Year : 1995 (Japan Edition)
Style : Melodic Hard Rock , Melodic Rock , Pop Rock , AOR
Country : Ireland
Audio : 320 kbps + all scans
Size : 146 mb
Bio:
Mervyn "Spam" Spence alias O'Ryan (born 1958) is a Northern Irish musician and producer, best known for his work with Wishbone Ash and Trapeze.Spence moved to Staffordshire from Ireland in the late 1970s, and began playing with bands such as The Jury and Big Daisy.During Spence's time in local bands, he was spotted by Mel Galley, who promptly offered Spence the bassist and vocalist position in Trapeze, which had been left vacant since Peter Goalby had left to join Uriah Heep. Spence briefly toured with the band, and during his tenure recorded one album's worth of material, which – due to Galley's departure to replace Bernie Marsden in Whitesnake – remains unreleased.Several of the songs from these sessions however (Demos exist in bootleg form), would form a very small part of Tom Galley's Phenomena project, which Spence would later join to sing and play bass on the 1992 album "Innervision" (billed as "O'Ryan").Spence later went on to buy the rights to the project, cashing in (and dining out) with a 'best of' compilation which featured a very small percentage of his work tagged onto the work of the real members of the project.Following the break-up of Trapeze, Spence was offered an audition for Wishbone Ash while he was pitching demo material to various outlets. On the strength of his vocal range and enthusiasm, Spence became a member of the band. Spence would perform on one album by the band, 1985's Raw to the Bone.Spence left Wishbone Ash in 1986 "to pursue family matters". He has since released two solo albums under the name "O'Ryan" (his mother's maiden name), 1993's Something Strong and 1995's Initiate.Spence secured a job lecturing music industry topics at Walsall College of Arts and Technology in the late-1990s early 2000s while hitting hard times musically.
Album:
Initiate is the second solo album by the Northern Irish singer Mervyn Spence, once again released under the pseudonym "O'Ryan", in 1995.Initiate contains no original material, instead solely consisting of ten covers of various tracks from Tom Galley's Phenomena project (which Spence was involved with during its initial stages, and held the rights to at the time), and three re-recorded songs from Spence's debut album, Something Strong.The recordings of "Still the Night", "Did It All for Love" and "No Retreat - No Surrender" found on Initiate would later be included on the Phenomena compilation boxset released in 2006, 'The Complete Works'.In 2023, Cherry Red Records released a new version of the album, 'Phenomena Recovered', with 2 new covers of Phenomena songs, "Dance with the devil" and "Rock my soul".
Line Up:
Mervyn "Spam" Spence alias O'Ryan - lead & backing vocals, bass programming, additional guitar - see also: ex-Phenomena, ex-Wishbone Ash, ex-Trapeze
Huwie Lucas - lead & rhythm guitars
Martin Taylor - classical guitar
"Midi Man" - drums
Carl Brazil - percussion
Jason Fillingham - keyboards, drum programming
Tracey Riggan - backing vocals
Production:
Jason Fillingham - production, engineering
Simon Hanhart - mixing
Co-producer – J.Fillingham
Cymbal [Cymbals], Hihat [Hi Hats] – Carl Brazil
Design [Jacket Design (Japan)] – D‧D‧Wave
Engineer [Mixing Engineers] – Simon Hanhart
Executive-Producer – Ava Aura, Hisa
Liner Notes – 矢口清治
Liner Notes [対訳] – 小倉ゆう子
Mixed By – Simon Hanhart
Producer – EMH Production Ltd., East Bell Co., Ltd., Mervyn Spence
Tracklist:
01. No Retreat, No Surrender
02. Still the Night
03. A Whole Lot of Love
04. Believe
05. Emer May
06. Did It All for Love
07. Something Strong
08. Shape It Up
09. What About Love
10. Phoenix Rising
11. Don't Let It Slip Away
12. It Must Be Love
13. Stop
Download links for all albums only on our blog here: http://goodmetalandhar.do.am/
