Steve HACKETT: Please don’t Touch LP 1978 rare original first press 9124 024 Italian, 2nd hand, with inner. Check the video of the LP for sale! Genesis main guitarist ’71 – ’77. Good Prog- Rock, great guest musicians. Check audio (whole album)

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Check the video of the LP for sale:

Check the video of the LP for sale!


Good Prog- Rock album with many great guest musicians like Steve Walsh + Phil Ehart (of Kansas), Chester Thompson, etc. First song “Narnia” is based on the children’s book “The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe”! the second song is a musical tribute to Agatha Christie! Go figure!! Italian import on Charisma Records ’78


Check audio (whole album):

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lltkrEWnON7axtoEL3PZq3YGP3rrr93sY&feature=gws_kp_album&feature=gws_kp_artist

Steve Hackett – Please Don’t Touch!
Label: Charisma
Catalog#: 9124 024
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album with inner, 2nd hand used
Country: Italy
Released: 1978
Genre: Rock
Style: Art Rock

Tracklist
A1 Narnia 3:55
Vocals – Steve Hackett , Steve Walsh
A2 Carry On Up The Vicarage (A Musical Tribute To Agatha Christie) 3:03
Vocals – Steve Hackett
A3 Racing In A 4:53
Vocals – Steve Hackett , Steve Walsh
A4 Kim 2:06
A5 How Can I? 4:28
Vocals – Richie Havens
B1 Hoping Love Will Last 4:04
Soprano Vocals – Maria Bonvino
Vocals – Randy Crawford
B2 Land Of A Thousand Autumns 1:40
B3 Please Don’t Touch 3:32
B4 The Voice Of Necam 3:04
Vocals – Steve Hackett
B5 Icarus Ascending 6:06
Vocals – Richie Havens , Steve Hackett

Bass – Tom Fowler
Cello – Hugh Malloy
Drums, Percussion – Chester Thompson , Phil Ehart
Keyboards – Dave Lebolt*
Keyboards, Flute – John Hackett
Keyboards, Producer, Engineer – John Acock
Percussion – James Bradley , Richie Havens
Synthesizer, Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Effects, Computer, Mellotron, Bells, Tape [Loops], Keyboards, Percussion, Producer – Steve Hackett
Violin – Graham Smith

Recorded at Cherokee Studios, Kingsway Studios, Record Plant & De Lane Lea Studios between November 1977 and February 1978.

Track A1 based on the children book “The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis.

Track B3: For maximum effect this track should be listened to as loudly as possible with as much treble and bass as your system can muster – not to be played to people with heart conditions or those in severely hallucinogenic states of mind.


Please Don’t Touch! is the second studio album by English guitarist and songwriter Steve Hackett. It was released in April 1978 on Charisma Records, and it is his first album released after leaving the progressive rock band Genesis in 1977. Hackett had released Voyage of the Acolyte (1975) during his time in Genesis. For his next solo release he recorded in the United States and hired various guest artists, including singers Randy Crawford, Richie Havens, and Steve Walsh, drummers Phil Ehart and Chester Thompson, bassist Tom Fowler, with Van der Graaf Generator violinist Graham Smith.

Following its release, the album reached No. 38 in the United Kingdom and No. 103 in the United States. To promote the album, Hackett assembled a band and completed his first concert tour as a solo artist in 1978.

Background:
In October 1977, news of Hackett’s departure from the progressive rock band Genesis was made public. After the band’s 1977 tour in support of their eighth studio album Wind & Wuthering (1976) and their first EP, Spot the Pigeon (1977), Hackett informed his band mates of his decision to leave during the mixing of the live album Seconds Out (1977). Hackett had previously released his debut solo album Voyage of the Acolyte (1975), but he grew increasingly frustrated by the collaborative process of Genesis which left many of his song ideas unreleased. At the time, Hackett was signed to Charisma Records in the UK but to Chrysalis Records in the US. He recalled that both labels had a different idea on what direction they wanted him to take and he later said, “Their opposing viewpoints coloured the album to some degree, although I think the ‘European’ styled tracks came more naturally to me.”

Hackett based the material on Please Don’t Touch! on images that had conjured in his mind, and made a conscious effort to capture many different styles of music, including a crossover of white and black music. He wanted to incorporate various strange sounds on the songs for added atmosphere, and visited a Victorian shop named Jack Donovan’s that sold old toys. A fairground organ at the pier in Santa Monica, California and a puppet named Bimbo were also recorded.

