THE MIGHTY WAH!
NAH=POO - THE ART OF BLUFF * * *
THE MAVERICK YEARS 80-81 * * * *
A WORD TO THE WISE GUY * * * * *
All CastleWylie's crucial first three with bonus rarities
Where, nowadays, could you find a pop song with lyrics as stop-what-you're-doing sensational as "Matching the wit of a banker, scrimp and shave to be Victor Kiam"? Once upon a time, Pete Wylie as Wah! and its infinite preposterous prefix variations seemed to have a Midas touch for such pearls. From Nah=Poo, which pre-empted the wordy pop sloganeering of ZTT (it even looks like a Frankie sleeve) to the frantic ideas scrapbook of mock bootleg The Maverick Years (which cost him his record contract), between 1980-84 Wah! lived the pop dream. A Word To The Wise Guy, which Wylie himself calls Boys From The Blackstuff - The Musical, is the killer though. Lyrically audacious ("Weekends"), tunefully ecstatic ("Come Back") and now with "The Story Of The Blues" added to the running, just plain perfect.
Simon Goddard - Uncut magazine (July 2001)
THE (MIGHTY) WAH
NAH=POO - THE ART OF BLUFF
A WORD TO THE WISE GUY
THE MAVERICK YEARS 80-81
CastleFirst two Wah albums plus a compilation mopping up the rest of the early years.
Pete Wylie, the least feted of the Crucial Three (the other two being Ian McCulloch and Julian Cope), at times probably gave his band mates a run for their money. He had an ear for epic pop, ealry cuts like Seven Minutes To Midnight and one-line sci-fi epic 7000 Names Of Wah combining melodrama, punk drive and a Merseyside gift for melody. The ambitious, erratic, fascinating Wise Guy nods to Spector and those hits, Come Back and The Story Of The Blues, still shame much of what passed for pop in the '80s. Wylie's career since has been uneven, but if these reissues re-ignite the muse he'll worth hearing.
Steve Rippon - Mojo August 2001
THE MIGHTY WAH! A WORD TO THE WISE GUY, 1984
With more names than Beelzebub, Pete Wylie's Wah! (aka The Mighty Wah! Heat aka Shambeko Say Wah! - yes, a shambeko is a kind of military cap and therefore would be unlikely to say anything, let alone "Wah!") began as an anthemic rock band, mutated into a soul act, went anthemic rock again and ended up, as solo Wylie, sort of disco. Along the way they recorded this anthemically rocking album whose minor hit Come Back was originally an attack on Wylie's old record label. He sang it like he meant it, bless him.
STANDOUT TRACKS: Come Back, Weekends
REMARKABLY: with Julian Cope and Ian McCulloch, Pete Wylie was in legendary Scouse combo The Crucial Three, who had a song called I'm Bloody Sure You're On Dope. DQCustomer comments on A Word to the Wise Guy at amazon.co.uk
Wah!
Nah = Poo - The Art of Bluff
Date of Release - Jun 1981
AMG Rating - 4/5
Genre - Rock
Tones - ntense, Confrontational, Fiery, Boisterous, Rousing, Confident
Styles - Post-Punk, New Wave
AMG EXPERT REVIEW: Pete Wylie's first album as/with Wah! is his finest work, filled to the brim with passionate post-punk and blitzkrieg funk that holds an impressive level of focused intensity from front to back — no doubt the result of having listened to Clash records over and over and over and over again. There's little of the Clash's melodic sensibility to be found, memorable guitar riffs might not be evident ever, but there's an infectiously blistered pace to the proceedings, if a bit overbearingly shouty and mushy mixing-wise. Wylie sing-shouts everything with ferocious vigor, giving the record a rare sense of immediacy. Wah! literally sounds like they're playing with the knowledge that there will be no tomorrow. Off to an iffy start, tribal drums and from the depths vocals on "The Wind Up" do exactly that. One gets wound up because they want the record to actually start. Maybe that was the point. After that, it refuses to let up, kicked off by the "Do It Clean"-meets-"Break on Through" of "Other Boys." An album sequenced for maximum impact, instrumental "The Seven Thousand Names of Wah!" (no kidding) sets the table for "Seven Minutes to Midnight," Wah!'s signature song. The instrumental serves the same purpose as Mission of Burma barnburners like "Secrets" and "All World Cowboy Romance," holding together the rest of the album's songs while upping the intensity (as if it needed upping). Castle's attractive 2001 reissue adds eight tracks, mostly alternate versions of Nah songs, including Ian Broudie's mix jobs on "Forget the Down" and "Somesay." The liner notes are littered with photos, as well as Wylie's thoughts on each song.Andy Kellman - All Music Guide
The Mighty Wah!
Maverick Years 80-81
Date of Release - Oct 1982
AMG Rating - 2.5/5
Genre - Rock
Tones - Energetic, Intense, Boisterous, Rousing, Visceral
Styles - Post-Punk, New Wave
Type - compilation
AMG EXPERT REVIEW: The title of this compilation consisting of new and reworked songs is a bit misleading. One, Madonna's label had yet to exist, and there ain't a chance in hell that the Candlebox fan would have signed the Mighty Wah! to her label. Second, the title also implies that it could be a greatest hits or singles compilation, which also isn't the case. The title Maverick Years does prove to make sense within the context of this release, since Pete Wylie had grown restless with then-label Warner Bros.' clogged release schedule and higher priorities. So Wylie combined new demos with tweaked versions of older songs and released them on his own Wonderful World of Wah! label. Done without the Warner Bros.' consent, it obviously upset Wylie's employers and resulted in his imminent disposal from the major label ranks. Most of the new material is stillborn or half-baked at best. The alternate versions are pointless to anyone but a devout fan. One glaring exemption from this rule is the optimistic blast "Remember," which would have been a surefire highlight of Nah Poo. "Shambeko" is a point of interest for its eerie keyboard structure and isolated chill. Reissued with re-vamped versions of Nah Poo and A Word to the Wise Guy in 2001, Castle's version adds ten additional tracks that should appeal to diehards. The nine-minute version of "The Story of the Blues Pts. 1 & 2" will be welcomed by someone, and a cover of the Three Degrees' "Year of Decision" hasn't aged well and sounds like a commercial. As with the other 2001 versions, the liner notes contain many photos and commentary by Wylie.Andy Kellman - All Music Guide
The Mighty Wah!
