The Rockingbirds are a Britishcountry rock band, formed in London in 1990. They disbanded in 1995, but reformed in 2008 for the Heavenly Records 18th Anniversary shows. They began to tour again in spring 2009 and played the 2009 Glastonbury festival.
History
1990–1995
The band's original line-up featured songwriter Alan Tyler, Sean Read, Andrew Hackett, Patrick Arbuthnot, Dave Goulding and drummer Dave Morgan both formerly of Weather Prophets. Their first single release on Heavenly Records was 1991's "A Good Day For You Is A Good Day For Me", followed by a tribute song to Jonathan Richman entitled "Jonathan, Jonathan" in 1992. That same year also saw the release of their eponymously titled debut album, which included the "Gradually Learning" single. This gained some radio play and Heavenly produced a video filmed in Austin, Texas. In November 1992, Heavenly released The Fred EP, which featured The Rockingbirds' cover of "Deeply Dippy", which provided the group with their only chart hit, and their only Top Of The Pops appearance. 1993 saw Heavenly release a four track EP entitled Rockingbirds-R-Us featuring brand new songs. The band's new line-up now featured Tim Kent on banjo, Chris Clarke replacing Goulding on bass, and new drummer Trevor Smith. Their second album, Whatever Happened to the Rockingbirds?, was released in 1995 via Cooking Vinyl and featured production from Edwyn Collins. This was preceded by a single "Band Of Dreams" – released on 7" vinyl only – but the band split a few months later in November '95, with a farewell gig at The Garage in North London. Alan Tyler has continued to record and play live both as a solo-performer and with his new band Alan Tyler and the Lost Sons of Littlefield. The new band includes Rockingbirds bass player Chris Clarke and occasionally Sean Read.
After reforming for a Heavenly Records 18th Anniversary show at London's Royal Festival Hall in 2008 The Rockingbirds played a series of gigs in April 2009 to support a 2-disc re-issue of the first album. This remastered version now features tracks from the Rockingbirds-R-Us EP as well as B-sides and live tracks culled from the single releases. A 500 run limited edition 7" single of new Rockingbirds material was also released on 6 April 2009 featuring the tracks "Man In The Moon" / "Lookingback Lullaby". In 2013 they released their first new album in 18 years, The Return of the Rockingbirds, on Loose Music. The album received favourable reviews from the British music press. The band toured the UKa bit in support of the album.