When the time arrived to record, he decided to record with various guest American musicians and travelled to Los Angeles. He arranged for singers Randy Crawford, Richie Havens, and Steve Walsh to sing on the album, plus bassist Tom Fowler, drummers Phil Ehart and Chester Thompson, with Van der Graaf Generator violinist Graham Smith. He believed America produced “by far the best vocalists” due to their more “street corner heritage”  After recording the album, Hackett felt a great amount of pressure off his shoulders. The album’s cover was completed by Kim Poor, Hackett’s girlfriend of three years and his future wife. It depicts a Victorian couple being attacked by automata in a toy shop.

Songs:
Side one
“Narnia” is a song about childhood, and is based on the children’s fantasy novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Hackett wrote it with “a picture of kids skipping around and having fun” in his mind, and wanted Walsh on vocals and Ehart on drums after he liked the a capella vocals on the 1976 Kansas song “Carry on Wayward Son”. A version with John Perry on vocals was also recorded. A version of “Narnia” with Walsh on vocals was considered as a potential single for the album, but management at Charisma rejected the idea because they were afraid listeners might be confused and think it was Kansas. The alternate version with Perry on vocals was deemed strong enough as a single, and was released as a bonus track on the 2005 remaster of Please Don’t Touch!.

“Carry on Up the Vicarage” is a musical tribute to Agatha Christie. It features vocals from Hackett himself. The vocals during most of the song consist of a double line of an artificially high pitched voice and a low pitched one. Hackett has often used similar distorting effects on his vocals in his solo career. The liner notes indicate that the pipe organ that can be heard on the song is the “Robert Morton pipe organ, since destroyed by fire at the Record Plant”. Parts of Please Don’t Touch were recorded at the Record Plant’s location in Los Angeles; it is known that the location’s Studio C was destroyed by fire in early 1978. No information about this organ appears to be available; it is not listed in Robert Morton’s opus list.

“Racing in A” also features Steve Walsh on vocals. The song is electric for most of its duration but the last 1:15 is a classical guitar piece, which decreases in pace throughout, finishing on a relaxing note.

“Kim” is named after Poor, who designed many of Hackett’s album covers, including Please Don’t Touch!. The track features Hackett playing a classical guitar with his brother John Hackett on flute, and was largely inspired by “Gymnopédie No 1” by Erik Satie. When writing it, Hackett had “a quiet lily pond [… a] quiet peaceful day summer feeling”.

“How Can I?” is a slow song with Richie Havens on vocals. The members of Genesis were fans of Havens, and the singer agreed to open for them for their series of concerts at Earls Court, London in 1977. Hackett invited him to dinner at his home, during which he wanted Havens to feature on a song of his.

Side two
Side two consists of a suite of songs which flow into each other. It begins with “Hoping Love Will Last” with American singer Randy Crawford on vocals. It has a heavy R&B/soul influence but with some classical style guitar parts as well as atmospheric sections featuring synthesisers. Hackett recalled his Genesis band mates being particularly fond of the song.

“Land of a Thousand Autumns” is an atmospheric instrumental track which contains references to the main theme of the title track. A sudden drum fill leads into the next track.

“Please Don’t Touch” is an instrumental track with many time signature changes that features prominent use of the Roland GR-500 guitar synthesiser. Hackett originally pitched the song for Genesis to rehearse during the Wind & Wuthering sessions, but the song was rejected. It was written as a variation on the main theme of the Wind & Wuthering track “Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers…”. This theme was also eventually incorporated into the song “Hackett to Bits” on the 1985 album by GTR, a band featuring Hackett and Yes guitarist Steve Howe.

“The Voice of Necam” features references to the “Please Don’t Touch” theme before transitioning to an ambient piece of voice drones. NECAM was one of the first mixing console automation systems, developed by the mixing console’s manufacturer, AMS Neve; the acronym stood for “Neve Computer Assisted Mixdown”. To produce the vocal chords, Hackett sang different notes onto tracks of a multitrack tape, and then made a loop of the tape in a technique similar to that used by 10cc in the song “I’m Not in Love”. Each track was fed back to a separate input on the mixing console, and the NECAM system was programmed to “play” chords and melodies by moving the console faders. Hackett later had his vocal tape loops made into a custom Mellotron tape set for use by his live keyboard player Nick Magnus.