Word to the Wise Guy
Date of Release - Jun 1984
AMG Rating - 2.5/5
Genre -Rock
Tones - Energetic, Intense, Passionate, Rousing, Whimsical
Styles -Post-Punk, New Wave
AMG EXPERT REVIEW: Becoming increasingly bored by the rock-based indie scene of the time, Pete Wylie started with a rock & roll record and ended up with something entirely different for the proper follow-up to 1981's Nah Poo. Incorporating funk, soul, reggae, and gospel, in addition to lumping on brass and string sections of the real and synthetic varieties, it came as no surprise that A Word to the Wise Guy took a long time to complete and involved philosophical scraps between all of those in the studio. Dropped by Warner Bros. for not having any hit potential, Wylie and company wound up with a fresh start on Beggars Banquet. Attempts at gospel ("The Story of the Blues"), reggae (the incidental "Yuh Learn"s), soul ("Everwanna", What's Happening Now"), flag waving Boss rock ("Come Back"), and inexplicable hybrids of any combination imaginable (Papa Crack/God's Lonely Man) have all of the required spirit but none of the lasting value. Chalk it up to wanting to do too much, aiming to make a massive-sounding record that doesn't quite make it. Since it sounds very of its time, A Word to the Wise Guy is one of those "you had to be there" deals. For all his boastfulness and overbearing iconography, Wylie should be commended for never being a mope and also for never approaching complacency. Regardless of the mixed results here, Wylie has passion and intensity through his marrow. Like the other Wah! reissues released by Castle in 2001, numerous bonus tracks are scattered, as well as track-by-track commentary from Wylie and numerous photos and press clippings.Andy Kellman - All Music Guide
PETE WYLIE INFAMY! OR I DIDN'T GET WHERE I AM TODAY, 1991
Not content with being seven different kinds of Wah!, Pete Wylie followed himself up with a solo career. The hit single Sinful did not, alas, lead to bigger things, but here Wylie's wit - a mixture of self-deprecation and self-aggrandisement - bolstered powerful melodies and an intelligent use of contemporary sound. The title refers both to Kenneth Williams' line in Carry On Cleopatra and a catchphrase from The Rise & Fall Of Reginald Perrin.
STANDOUT TRACKS: Infamy, Don't Lose Your Dreams
REMARKABLY: Wylie had a sort-of hit around this time, singing on The Farm's All Together Now. DQ
THE MIGHTY WAH! Heart As Big As Liverpool (Columbia)
Jeeeessssuuuusssss. 'Fairytale Of New York' with a scally twist and a chorus the size of Cheshire. PETE WYLIE returns from the dead for the umpteenth time in his career with a record of such preposterously huge, VERVE-esque proportions that it threatens to block out the sun's rays forever. Close your eyes and you can see a Godzilla-proportioned Wylie ploughing his way up from the Wirral to the Albert Dock and roaring this as the terrified populace scatter before him. A monster.
PETE WYLIE/THE MIGHTY WAH!: Heart As Big As Liverpool [Single]
Pete Wylie is back. The Mighty Wah! Are set to release this new single 'Heart As Big As Liverpool' (already a staple track at Anfield), and an album 'Songs of Strength and Heartbreak' recorded with producers Mike Hedges, Steve Lironi and Peter Collins in London and Nashville. The mighty Wah! Will be playing in live in London, Glasgow and Liverpool and a 'Best of' will be releases later in the year.
The Mighty WAH! - Heart As Big As Liverpool
Time Out
01/03/2000Phil Spector. Bill Shankly, Brace Springsteen. Alec Lindsay. The River Mersey. Anfield. God. Elvis. Benny Profane. Lark Lane. The Bootles. Red Rum. Fazarkerley. All this and more. Yes. It's big. It's huge. It's epic. Eat your heart out, McCulloch.
Heart As Big As Liverpool
The Guardian
04/03/2000The Mighty Wah! Heart As Big As Liverpool (When!) It's receiving heavy rotation at Anfield, apparently, doubtless an ulterior motive behind Pete Wylie finally getting round to invoking the name of his hometown in song with this latest reactivation of the Wah! alias. Such incorrigible romanticising of a city rife with incorrigible romantics inevitably provokes queasiness among those impervious to the healing powers of Mersey water, but Wylie's aptitude for wearing most of his internal organs on a leathered sleeve is hard to refute. Big strings sweep, heavenly hosts sigh, another season ticket for the Kop is sold.
The Mighty Wah!
Heart As Big As Liverpool (When! Recordings)
Ah, you know where you are with a song like this. Big community spirit. Love for strangers in the street, because, hey, they're just friends you haven't met yet. A hand on the shoulder, a tear in the eye. You'll never walk alone. More's the pity.
'Heart As Big As Liverpool' drools with the kind of maudlin sentimentality that makes Friday night pubs such rich charity collecting grounds, and usually finds its focus in sporting events. And who'd have thought it! It gets played at Anfield on match days! Inveterate chancer that Pete Wylie is, he obviously didn't get the 'Heart As Big As The Millennium Dome' version ready in time, but luckily, as long as there's football, things are OK.
'Spector-esque' - someone's thrown strings, vocals, and every kitchen sink in Liverpool into the mix - it's epic like a billboard ad, deep like a Hallmark poem. Still, if the sporting thing doesn't work out, maybe Wylie could write a range of offal-related songs for the Meat Marketing Board: 'Kidneys As Big As Berwick-On-Tweed', perhaps, or 'Brain As Big As Littlehampton Public Gardens'."Such incorrigible romanticising of a city rife with incorrigible romantics provokes queasiness among those impervious to the healing powers of the Mersey waters, but Wylie's aptitude for wearing most of his internal organs on a leathered sleeve is hard to refute."
The Guardian
THE MIGHTY WAH!
