About Me
By the time he joined HONEYBUS in 1967, Colin Hare had a musical cv stretching back over a decade. Born Colin Nicol and raised Colin Hare, he was playing guitar with Dave & the Strollers by the turn of the 60's. The group were immensely popular around Hornchurch in Essex where local girl Sandra Goodrich briefly became their vocalist before being ousted and later hitting the
top as SANDIE SHAW. The Strollers were soon cutting audition demos at Freddie Winrose's Central Sound Studios in London's Denmark St where the enterprising young Hare approached Winrose with an original composition, resulting in his father Winrose Senior taking Hare under his wing as a solo performer. Colin then slogged around England's notoriously tough northern club circuit as Colin Boyd for a while, playing a mixture of standards and chart hits. During this period he found himself writing songs with Davy Jones (David Bowie) and earning a few extra bob doing session work at Central Sound. Through Winrose, Colin cut a session for George Martin at EMI's Abbey Road Studios where Martin produced and arranged two of Colin's songs "Without You" and "I Have". Sadly neither was released and the Beatles soon began demanding all of Martin's attention leaving Hare high and dry.
In 1966 Colin was offered the chance to join "Have I the Right" hit makers the Honeycombs and was soon recording three of his own compositions with them at Joe Meek's legendary home studio in London's Holloway Road. He joined the Honeycombs on their notorious '66 tour of the Middle East.
Back in London Colin was tipped off about a new band and found himself at Regent Sound watching Dello, Cane and Kircher rehearsing "Do I Still Figure"(later a hit for Joe Cocker) a follow-up to their previous single "Delighted to See You" - he fitted in straight away - the Honeybus were complete.
Most people may be familiar with the HONEYBUS story but to quickly recap "I can't let Maggie Go" reached the top 10 in early 1968 at which point the publicity shy Dello quit his own band. The remaining members recruited Scot, Jim Kelly and recorded three more single and the exceptional Story album which was released posthumously in early 1970. Cane became de facto leader and assumed writing duties in Dello's absence, but Hare contributed several highlights including "How Long", "Scarlet Lady" and the sublime "She's out There". He was plainly suffering from George Harrison syndrome and felt he lacked the necessary confidence to introduce his steadily accumulating stockpile of songs to the band.
After a period of lying low and writing, both Hare and Dello were approached by Larry Page in 1971 to record a new HONEYBUS album, opting instead to cut two solo sets. Colin had befriended Bill Bremner (Dave Edmunds Rockpile) after he had stepped into the vacant guitarist's slot after a couple of Honeybus shows and BBC sessions in 1968. Hare enjoyed Bremner's intuitive playing and jocular manner and he along with former Honeybus pals Pete Kircher and Jim Kelly became the basic group which cut March Hare.
Although March Hare is now a collector's album with cult status - due to little or no promotion at the time it faded away causing Colin to retreat into a world of meditation, Mozart and Vivaldi, the results of which are evident on his lone 1972 single "Didn't I Tell You" the first fruits of a new yet short lived contract with Warner Brothers.
The release of the 2002 Sanctuary's "She Flies like a Bird" Anthology in 2002 led to Colin and Pete being asked to perform a couple of shows as Honeybus at a Spanish pop festival that summer. The shows were a great success and saw Colin wooing the audience with impromptu renditions of March Hare favourites like "Alice", "New Day" and "Just like Me"
The shows kick started a revitalised Colin Hare into a frenzy of writing and recording. So far he has released the albums "Free Together" and "Like a River" on his Runfast label including March Hare which has been re-released in Spain (Hanky Panky) records (vinyl and CD) and in Japan (Airmail Recordings) who have also reissued Story.
A tour of Spain in 2007 was arranged by Hanky Panky to launch Colin's latest EP "Down from Pitswood" a collection of new and previously unrecorded songs from the John Peel sessions of 1968. The album is receiving much acclaim and has precipitated the new HONEYBUS Band consisting of Hare, rhythm guitar, lead vocals, Duncan Maitland, keyboard, mellotron, vocals John Clare, lead guitar and Chris "Drums" Hunt of "The Bruvvers" plus ace fiddle, mandolin, flute player, John Wigg and Tom Smith on bass.
There is a trip to Tokyo planned in May 2008. to promote Airmail Records re-issue of Hares` recent albums "Free together" and "Like a river".The Venues are: Sat 24th May,5th Street, 5-1-39 Izumicho, Suita City, Osaka. & Sun 25th May La Cana 2-1-9-B1 Kitazawa, Setagaya-Ku, Tokyo.
Felipop festival 8th/10th August 2008, Galicia Spain. Luis Iniquis is making arrangements for the current band to appear at this years music festival. It is six years since Hare and Dello appeared there together.
More details when available.
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