“Icarus Ascending” is also sung by Richie Havens. The lyrics are about the Greek myth of Icarus who escaped from the maze of the Minotaur with artificial wings. He came too close to the sun, though, and the wax in his wings melted so that he fell to his death.

Release
A late April 1978 report from Record Mirror published that 11,200 copies of the album had been sold. Following its release, the album reached No. 38 in the United Kingdom and No. 103 in the United States. To promote the album, Hackett assembled a band and completed his first concert tour as a solo artist in 1978.

Track listing
All tracks written by Steve Hackett.

“Narnia” – 4:05 – with Steve Walsh
“Carry On Up the Vicarage” – 3:11
“Racing in A” – 5:07 – with Steve Walsh
“Kim” – 2:13
“How Can I?” – 4:38 – featuring Richie Havens
“Hoping Love Will Last” – 4:23 – featuring Randy Crawford
“Land of a Thousand Autumns” – 1:38
“Please Don’t Touch” – 3:39
“The Voice of Necam” – 3:11
“Icarus Ascending” – 6:27 – featuring Richie Havens

Genre Progressive rockart rock
Length 38:35

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5.0 out of 5 stars Touch it – feel it
This album was recommended to me by a number of people who like progressive rock. I have to admit I bought it because Steve Walsh of Kansas sings on it. I was absolutely floored by the entire album – not a single bad track.
“Narnia” is the single most inspired vocal performance by Steve Walsh I have EVER heard. It was as though Steve Hackett wrote that song with Walsh in mind. It blends perfectly with his style, even though it is definitely more light-hearted than anything he ever did in Kansas. This album is worth buying just for this single song.

Richie Havens’ Icarus Ascending is another soul-shaker – I didn’t know what to expect from him having only heard his “Here Comes the Sun” previously. His voice is so profound – so moving, so deep – makes you yearn for more. I’m always sorry knowing there is no more at the end.

Randy Crawford’s voice is like pure honey and light! So rich, so earnest. She was a magic choice for this album.

All in all, this is one of my favourite albums of all time – you MUST listen to it.

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5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favourites!
This album is like a master class in guitar orchestration. Every line and texture is incredibly well thought out, and not a note is waisted. But far from being just a “guitar album”, Please Don’t Touch really demonstrates Hackett’s genius as a composer. Just terrific writing!! And while its easy to describe the album as “eclectic”, there are common threads that bring the pieces together and make it the perfect LP to listen to in its entirety. A wonderful, wonderful album!


SH: A very good friend of mine, Richie Havens, said to me, when he listened to Please Don’t Touch (and his participation in that album was crucial) “I think I am listening to the classical music of tomorrow.” It was a very detailed album but I wasn’t at all sure about it because I thought maybe I had gone a bit too far

I was on a roll with the songs. I was still in Genesis when I was writing it and I wasn’t going to get most of that material done by the band. There were enough ideas (with Please Don’t Touch) that I felt I could step outside the band and build a career and that was going to be the cornerstone or the flagship. Ironically it did less well than its predecessor, Voyage of the Acolyte which I did in 1975. By the time I did Please Don’t Touch, suddenly I didn’t have the band to fall back on and it was an uncertain time indeed.

Steven Wilson, of Porcupine Tree, whose music I’ve got a lot of time for because I happen to think he’s brilliant – he loves that album and he said to me that this is really my Sergeant Pepper. The heroes I grew up with – obviously The Beatles – obviously Revolver and Sergeant Pepper, where doodles became mountains and contained perfect arrangements. . If you read interviews you get the impression that The Beatles thought they had gone a bit too far with it. I didn’t know what “arrangement” meant. What it means, I think, is the clothes that surround the figures; the details. As far as Sergeant Pepper is concerned, it was received rapturously but maybe in a parallel world that might have been perceived as the end of something rather than the beginning of something. Luckily the world went with them.