Songs of Strength & Heartbreak
When WENCD209"Blasting over the tannoy at Anfield, 'Heart As Big As Liverpool' is guranteed to bring a tear to a Scouser's eye, though those with different regional loyalties may look less kindly on Pete Wylie's self-celebration on his new single. After a decade away, the man from Wah! bounces back with a reminder of his talent for trhe rabble-rousing platitude. In 1983 it was The Story of the Blues - a hook filled classic that spawned a thousnad imitations, mopst of them by Wylie himself; now he gives us nothing less than 'The Return of Rock and Roll'. Elsewhere, he warns a rival on 'Lover Boy' - achieving the memorable lyrical troika of 'Nazi', 'Paparazzi' and 'Liam and Patsy' - and comes over all epic on 'Hey! Mona Lisa', the album's standout track. Declamatory, maudlin, lippy and, almost in spite of himself, still irresistable: Yes, it's the return of Pete Wylie."
Dan Cairns - The Sunday Times
The Mighty Wah!
Songs Of Strength & Heartbreak
(Castle)
I love this record. Listen to Pete Wylie as he barks and fulminates - forever reaching for the biggest chord, the grandest score, sentiments the size of canyons. He never quite gets there, not quite, but bless that man, his intent is astonishing.
And Wylie is invoking records like The Clash's 'London Calling' and Springsteen's 'Born To Run'. He's copping the sneer of Dylan's 'Highway 61 Revisited' and the throb of Elvis on his '68 comeback special, plus (why not?) the imperial gush of those Phil Spector productions.Remember, this is a guy who revved up his ambitions in Liverpool alongside Ian McCulloch and Julian Cope, firestarters all. In the past 20 years he's hurtled between splendour, ill fortune and folly. Now here's contrary Pete, hollering 'Never Loved As A Child' like a petulant beginner, setting the theme of his new project.
It's a record that's already imbued with mythic tales (the scary cost, the thwarted release, the rescue bid from another record company). Therefore it's fitting that the key tunes, 'The Return Of Rock And Roll', 'Heart As Big As Liverpool' and 'Sing All The Saddest Songs' are calls for passion in a chill age. At times, the musical surges are a bit familiar, but then the author starts riffing and wise-cracking, marking out his territory. He carries grudges though, and on 'Loverboy', he's so pathological that it's amusing. Set this alongside the sleevenotes and you guess that Pete has been through the grinder lately. But of course he finds deliverance (cheers, Elvis), allowing him to sing the gospel of 'Hey! Mona Lisa' and to mash up his soul on 'Disneyland Forever', a song that is as touching as it is vacuous. You decide.
'Songs Of Strength & Heartbreak' is like that moment in the pub when everything is beautiful, deadly or the most important issue, ever. Most of us sober up, in time. But Pete Wylie is intoxicated for life. 8/10
Stuart Bailie
Songs Of Strength & Heartbreak
Now that PETE WYLIE has overcome his recent difficulties with the law - not guilty of threatening to bump off an ex-girlfriend - the once mighty ex-Wah! man is free to release Songs Of Strength And Heartbreak (Columbia)****. Even as a member of the Crucial Three in 1977 - with Julian Cope and Ian McCulloch - he was known as the cockiest of the trio - no mean achievement. Today he's about as trendy as Kevin Keegan's afro, yet he still has the pluck to compose such Mersey-based magificence as 'Heart As Big As Liverpool'. Elsewhere, the utter OTT-ness rarely lets up - Mott The Hoople and the Alarm produced by Jim Steinman. Clearly the work of a man with a bravado the size of Bootle, at least.
THE MIGHTY WAH!
Songs Of Strength And Heart - When!
released: 10/04/00. Cat No: WENCD209.
Alongside Julian Cope of Teardrop Explodes and Ian McCulloch of Echo & The Bunnymen, Pete Wylie was one of Liverpool's near-mythical Crucial Three. Having emerged out of the city's punk scene, he formed Wah! (and its various permutations - Wah Heat, Mighty Wah!, Shambeko Say Wah etc.). In 1998, the charismatic motor-mouth and all round party animal returned to the fray with an album every bit as grandiose as its predecessors, containing a clutch of potential hit anthems, notably 'Heart As Big As Liverpool'.
Pop CD of the week - Friday April 7, 2000
Wicked Wylie
Despite a nasty injury, a turbulent career and short-sighted record companies, Pete Wylie is still the most passionate man in pop, says Dave Simpson
The Mighty Wah!
Songs of Strength and Heartbreak (When!) ****The story goes that when Pete Wylie lay paralysed, his shattered breastbone a centimetre away from piercing his heart, he said to the fireman who was attempting to revive him, "My name? You should know my fucking name!" Nine years after this incident (when Wylie broke his back after a 20-foot fall), he's back, and the urgency to prove himself hasn't changed.
Songs of Strength and Heartbreak begins with a crash and wallop that sounds like the Clash's Safe European Home played by the E-Street band, and the same declaration. "My name's Wylie. This is the Mighty WAAAAH!" Like the equally unnecessary "We are the Fall" with which Mark E Smith still opens his gigs, it's not a cry of identification, but one of defiance and bloody-mindedness, and has the assurance of someone who knows that, by the end of the music you are being treated to, you will be reminded of why he matters.
Wylie is probably the last great passionate man left in pop. Passion in pop (as opposed to sex, or football, where it is still lauded) is a much (and quite reasonably) derided concept. It's perhaps irretrievably associated with Jim Kerr and lots of stadium-sized bluster in ballooning shirts.Wylie, you sense, knows this, and yet still can't stop himself. This is a man who pours his soul like others pour tea, who has seemingly actively sought to make the most overblown album in the history of records. Typically rejected by Sony last year, Songs of Strength and Heartbreak - all guts, orchestras, vocal choirs, brass stabs and choruses the size of Oklahoma - is as magnificent and preposterous as Wylie himself.
The man is as well known for his partying as for his indefatigable, but sporadic pop career (Story of the Blues, Sinful, etc), but it's all symptomatic of the same pathological need to be seen and appreciated.
Maybe that's what happens when you start off in a band with Ian McCulloch and Julian Cope (the Crucial 3). But Wylie can't leave it there. Right from the off, he's insisting, only slightly tongue in cheek, that he was "Never Loved as a Child". Wylie's mum may already be reaching for the rolling pin, but he gets away with it, as he has done before, because something in the timbre of his voice makes you want to hug him.
