whopping twenty-six tracks, and the band’s first two albums. First, out of the gate, we have the bands rather wonderfully titled Mouldy Old Music from 1973- which like all of the project's output was released by Decca Records. The first album featured fourteen tracks- and it kicked off with the band's first single/ hit “Mouldy Old Dough” which charted at no 1 in the UK charts and no 5 in the US chart, and a more unlikely hit song you won’t of heard. It opens up with loads of chattering and clapping, then a basic marching ‘n’ hiss drum rhythm comes in, this is fairly soon joined by a jaunting, almost out-of-tune piano melody, tin whistle bursts, and a shifting guy groaning the words ‘mouldy old dough'.  As we move through the album we have the galloping barroom piano ‘n’ waving whistler melody breakdown of “Pigeon Rendezvous” which sounds like a run down, vocalness, and end-of-the-night Chas ‘n’ Dave.  We have “ Know Now I Better At School” which opens with the sound of a flashing toilet, then drops into an almost cod white reggae meets waving trad jazz vibe, with rough ‘n’ ready male sing-song vocals on top. We have “Dirty Old Man” which features a blend of croaky male verse singing, wavering harmony chorus singing, and a clunky blend of key & basic snapping percussion- all creating a decidedly lopsided blend of the jaunty & creepy. As a debut album, it’s not bad- though quite a few of the tracks rather lock into the band's trademark sound and stay there.

The band's second album Pigeon Pile also appeared in 1973, and featured another fourteen tracks. It opens with the very shouty Beetle-like rock ‘n’ roll bounding keys of “Happy Days”. We have bouncing 70’s pop rock chug meets singing-at-the-back-of-the-bus vocals of “Meet Me Off The Royal Scott” with the prominent key runs appearing as the track moves on. There's the thick tock keys ‘n’ tapping percussion of “You're Getting Too Old For Toys” which is topped with spoken word story and sound effects. Or the gunning rock ‘n’ roll upfront keys of “Aggravation”.   This follow-up tried to further the band's sound more- some of it was successful, some was less so- but it’s a decidedly quirky and often charming record.

Moving onto the second disc we have 1974’s Pigeon Party, and around twelve rare tracks. The album it's self-featured twelve tracks- and sadly it largely sounds a bit too polished, and rather bland with much of the band's quicky and clunking elements ironed out.  We open with the album’s title track, which is just rather sterile boogie rock ‘n’ roll- with an even/well-played mix of honky tonk keys, bland blues rock licks, and rather flat vocals. We have “So Deep Is The Night” which tries to recreate the stomp of their early tracks, but adds in too much production, lifeless sax honk, and even an uninspired guitar solo. We have the tiresome novelty pop-rock strut of “After The Discotheque Is Over".  I guess the more horn-jaunting and barroom key-running version of  “Great Balls Of Fire” is ok, but then they stick on more production and unneeded clarinet in its latter half. 

Finally of course we have the twelve bonus tracks- and there are a few decent moments to be had here. We have the bounding keys, pressing bass throb, glam rock beat, and whistling-edged “The Blue Danube”. And there’s hazy trad jazz wondering of “I Sail Alone” with its ship horn billows & wavering sing-song chorus. 

In finishing, it certainly is nice to have all( well nearly all!) of Lieutenant Pigeon's back catalogue in one place, and as the two-disc set comes in at around the twelve-pound mark( fifteen dollars)  it's a bargain. Sure the third album is not great, but the first two are worthy, with a few rewarding rare tracks to boot.