Rob Townshend, a brilliant wind player who I work with says the devil is in the detail. It’s about everything: it’s about the singer, about all the inflections and nuances and the spirit that moves it. Please Don’t Touch took quite a bit of time to make. I did six weeks or so in Los Angeles and then came to England and started working on it. I got sick and ended up in hospital. I didn’t want to be ill and I had colitis. With both that album and its successor, Spectral Mornings (1979) I think I just pushed myself too hard. These days I don’t work all night. In those days I was doing the kind of thing you do, which was still working and wondering why you can’t sleep.


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Steve Hackett – Please Don’t Touch

In April 1978 Steve Hackett released Please Don’t Touch, his second solo album and his first after he left Genesis. Like Peter Gabriel on his debut Steve wanted to include as many musical styles as possible and create a crossover from white and black music. He therefore recorded one half of the album in the UK and the other half in the United States.

Artwork

The watercolor painting Steve’s then wife Kim Poor provided for the cover is among the ones with the most attention to details and one of the most beautiful she has ever created for an album of Steve’s. As with Paul Whitehead’s Genesis cover paintings fans can pore over the details and wonder what they are supposed to mean and what their relation to the music could be.

The painting shows an elderly couple in Victorian clothes who are attacked by wind-up dolls, small robots and other toys. Around this central image there is a kind of wooden frame with more dolls, rocking-horses and other ornaments. At the bottom of the frame (and on the knob of a cupboard in the picture) there is a sign “Please Don’t Touch”.cover

Kim Poor had the idea for this painting in a shop in Portobello Road, London, that sold old Victorian automats and toys. The album cover allegedly inspired Ridley Scott to the scene in his famous film Bladerunner in which toys become alive and attack the character portrayed by Harrison Ford.

It is hard to say what the cover design and the album title are supposed to tell us. Please Don’t Touch is no concept album like its predecessor, Voyage Of The Acolyte, and the song lyrics have not got any apparent relation to the cover either. It occurred to me that the title describes Steve’s artistic freedom as an invididual artist. He was frequently frustrated in Genesis when the band did not use his song ideas as he intended them to, but changed them, tore them apart, joined them with other elements and generally changed them. When he talked about this in a music magazine shortly after he had left Genesis the headline read “Genesis slaughtered my songs!” That was now a thing of the past. Only he himself would chance his musical ideas, for all others it was “Please Don’t Touch!” Who knows what happens to those who still do. Perhaps someone has fiddled too long with all the wind-up dolls and robots on the album cover – until they turned around and attacked.

The back of the LP cover shows a black-and-white photo of Steve standing in a leather coat on the shore.

The band

Steve got an impressive line-up of well-known musicians for this album. With Steve Walsh, Richie Havens and Randy Crawford the album has no less than three particularly prominent singers:

Steve Hackett – electric and acoustic guitars, Roland GR-500 guitar synthesizer, vocals, keyboards, percussion, musical box, mellotron, psaltery, maraccas and everything else he could get hold of at the time (a complete list of equipment is included in the vinyl and the 2005 remaster CD booklet).

John Hackett – flute, piccolo, bass pedals, keyboards
John Acock – keyboards, sound engineer
Maria Bonvino – guest soprano on Hoping Love Will Last
James Bradley – percussion
Randy Crawford – vocals onHoping Love Will Last
Phil Ehart – drums, percussion
Feydor – vocals onThe Voice of Necam
Tom Fowler – bass
Richie Havens – vocals, percussion
Dave Lebolt – keyboards
Hugh Malloy – cello
Dale Newman – backing vocals on Icarus Ascending
Dan Owen – backing vocals on Icarus Ascending
Graham Smith – violin
Chester Thompson – drums, percussion
Steve Walsh – vocals on Narnia and Racing in A

The songs and instrumentals one by one

1. Narnia (4:05)

The album begins with a clear, merry riff on the acoustic guitar that goes on all through the song and is extremely catchy. Later a second acoustic guitar and an electric guitar in Hackett’s typical style come in. The opening song of Please Don’t Touch is heavy in guitars, but catchy and has good potential as a radio single.
Narnia was, in fact, scheduled as a single release, and the song received lots of airplay on American radio stations. Unfortunately the record company of Kansas, whose singer Steve Walsh and drummer Phil Ehart sang and drummed on this song, vetoed the single. Promo singles were produced of an alternate version with John Perry on vocals, but it was not as strong as the recording with Walsh, so that the idea of a Narnia single was scrapped. The Perry version of Narnia was released in 2005 as a bonus track of the remaster edition.

bandThe musical inspiration for the song came to Hackett through the saxophone player Ian McDonald. He [McDonald] played him a brief instrumental shortly after he had left King Crimson in the early 70s and said that that would be a good intro for a song. A couple of years later Steve decided that that was a good idea. The lyrics are based on The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, the first volume of the Narnia Chronicles by C.S.Lewis.