These are songs steeped in the romance of the incorrigible career underdog. Ideally, any of them - the classic, anthemic Strummer/Elton-y All the Saddest Songs, the Anfield-but-not-chart-favoured Heart As Big As Liverpool, or the misspent-youth- gazing Disneyland Forever, say - could be number one for six weeks. But where would Wylie be in a perfect world? Unable to pen raucous revenge fantasises like Loverboy, or lines like "It's just another case of me against the human race" (in the untypically harrowing Alone, possibly inspired by the years in hospital), that's for sure. Because of his struggles, every peak has a pathos that takes it even higher; heaven lurks in details like Hey! Mona Lisa's blistering Springsteen sax break, or Loverboy's outrageous rhyming of "You're worse than paparazzi" with "Liam and Patsy".
Equally, this is an album by someone who sees no incompatibility between the Clash and the Boss, and who sees equal glory in the majesty of Motown and the murk of the Mersey.
It's a miracle that Wylie is still making records; it's a triumph that he is making them as good as this one. Back for the 417th time, the Word, again, is Wah!
THE MIGHTY WAH! (8/10)
Songs of Strength and Heartbreak
REGARDLESS OF the slings and arrows of his outrageous fortune, Pete Wylie keeps coming back for more. A broken back, broken affairs, penury, community service and - just when he thought he was back on track - being binned by his label, Columbia. The aptly titled Songs of Strength and Heartbreak finally appears through a subsidiary of Castle, and it's vintage Wylie: Scouse Bruce Springsteen sentimentality, The Clash produced by Phil Spector, big songs paired with a big mouth and an even bigger heart. Disneyland Forever buckles with emotion, Loverboy crackles with waspish wit, Heart as Big as Liverpool swallows you, as if you had fallen in the Mersey. Guitars ring righteously, strings swell monstrously. Wylie's made his best album, but does anyone care to remember him? 8/10 - MP (Times)
THE MIGHTY WAH! : Songs Of Strength And Heartbreak
Wylie's Back! And Shouting! It! Out! Loud!
Pete Wylie is not a big fella, despite his protestations that he's become 'Peteloaf' in his middle age, which might give a clue as to why his music has always been so studiedly epic in form. Huge choruses, waves of bombast, even the occasional talkover - Pete was doing stadium indie a decade before it promised millions to its purveyors. But his career has always been seen as hit and miss, even by his most ardent supporters.
This is only his fourth album in two decades, and like all its predecessors it's finally emerged on a different label from the one it was recorded for. In fact 'Songs' was due out two years ago on Sony, but internal politics and fears of cost overruns put paid to that. Now it's finally out, the line-up that recorded it (including Mike Joyce on drums) has long disbanded, and the big push is no longer promised.
Which is a pity, as this is probably Wylie's best ever collection. The terrific Clash-tastic opener 'Never Loved As A Child' (with its yelp of "I'm Wylie and this is the Mighty Wah!!!"- surely he means "I am the...") belts along far too excitably for a man in his fifth decade. 'Sing All The Saddest Songs' is timeless, soulful pop with a swing in its step and a megalomaniac gleam in its eye, and 'Heart As Big As Liverpool' is both intricate and huge at the same time, like the world's biggest matchstick model.
'Hey! Mona Lisa', the vituperative 'Loverboy', 'Je T'Aime, Je T'Aime' - all huge rockers, and if some dullard like Robbie Williams was singing 'em they'd top the charts for a month. Alright, at times it's like being shouted at by an opera singer who coulda been a contender ('Pavarotti! Da Bum!'), and there's everything but the kitchen sink and the lid of the toilet cistern thrown into the production, but it's as timeless (or irrelevant) as ever. Peteloaf is as epic as, well, Meatloaf. ****
Steve Jelbert
Fri Apr 14 2000 19:11 BST - Music 365
Pete Wylie & The Mighty Wah
Songs Of Strength & Heartbeat
Reviewed: May 2000
Genre: Rock
Release Date: 10-Apr-2000
Now 42, Pete Wylie has been one of pop's most colourful nearly men for over 20 years. Always his own biggest fan, he's had to live with the frustration of watching his peers (Julian Cope and Ian McCulloch among them) reap the fame he thought was rightly his. After breaking his spine in 1991 and convalescing for much of the ensuing decade, this return suggests that his self-belief hasn't diminished one iota, and this album is as bold as a Dulux colour chart. One aberration aside - Hope You Fall (In Love) is awful - the passion exerted here is really hard to resist, Wylie as loud as a foghorn, as passionate as, oh, Liberace, and almost as kitsch. And Heart As Big As Liverpool sounds like no idle boast when it comes out of a mouth as big as his.Q Magazine - Reviewed by Nick Duerden
Out on CD
The Mighty Wah!: Songs Of Strength And Heartbreak (When!)A decade since his last album, larger than life Scouse songsmith Pete Wylie is back with a collection of lung-busting tunes. Although he's never likely to repeat his long-gone chart success, the influential artist still wins over the listener with his heart on sleeve pop.
Anfield-sized anthem Heart As Big As Liverpool beats Oasis hands-down for bombast.
Comeback of the year has to go to Pete Wylie's, THE MIGHTY WAH! and Songs Of Strength And Heartbreak (When!)*****. Some personal bad breaks might have sapped lesser spirits, but the Wylie one comes out all guns-a-blazing, ambition the size of America. Everything and the kitchen sink is unleashed onto this Vegas Elvis/Jim Steinman/Phil Spector epic wall of sound, and his swash to buckle brand of lyrical "optimisery". 'Heart As Big As Liverpool' (every non-purchasing Scouser should be dunked in the Mersey) is just one of a juggernaut load of passion anthems, proving there's life in the old Huyton hound dog yet.
Songs Of Strength And Heartbreak
The Mighty Wah!
