About
When brothers Ken and David McCluskey's punk band, Raw Deal, supported Altered Images at Glasgow's Mars Bar, they met Robert Hodgens and Russell Irvine for the first time. Hodgens interviewed them that night for his Ten Commandments fanzine, a useful device that had helped him befriend Edwyn Collins' Orange Juice and other Postcard Records acts of the era. That meeting led to the eventual formation of the Bluebells in 1981. They comprised Ken on lead vocals, David on drums, Irvine on lead guitar, bassist Lawrence Donegan, and Hodgens -- their primary songwriter, affectionally rechristened Bobby Bluebell -- on guitar and vocals. They were soon signed by London Records, which placed them with several producers, including Elvis Costello, with whom they made some of their earliest recordings. A 1982 debut single, "Forevermore," failed to chart, and the following year's "Cath" and "Sugar Bridge (It Will Stand)" only hit the singles chart's lower reaches, despite receiving widespread radio airplay in the U.K. After Seymour Stein signed them to Sire in the U.S. and Canada, a territory-specific, eponymous EP was issued in late 1983 that gathered a selection of singles and B-sides. That December, The Bluebells was promoted by a three-week North American tour.
From 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
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