The song was played a lot on the Spectral Mornings tour, but it did not turn into a long-time live favourite.

2. Carry On Up The Vicarage (3:10)

The second song shows Hackett’s humour. A colourful sequence of instruments and sounds leads the listener into the world of Agatha Christie. The song is a tribute to the British author and tells many possible and impossible methods how you can be murdered.

The song begins with the sound of an musical box, a female voice says something unintelligible before a choir comes in that seems to sing a Christmas carol. Finally the song really starts with glockenspiel and guitar arpeggios, a loud church organ (the Robert Morton pipe organ was destroyed by a fire in the Record Plant studio in L.A. before the album came out), and drums and bass combine to a quick beat. A piano and electric guitars come in before a squeaking barrel organ brings the song to an end.

The ‘mini-musical’ is sung by Steve Hackett who otherwise sings only backing vocals on the album. Apparently Steve was not as confident about his singing qualities back then, so he distorted his voice with a “laughing gnome” effect (the voice is simultaneously pitched higher and lower).  Only at the end of the song does he replace the distortion with lots of echo. These effects lend a particularly funny note to what already is a bizarre track in the first place. Its charme  reminds of older humorous Genesis songs like Harold The Barrel or Willow Farm.

The song was played live on the Spectral Mornings tour which perhaps led to exhilaration instead of musical edification on the part of the audience. Carry On Up The Vicarage is so merry and funny that one almost gets the impression that murder and manslaughter were entertaining pastimes.

3. Racing In A (5:06)

Racing In A is the fastest and rockiest number of the album. Phil Ehart’s driving beat keeps changes the signature several times, but the song stays rocky and catchy and full of drive (beware – the author of these lines got a speeding ticket while this song was on). Steve Walsh provides the lead vocals again, and he really gets into the song.

There is little keyboard in the song (mainly choirs and strings) and the electric guitars dominate the sound. Though this is too complex for the radio, it is a song that urges the listener to dance to it. Rarely has Hackett delivered such a straight rock song with many fast distorted guitar riffs.

After 3:50 the rock part is suddenly over and the nylon guitar plays a rather classical finale. A peculiar ending for a rock song, but then we are talking about Steve Hackett, and you never know which stylistic device he will use next. Despite the radical contrast between the two song parts Steve manages to keep the song together (which is something has not always succeeded in).

The lyrics are about an escape from the strain of everyday life, taking the car and relaxing in the country-side with your friends. A feel-good song.

Racing In A received frenetic applause during the Spectral Mornings tour; the song was extended to more than ten minutes at times (as a medley with parts of Ace Of Wands). The coda on the acoustic guitar was usually only played after the applause for the rock part.

4. Kim (2:12)

After so much uptempo things calm down all of a sudden with Kim; the listener is invited to lean back and dream. Steve dedicated this brief instrumental piece (only himself playing the nylon guitar and brother John on the flute) to his then wife Kim Poor.

The piece proves (if proof were still needed after Hands Of The Priestess on the album before) how much the Hackett brothers love classical music. The influence of Eric Satie with whose oeuvre Steve and John would  study closely later is particularly obvious. One could almost think that Kim was one of Satie’s famous Gymnopédies.

Kim is performed with much discipline, precise notes and free from superfluous frills. All this lends a comfortable calm with which the song captures the listener.

This musical gem was a staple at Steve’s acoustic shows for decades until he split up with Kim Poor. The version on There Are Many Sides To The Night is particularly interesting because Kim is played with switched roles: Steve plays the flute melody on the guitar while Julian Colbeck plays the guitar parts on the piano.

5. How Can I? (4:38)

How Can I? introduces another musical style. Hackett shows that he can play folk ballads, too. The main instruments in the song are Hackett’s chords on the acoustic guitar and the characteristic deep voice of Woodstock veteran Richie Havens.