Released: 12/04/1999
Label: Castle This a record that does exactly what it says on the box. And Pete Wylie manages to engineer a comeback of Lazarus like proportions. Perhaps at last he'll be recognised as one of rock's smartest and most assured writers, something some of us have been getting evangelical about for years. Pete Wylie has been making music since the late Seventies, intertwined with Julian Cope and Ian McCulloch in the musical boom that established Liverpool as the home of the epically unhinged. But while the Teardrop Explodes and Echo And The Bunnymen went on to taste success, Wylie's Wah! (and its myriad ensuing name variations) seemed cursed by the vagaries of fate. And when last year Sony Records unforgivably dropped him with Songs Of Strength... just set for release, it looked like the end had come. Thankfully the album has been rescued from oblivion and released at last. So everyone can celebrate an extraordinary collection of modern, timeless pop classics. Heart As Big As Liverpool is already a half-time anthem at Anfield and Hey Mona Lisa, Je T'Aime Je T'Aime and Sing All The Saddest Songs are just waiting to be scooped up into the charts. A big, beautiful record. Now give him his knighthood.
by Paul Mathur
virgin.net
Amazon.co.uk
Pete Wylie hasn't had the most successful of careers. Dogged by label problems and ill health--he broke his back in 1995--his excessive bad luck may have perversely been his greatest asset. Wylie is a survivor who, having never had to deal with the distractions of superstardom, has concentrated on writing a succession of top flight songs. As the aptly titled Songs Of Strength and Heartbreak proves, when it comes to writing big, ballsy epics, The Mighty Wah! is a true master craftsman. Like the Lightning Seeds crossed with Phil Spector and the Manic Street Preachers, Wylie lavishes on the grand guitars and swathes of strings for "The Return Of Rock And Roll" and "I Still Love You". Like an over-energised Clash, he rocks on "Never Loved As A Child" and like a pop genius he mimics Elvis Presley for gospel closer "The Country Epic (Can't Stop Cryin')". It's an album of passion, joy, pain and big, big sounds; everything you'd expect from a man who calls himself Mighty. - Dan GennoeCustomer comments on Songs of Strength and Heartbreak at amazon.co.uk
Mighty Album From Wylie
Pete Wylie is something of a Scouse songwriting and "man about town" legend and he's been away from the music scene for too long. Nicknamed the "Liverpool Lip" Wylie broke his back in a freak accident in the early nineties and it's taken him some years to regain fitness, get a record deal and get back into the recording studio.
The result is an album of epic dimensions. It's a big wall of sound thing with sweeping arrangements, orchestration, crashing guitar chords and the urgency of the Wylie vocal sound.
Credited to "The Mighty Wah!", Pete Wylie's alter ego, the album is called "Songs Of Strength And Heartbreak" and its stuffed to the brim with anthem like rockers. Never loved As A Child, Heart As Big As Liverpool and Loverboy are just three songs that do the business and Pete release "Sing All The Saddest Songs" as a single now!
Now I know this album won't have the big bucks promotion budget behind it, but it really deserves to be heard, which is why I'm doing my bit! The record is released this week. Welcome back Wylie!
Songs of Strength and Heartbreak - The Mighty Wah!
Regardless of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Pete Wylie keeps coming back for more. A broken back, broken affairs, penury, community service and - just when he thought he was back on track - being binned by his label, Columbia. The aptly titled Songs of Strength and Heartbreak finally appears through a subsidiary of Castle, and it's vintage Wylie: Scouse Bruce Springsteen sentimentality, The Clash produced by Phil Spector, big songs paired with a big mouth, and an even bigger heart. 'Disneyland Forever' buckles with emotion, 'Loverboy' crackles with waspish wit, 'Heart as Big as Liverpool' swallows you, as if you had fallen in the Mersey. Guitars ring righteously, strings swell monstrously. Wylie's made his best album, but does anyone care to remember him? (8/10)
Pete Wylie & The Mighty Wah!Never one short of confidence, Pete Wylie has returned from a career blighted by bad luck, godawful record company decisions & a life-threatening injury with a bold, loud & proud album in Songs Of Strength & Heartbreak. Roll over Liam, the heir to Rotten's sneer is our Pete. Driven by Born To Run / Jungleland era Brooce & with a hint of slim Elvis thrown in for good measure, this is an album that confirms that the magpie-like instincts of Chairman Wah! can result in a collection of songs that take your breath away and force a smile onto the most cynical of lips.
The sheer bravado of I Still Love You confirms that the Manics owe a great debt to the Liverpool Lip. Loverboy / Alone paint two pictures of physical and mental betrayal. The initial anger & resentment, leading to the painful emptiness when the lights go out and you are left with your memories and no-one to hold.
Heart As Big As Liverpool is the new unofficial Kop anthem, whilst The Return Of Rock And Roll is a final passionate call to arms from the man responsible for 7 Minutes To Midnight, Hope & Story Of The Blues. This album finally sees Wylie walking an album as well as he talks it. I wondered whether rock 'n roll was dead in these times of half-baked, one idea songs. The Mighty Wah! refuse to let it die.
Songs of Strength and Heartbreak
by Mighty Wah!
Wylie's nights spent as the country's most notorious hanger-on at after-show pop parties have been punctuated by isolated hits, a tumble over a railing which broke his back and almost killed him, and a bitterly fractious breakup with a girlfriend which ended in court. He was dropped from Columbia before his new LP, Songs of Strength and Heartbreak, could be released (Castle have since picked it up), and his band quit last Tuesday. To some he's still a hero, to others, damaged goods. "I'd been told this was my last chance," he says of this latest return.
Tracks from Wylie's long-delayed new album, Songs of Strength and Heartbreak, proved that his flair for swollen sentiments and widescreen arrangements remains undimmed. Highlights among the recent material included the full-blooded garage-rock blast of Never Loved as a Child and the gospel-flavoured rush of Mona Lisa. But neither proved quite as epic in scale as his current single, the majestic ballad Heart as Big as Liverpool.www.musicmetropolis.com March ‘00
Album of the Week
The Mighty Wah! - Songs Of Strength & Heartbreak
feat. tracks: Heart As Big As Liverpool/Loverboy
When!Sometimes the best albums are the longest in the making. This is quite possibly the album of the millennium so far, and it seems like the best part of a millennium since we first heard tracks from it.
The Pete Wylie/Mighty Wah! comeback began with a performance at In The City in Dublin 1996.