Hackett and Havens met in 1977 at Earls Court where Havens opened for Genesis. Steve wanted to work with him and invited him to dinner. Fortunately, Havens was also interested in a cooperation and brought up the topic.  The outcome were the songs How Can I? and Icarus Ascending.

How Can I? was released as a single (backed with Kim), and they even shot a video with Steve and Richie sitting opposite each other while Steve plays the guitar and Richie sings.

The song has oven been described as a companion piece to Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill, but it is calmer, more solemn and feels more like camp fire music instead of a dance number. Havens’ soulful voice and the folk elements make it sound very American. This creates a strong contrast to the previous pieces that sounded very British and European.

6. Hoping Love Will Last (4:22)

How Can I? sounded American, but Hoping Love Will Last moves a lot further down the road into the music of the New World. In fact, Hackett presents a flawless piano blues ballad.

Such a song requires a soulful black voice. Steve found it in a bar in Chicago when he saw a performance by an artist called Randy Crawford, who was still quite unknown then – her breakthrough with The Crusaders came shortly afterwards, though. He was very attracted to her strong soul voice with the quick vibrato. Parts of the song were recorded in Los Angeles, others in London, and this actually led to Randy’s first release in the UK.

The song begins with the familiar sound of Steve’s electric guitar and some acoustic guitar. The first instrument is played with a volume pedal so one does not hear the strokes and suspects this to be keyboard. Then the piano, brushed drums and Randy’s mellow voice come in. The guitars move to the background and offer subtle accents. After a brief intermezzo of electric guitar and mellotron strings Randy unveils her full vocal power and sings the rest of the song with a voice full of intense passion. What a great voice! Now that is what I call a soul ballad! The drums become stronger, so does Steve’s guitar, but Randy Crawford is always in the fore.

Steve has said about the song: “I felt it was the kind of song that I wanted to do that could become a standard, that even Frank Sinatra could sing.” It is left to the listener to decide whether he achieved that. The song is definitely a special one in Steve’s works. Unless you actually know it, or if it were not for the distinctive sound of the electric guitar nobody would guess that Hoping Love Will Last was written by an (ex-) member of Genesis.

Tony Banks praised the song in Chapter & Verse. He felt that it would have been good on A Trick Of The Tail. Whether Phil Collins as a singer could have lent the same class to the song as Randy Crawford did so impressively may be doubted at the very least. Steve, for one, felt that Genesis could not pull off this song.

7. Land Of Thousand Autumns (1:37)

The next three pieces, Land Of Thousand Autumns, Please Don’t Touch and The Voice Of Necam are a musical unity, but they will be reviewed individually here.

The singing guitar sound at the end of Hoping Love Will Last moves on seamlessly into Land Of Thousand Autumns. The keyboard already threatens with the motive of Please Don’t Touch along with some atmospheric sounds and a bit of acoustic guitar. The piece is not really autonomous, but simply a prelude to the title track.

The original CD release has a two second gap between both instrumentals. This flaw was fortunately corrected in the 2005 remaster version.

8. Please Don’t Touch (3:38)

“For maximum effect this track should be listened to as loudly as possible with as much treble and bass as your system can muster. – Not to be played to people with heart conditions or those in severely hallucinogenic states of mind.”

band2Steve Hackett gives out these directions/warnings on the back of the Please Don’t Touch LP. If you would like to avoid legal confrontations with your neighbours you are well advised not to follow this recommendation too often. If the neighbours are away and the structural designers do not object one simply has to try it out, it’s so much fun.

Fans of pleasant Hackett sounds à la Spectral Mornings will find the title song a challenge at least, if not an outright impudence. No, Please Don’t Touch does not want to sound pretty. This unruly monsters shows its claws and fangs, spread its poison, spits at the listener and makes them sleep bad at nights!

The song is driven by a bass pedal that waltzes everything down – John Hackett does not play it with his feet, but hammers on it with his fists. Steve makes his guitar howl loudly on top of it. A second, strummed guitar can be heard in the background. Hypnotic keyboards and Chester Thompson’s driving drum beat help to create a nightmare-ish atmosphere right out of a horror or science-fiction film.

Hackett shows his real prog side for the first time on the album – and it is obvious that he likes the early King Crimson a lot.

Rhythm and topic of the piece change. After a hideous guitar riff the beast suddenly become friendly (it just wants to play…) and Steve and John play a merry tune as duet of flute and electric guitar (a bit like Jacuzzi) as a marked contrast to the rest of the piece. In the end the beast turns angry again and returns to the basic theme.

Steve had wanted to include Please Don’t Touch on Genesis’ Wind & Wuthering. The band rehearsed it but then the others rejected it to Steve’s frustration. When Phil Collins, who had stated he could not get behind the piece, heard the finished album version he declared he was very impressed with it. It seems that the album version was a lot different from the one Genesis rehearsed and which Phil had played with a Weather Report-style rhythm.

Please Don’t Touch (frequently surrounded by Land Of Thousand Autumns and The Voice Of Necam) has become the second real live classic from the album (the other one being Kim) and it is still played on electric band shows.

9. The Voice Of Necam (3:10)

The title track ends suddenly, but the motive is continued by The Voice Of Necam – on a barrel organ accompanied by whirs and steam noises, as if the Victorian robots and doll from the album cover began moving and making these sounds. All of a sudden the voice of Necam the computer comes in and grows louder – an ethereal and synthetic choir that pushes all other instruments aside until Steve’s acoustic nylon guitar comes in and plays a calm, almost classical motive with Necam. This helps the listener to calm down and relax after the electric tour de force of the title song.

10. Icarus Ascending (6:26)

The calm that The Voice Of Necam offers is soon over. The last song on the album tears the listener from his comfortable numbness. Icarus Ascending comes in all of a sudden with power chords on the piano , various keyboards, bass and an almighty drumkit. Richie Haven’s strong voice towers on top of this rich structure of sounds. Whereas he sounded romantic on How Can I? he chooses to give us a taste of how strong yet moving his voice is.

The song has a beautiful, catchy, romantic melody and would be perfect for the radio in a slightly edited version.

In the middle of the song the arrangement suddenly dissolves completely. Bass and piano play solos on top of a slow keyboard arpeggio, and it sound a bit like a jazz bar before the theme of the song returns, the guitar continues the arpeggio and Richie sings the final verse. The end of the song is protracted, Richie sings lots of “uuh-uhh”s in a majestic voice. He is accompanied by choirs, a flute solo by John and a rich ensemble of instruments, amongst them an old psaltery. The elegiac end of the song seems out of this world and invites the listener to close their eyes and dream. A wonderful ending for a fantastic album.

The lyrics are about the Greek myth of Icarus who escaped from the maze of the Minotaur with artificial wings. He came too close to the sun, though, and the wax in his wings melted so that he fell to his death. The song ends on a more optimistic note: “All that’s behind me, And I flew this time, Never falling, Since your eyes first touched mine”. I have always read the lyrics as a metaphor for Steve’s departure from Genesis and the full focus his solo career. Had he bitten off more than he could chew? Would he be able to make it without the safe haven of Genesis? Or would he fail and his solo career plummet like Icarus? Steve apparently answered these questions with the last lines from Please Don’t Touch. Time has done her share. More than thirty years after he has left Genesis Steve Hackett has not fallen down. He still soars.

At the end of the day…

Please Don’t Touch offers an enormous variety of different musical styles, from pop and rock to folk, soul and classical music to prog. Bringing all these style together in such a way that the outcome is one coherent album and not just a couple of different songs lumped together is quite a feat. The combination of various musical styles on one album has become a trademark of Steve Hackett’s, particularly on his recent rock albums To Watch The Storms and Wild Orchids. He has never again achieved such a harmony between the musical styles as on Please Don’t Touch. Despite the enormous contrasts (who would have guessed that Kim, Hoping Love Will Last and Narnia are all by the same composer and musician?) one can enjoy this album in one go. The stylistic breaks may surprise the listener at first, but they do not disrupt the flow because recurring sounds (e.g. Steve’s singing guitar, the nylon guitar or the Necam choir) and fluent transitions between songs (e.g. between Hoping Love Will Last and Land Of Thousand Autumns) provide cohesion.

The quality of the songs and instrumentals is good to excellent throughout; there is not a single failure on this album.  The number of songs on this album is unusually high (six out ten tracks are songs); most of them are quite catchy, some even have radio potential (Narnia could have been a hit!) so that the listener is not overtaxed with the musical variety of the album. The LP went to #38, so it actually made the UK Top 40.