He was subsequently signed to Columbia by another alumni of the Liverpool music scene, Dave Balfe, with rumours abounding of a seven figure deal.
We suspect Columbia paid for most of the record as well, as Balfe played us several of the tracks that made it on to the album, yet only these two were widely promoed at the time. Heart As... was a warm-up, limited release single. And Loverboy was to have been the first hit.
But Pete and Columbia parted less than amicably (not long before Balfe left the label). And now, finally, the album is getting released on Castle's When! imprint.
With shades of his 1982 hit The Story Of The Blues, Heart As Big As Liverpool (or, as Stephen Budd rather wittily commented, "Liver as big as Hartlepool, more like") is the current single, and Loverboy is our other favourite from the album. Check them out on those old Tip Sheet CDs - they haven't changed.
But there are another three or so tracks in the same class (including production work from Mike Hedges, Ian Grimble and Steve Lironi) the album has all the passion that the Manics wish they still had, plus a career's worth of great tunes.
When we covered it first, then-Tip Sheeter Alan Smith (now at WEA) commented (and we're paraphrasing) that it was an oasis in a desert of no good guitar music. That's even more true now than then.
Released: April 10; Singles: Heart As Big As Liverpool out now;
Contact: Steve Hammond (Castle Marketing) 020 8974 1021/Dylan White (Anglo) 020 7800 4488
tipsheet.co.uk #347
...McNabbhead: What do you think of the new Pete Wylie album?
Ian McNabb: It's the best thing he has done. Pete is a very close friend of mine. I left a party a couple of days ago at ten-thirty in the morning. Pete was still holding court. He's going to live forever...
Ian McNab site
The Mighty Wah!
Songs Of Strength & Heartbreak
(People's Choice / Castle UK)
Jack Rabid - The Big Takeover [New York]
The Mighty Wah!
Songs of Strength & Heartbreak
Date of Release -Apr 2000
AMG Rating - 3/5
Genre - Rock
Styles - Post-Punk, Pop/Rock
Time - 65:22
AMG EXPERT REVIEW: Following the release of 1991's Infamy, or How I Didn't Get Where I Am Today, Pete Wylie and his several incarnations of Wah! or the Mighty Wah! seemed to disappear. In fact, he suffered a severe back injury and it took until 1999 for him to return to the studio. And return he did, with this batch of brilliant songs. This is classic Wylie. As usual, strong melodies are present and Wylie shouts out his typically angry lyrics. He has chosen to work with extremely talented producers who bring the fullness to the sound. However, for the most part, these producers made their mark during the 1980s and this CD has the overall feel of an '80s release. The only complaint with the CD is that it is too long, and a couple of the songs could have been put to better use as B-sides. Otherwise, this is a brilliant album, one that fans will love as well as anyone looking for classic '80s sound.Aaron Badgley - All Music Guide
THE MIGHTY WAH!
Disneyland ForeverThe long-overdue return of '80s pop melodramatist Pete Wylie features this glorious, string-laden singalong that's melodic enough to make an outfit like, say, James sound like a Lou Reed cover band. (From "Songs Of Strength & Heartbreak", When!/Castle)
The Mighty Wah!
The Handy Wah! Whole
(SanctuaryFor 20 years, Pete Wylie - under the guise of a multitude of bizarre Wah! monikers - has ricocheted between magnificence and ill fortune. Between the dissolution of Liverpool's Crucial Three (with Julian Cope and Ian McCulloch) in 1979 and his belated 'comeback' album earlier this year, Wylie released a flurry of fantastic singles, was dropped by several record companies, endured innumerable band bust-ups, broke his back, and talked volumes of absolute bollocks. As a result, he has become a Liverpool legend, a world-class ligger with an ego to match his talent, a man forever reaching for something grand, yet falling short of achieving the level of recognition he always felt he deserved.
This consolidation of Wah! recorded history argues persuasively for Wylie's inclusion in the pantheon of great songwriters. All of Wylie's (many) inconsistencies erased by omission, the Wah! trajectory is plotted from the early Clash-idolatry of 'Seven Minutes To Midnight', through the expressive, sumptuous soul ballads and melodramatic pop of Wylie's '80s heyday ('Story Of The Blues', 'Hope', 'Come Back', 'Sinful') to the stirring - if cartoonish - terrace anthem 'Heart As Big As Liverpool'. Anger, pride and despair have rarely been articulated quite so ambitiously as they are in these songs - even the ones that sound like Simple Minds.
Wylie is determined not to be forgotten, and with this, there's little chance he will be. Thirty-one songs. Two and a half hours. All the Wah! you'll ever need. 8/10
April Long
The other recommended release, out the same day, is "The Handy Wah Whole" - 2 CDs of the best of Pete Wylie, covering all his singles from the early 80s till the present. A testament to one of the most criminally unsuccessful pop stars ever. My unplayably scratchy 7" copy of "The Story Of The Blues" can finally be replaced. Thank you, Mr Record Company, whoever you are.
The Mighty Wah!'s self-destructively titled The Handy Wah! Whole: Songs From The Repertwah!: The Maverick Years 2000 (Essential, *****) is the wonderful result of Pete Wylie owning his music at last and highlights his solo and Wah! incarnations over two CDs. Passionate, funny and bold as brass. The Handy Wah! Whole is effectively an anthology.
Editorial Reviews Album Description 31 track compilation for alternative act fronted by Pete Wy lie, one of Liverpool's 'Crucial Three' who along with Echo & The Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes emerged from that citie's punk scene. Includes tracks from the band's various incarnations, Wah! Heat, Wah!, as well as solo work from Wylie and in collaboration with Wah! The Mongrel. 2000 release. Slimline double jewel case housed in a slipcase.
Customer comments on The Handy Wah! Whole at amazon.co.uk
Customer comments on The Handy Wah! Whole at amazon.com
THE MIGHTY WAH!
The Handy Wah! Whole
(Essential Records)Pete Wylie is never one to do anything by halves and other artists have had more hot dinners than he has hits (1983’s The Story of the Blues being the high point in a career spanning 20 years), writes Ali Masud.
But this badly punned (an example of ‘hilarious’ Scouse wit, no doubt ) mammoth 31 track double CD, coming hot on heels of this year’s critically acclaimed come back album Songs of Strength and Heartbreak, has more than enough quality to tempt the casual music fan and Wah! fanatic to part with their readies.
It all began in 1979, when Wylie, under the Wah! Heat moniker produced a couple of fantastic indie singles in including Better Scream and Seven Minutes to Midnight. Their post-punk stylings - all angular guitars, prominent bass lines and synth washes topped with Wylie’s wail, seduced the pop music press and garnered a cult following.
Basking in the glow of critical acclaim, Wylie took on the mantle of ‘Scousesteen’ - Liverpudlian Bruce Springsteen - a laughable concept which resulted in a conspicuous mythologising. Hence, the band’s name changes (Shambeko!, J.F Wah!, The Mighty Wah!) and song titles (The 7000 names of Wah!, Death of Wah!).
But it was the inflection of soul into the group’s post-punk sounds which resulted in a number of classic singles. Story of the Blues nearly made it to the top of the tree, it’s chances being scuppered by Men at Work. Remember and Hope are equally strong, revealing Wylie, like fellow maverick talents Kevin Rowland and Paul Weller, was not afraid to make the ‘big music’ - utilising string and brass sections behind his powerful croon -demanding fans put their faith in his faith in his music.
That they failed to climb into the higher reaches of the charts- and into the public’s consciousness- says much about Wylie’s willful desire to pick a fight with his masters. Hence, Wah’s tradition of record label-hoping, as well as a spate of bad luck which resulted in a broken back, meant subsequent hits (Come Back, Sinful, Don’t You Ever Lose Your Dreams) are among the number of notable singles which died.
His latest non-hit (Heart as big as Liverpool) rounds up things nicely.
Pete Wylie has a mouth bigger than the Mersey tunnel
Pete Wylie has never been short of an opinion when it comes to his favourite subject - himself - nor shy of letting the word hear it, so the least surprising aspect of this 31-track and two-and-a-half hour appraisal of more than 20 years in music is its sheer length. What is remarkable about The Mighty Wah!'s 'The Handy Wah! Whole ' however, is how stoutly so many of these antique jewels have endured time's corrosive passage. Across a bewildering variety of Wah! ! aliases, scouse sage Wylie's vision was never less than grand, frequently grandiose, and always from the heart. An early-'80s singles triumvirate of 'The Story Of The Blues', 'Hope (I Wish You'd Believe Me)' and 'Come Back' - imagine Phil Spector producing The Clash - indicated Wylie on a creative roll, but disputes with his major label patrons proved intractable. From then on, he staggered from one mini-crisis to another, and by the '90s his ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, not to mention a mouth bigger than the Mersey tunnel, had conferred upon him virtual leper status in a business intolerant of such maverick spirits.
Yet Wylie was guilty only of a surfeit of inspiration and ambition, as exemplified by this collection's dizzying assaults on rock 'n' roll convention. And if it inspires anyone to investigate this year's marvellous comeback album 'Songs Of Strength And Heartbreak' then this aural memWah will have been a worthwhile indulgence.
Vault-raiding and the essential reissues it spawns - A Broad Abroad by Jo-Ann Greene
Let's talk about the drinking... let's talk about the blues. Fooled ya! Story Of The Blues may not have been Pete Wylie And Wah!'s best record, but it was their biggest British hit. There comes a moment, 11 tracks into the anthologizing Handy Wah! Whole (Essential — U.K.), when those familiar strings saw into action and you realize Wylie might well have been the greatest songwriter Britain had during the 1980s.
Drawn from two decades of stupendous and stupendously underachieving Wah! records, Handy Wah! Whole spreads across two stuffed CDs and there's at least a dozen tracks here that will leave you looking at your Phil Spector/Beatles/Bob Dylan/Bruce Springsteen collection and realizing, "so that's what it was all leading up to." Wah! made records like the Mayans built cities — vast, towering, monstrous edifices, oozing passion, romance and spirituality. Even better, "Heart As Big As Liverpool," on both the band's 2000 albums, proves that time has in no way diminished Wah's majesty.
THE BEST POP ALBUMS OF 2000
THE MIGHTY WAH!
Songs of Strength & Heartbreak (Castle)Liverpool's Pete Wylie, aka The Mighty Wah!, was a forgotten, frustrating figure at the start of the year: responsible for one of the great protest songs, "The Story of the Blues", in the Eighties, but reduced by bad breaks and self-destructive tendencies to the sidelines. News that Sony had pulled the plug on an extremely expensive, last-ditch comeback record just before release added to the sad head-shaking. But Songs of Strength & Heartbreak, eventually released on an independent label, proved Wylie was far from finished. Musically it was a kitchen sink, strings, brass and guitar Scouse Wall of Sound. Though many songs wrestled with a recent, calamitous relationship, the ghosts of Elvis Presley and The Clash were also evoked. "The Return of Rock and Roll" was its anthemic cornerstone: a restatement of the communal virtues of rock, in a year when such music seemed unsure what it was for. Wylie's lyrics restored its romantic conviction: "Till the truth cannot be sold, the return of rock and roll/ You say it has to end. But I still need a friend."
Independent - Nick Hasted
2000 - THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS
THE MIGHTY WAH!
Songs of Strength & HeartbreakMouth Almighty Pete Wylie's 20-year streak of self-destruction and stunning bad luck saw him dropped by Columbia with this last, epic-budget stab at greatness in the can. Columbia's loss, it turned out, as Wylie poured out his soul to a scouse Spector beat, preaching unfashionable faith in rock'n'roll's life-lifting power that matched the Clash at their messianic peak.
Uncut - January 2001
Wah
The Handy Wah! Whole: Songs From The Repertwah! - The Maverick YearsPete Wylie, a mouthy Scouser with an unerring knack for penning anthemic pop songs, has been making records for more than 20 years now. As the sticker on the cover of this long-awaited compilation of his entire recording career says, "Pete Wylie is The Mighty Wah!" - the exclamation mark ever-present (one of those legacies of the 1980s, but forever appropriate for such impassioned music).