John Acock and Steve Hackett have done a good job in producing the album. The sound is clear and brilliant where it is required and it has enough oomph and power on the rock pieces. It is particularly good the note that the guitars, too often smothered under Banks’ keyboard blankets, can finally be heard clear and strong without forcing themselves to the fore. Many Genesis fans would have wished to have this sound on Wind & Wuthering.

It was a good decision to have mainly guest singers. Steve Walsh, Randy Crawford and Richie Havens are three excellent singers that lend a special quality to the songs. When really good singers perform Hackett’s songs his enormous song writing talent is revealed. Though I like Steve’s singing and though I love many of the songs he sings on, I would not like to imagine what Icarus Ascending or Narnia would have sounded like with Steve’s vocals. These songs are simply too good with the guest vocalists!


Guitarist Steve Hackett had already put out one solo album by the time he decided to leave Genesis. Released in April 1978, Please Don’t Touch is his second solo outing, and as fitting a testament to his musical prowess as any album he has ever recorded.

Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel had pitched the groundbreaking prog-rock band as a “songwriters’ collective” when he first invited Hackett to join their ranks. For Hackett – a versatile instrumentalist with a unique approach to composition – it was a match made in heaven. At first, anyway. The Hackett era of Genesis produced five of prog’s finest masterworks, a jaw-dropping streak from 1971’s Nursery Cryme through 1976’s Wind & Wuthering.

Ultimately, though, the band’s democratic approach to songwriting left Hackett feeling constricted. He first dabbled in solo work with Voyage of the Acolyte in 1975 and then, following the band’s Wind & Wuthering tour, Hackett finally left Genesis. In many ways, Please Don’t Touch is his proper solo debut: It’s the first album he ever recorded without any assistance from his former band mates and, decades later, this excellently schizophrenic album remains his finest achievement.

The earlier Voyage of the Acolyte presented Hackett as more than just a guitarist, as he wrote the bulk of the material, producing along with John Acock. Yet it ultimately felt like a dumping ground for rejected Genesis material. The highlights were absolutely astounding (opener “Ace of Wands” could very well be Hackett’s greatest composition), but Hackett was very much operating in the towering Genesis shadow at that point in time. Please Don’t Touch sounds like a re-introduction, showcasing all sides of Hackett’s musical personality – his rich English humor, his offbeat melodic sensibility, and his generally eclectic taste.

Jus as Voyage of the Acolyte jad featured all but keyboardist Tony Banks from the late-’70s model of Genesis, Please Don’t Touch functions as a who’s who of English-speaking prog. Featured are two members of Kansas (drummer Phil Ehart, vocalist Steve Walsh) and two Frank Zappa alumni (drummer Chester Thompson, bassist Tom Fowler), along with Hackett’s brother John on flute, piccolo, and keyboards. More surprising were the other guest vocalists: folk icon Richie Havens and soul diva Randy Crawford.

Regardless of the star power on display, however, Hackett’s dizzying vision still dominates. “Kim” is a brief, shimmering duet between Hackett’s classical guitar and his brother John’s stately flute. “Icarus Ascending” morphs from moody art-rock texture (with Havens’ soothing croon) to a brief cocktail-jazz atmosphere, before circling back again. “How Can I?” (again featuring Havens) is psychedelic folk with a trippy, Beatles-esque melody. Meanwhile, the title track is a lost prog classic, blending Hackett’s dramatic guitar layers with John Hackett’s sublime flute runs. (Regarding this track, the liner notes read: “For maximum effect, this track should be listened to as loudly as possible with as much treble and bass as your system can muster. Not to be played to people with heart conditions or those in severely hallucinogenic states of mind.”)

The album’s lone awkward moment is the super-cheesy piano ballad “Hoping Love Will Last,” featuring Crawford’s sore-thumb vibrato. All in all, it sounds like a lukewarm attempt at a radio hit, sort of like Hackett attempting a sappy Phil Collins B-side long before Collins wrote any himself. But that mish-mashed, try-anything-once sprawl is ultimately part of the album’s DNA – and the exact element that makes it so fascinating.

Hackett’s career has been defined by its jarring left turns (from prog to solo classical guitar to GTR’s arena rock to world music to pop). Please Don’t Touch is an album built on that principle.

 

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