Which he is, of course, and has pretty much always been despite the pretence of their ever being an actual band set-up - the early releases did feature other musicians, but only one person was ever calling the shots and pulling the strings. The name kept altering through the years, as though Wylie's restless spirit couldn't help but fiddle with moniker-changing and continual relaunches.
Perhaps it eventually counted against him, for in the aftermath of their massive breakthrough hit "The Story Of The Blues (Part 1)" in early 1983, Wylie never truly capitalized on his burgeoning status as a brilliant new voice - even though he'd been kicking around the Liverpool scene since the late 1970s. His peers were Julian Cope (Teardrop Explodes), Ian McCulloch (Echo & The Bunnymen), Holly Johnson (Frankie Goes To Hollywood) and Pete Burns (Dead Or Alive).
It's no exaggeration to claim that Wylie had possibly the most potential of all to really make a name for himself as a bona-fide modern pop icon... his songs were heartfelt, hook-laden walls of sound. In an alternate universe, several of the track featured here would have been Number 1s. As it was, the #3 peak of "Story Of The Blues" proved the commercial pinnacle of his achievements.
"The Handy Wah! Whole" - a typically overblown and punsome title - is nevertheless a celebratory experience, rather than a bitter bout of reminsicence of what might (and should) have been. 31 tracks in chronological order, and not one filler among them.This retrospective begins with a clutch of lesser-known tracks from the early Wah! EPs (in those days, EPs were the thing for emerging bands on Independent labels). They serve to chart Wylie's progression from standard post-punk pop - Better Scream, Hey (Disco) Joe - to the sweeping grandeur first evidenced on The Death Of Wah! and continued throughout the rest of his output.
Chart-followers will be most familar with the string of 1980s classics that enjoyed varying degrees of success. The Story Of The Blues was followed by Hope (I Wish You'd Believe Me) - which sent the train slightly off the rails by only reaching # 37, the magnificent Come Back! (#20 in July 1984), Weekends - a caustic dig at the popstar lifestyle ("...or swan on a beach in Sri lanka, just like Duran Duran..."), Sinful! - probably Wylie's best-known song having been a hit twice over in 1986 and 1991 (when he was joined by the then-huge Manc outfit The Farm), Diamond Girl (appearing on an album for the very first time here), If I Love You, and the simply gorgeous Fourelevenfortyfour>. Mini-epics one and all. These songs alone would make any Wah! collection essential, never mind the rest.
But the rest also happens to feature some overlooked gems. Sleep (A Lullaby For Josie) dates from 1983, and ranks among the highlights on offer. I Know There Was Something, the 8-minute standout from 1984's A Word To The Wiseguy album, has lost none of its intensity... an amibitous but fairly bleak experience which Wylie - in the extensive and candidly entertaining sleeve notes - can't stand listening to now.
I Know There was Something closes proceedings on Disc 1... which has 18 tracks and runs for 77 minutes. The next single - Sinful! - would not be credited to any form of Wah! whatsoever, being released under his own name, and so makes the sensible start to Disc 2. It was a new era, and a time for change, as Wylie himself notes.
Most of the latter tracks on the second CD, which also runs for the same length of time as the first, will only be familar to the most die-hard Wylie fan. 1991's Don't Lose Your Dreams was his last high-profile single - although, naturally, it underperformed spectacularly when it deserved to make the Top 10... at least.In light of many other great 80s acts subsequent exile from the nation's consciousness thanks to a scandalously selective and unfairly prejudiced media, Wylie's plight is nothing particularly untoward.
Brief dabblings in dance-friendly textures on Getting Out Of It made way for post-Verve guitar-based string-laden ballads such 1999's Heart As Big As Liverpool, yet not even the major resurgence of such music gave him that elusive shot at a triumphant comeback. It seemed as though Wylie was now forever consigned to the sidelines, a footnote in modern pop as that lippy bloke from Liverpool with the big tunes.
The Handy Wah! Whole is probably not going to reverse that, sadly, but it should hopefully remind a good few people just what the man is, has been, and always will be capable of.This is his story, and he's sticking to it. Good for him.
Review copyright © Jason Maloney, 2001. dvdfever.co.uk
Check out Jason's homepage: The Slipstream
Dead Men Walking - Live at Guildford Festival 2001
(Resistance 001)Track Listing: The Stand / Burning Sounds / Comeback / Do You Believe In The Westworld / Rain In The Summertime / Ghosts Of Princes In Towers / View From A Tree / Heart As Big As Liverpool / Spirit Of '76 / Stepping Stone / Never Take Me Alive / Story Of The Blues / 68 Guns / Pretty Vacant / All Or Nothing
Recorded live at the Guildford Festival, August 5th 2001, this release is a comprehensive summary of the Dead Men Walking project so far. For the uninitiated, Dead Men Walking comprise of Glen Matlock, Mike Peters, Pete Wylie, and Kirk Brandon. Four men armed with nothing but their acoustic guitars (plus a little bit of electric guitar care of Pete Wylie).
'The resistance starts here' is their motto, and it's a valid one. They are not claiming to be taking on the world or overthrowing the musical establishment, but they are making a stand for musicians aged 40 plus who still have plenty to say and are passionate about what they do. If Dead Men Walking stand for anything, it's anti-ageism. A look at the track listing shows what a strong set of songs the foursome have written and performed during their individual careers. The enthusiasm of the band is infectious. The set is delivered raw and bullshit-free.
There are bound to be detractors. In many ways that's the whole point of Dead Men Walking. They're not teenagers any more, but this does not mean they have nothing to say. Great songs remain great, and age doesn't have to diminish passion.
This CD, on sale at Dead Men Walking concerts, captures this passion. The only difference between the Guildford Festival performance and their regular set is the length of the show. While the Guildford set was restricted to just under 70 minutes, catch them on tour and you'll be enjoying two hours plus.
It's to be hoped that a proper studio album will follow before too long. In the meantime, grab yourself a copy of this live CD.
[Footnote: Against all odds, Dead Men Walking are proving to be influential in their own right. 'Three Men and Black', an acoustic gathering consisting of Steve Diggle, J J Burnel, Jake Burns, and Pauline Black are soon to hit the road.]
Review by Philjens at sex-pistols.net
