News:

Noel Harrison has announced a series of live dates at venues close to his home in Devon, Britain.

The show, called The Windmills of His Mind, has been described as "moving and splendid" by reviewers.

An advert for the show added: "Noel sings from the heart and soul.
"His eclectic choice of songs has been carefully picked from all the best
composers of many genres, French chansons, country, rock, pop and
standards. There are even some of his own witty compositions, all beautifully mixed with amusing comments and terrific audience rapport.
"You may think you know his most famous song, Windmills of Your Mind, but each time he sings it, it’s different. A truly remarkable performer."

To see the dates go to the Live dates page. The dates were announced through Noel's official site.

 

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News: 

The film which Noel was making when Windmills of Your Mind received its Oscar has finally been released on DVD.

Noel was working with Oliver Reed and Hayley Mills on Take a Girl Like You when the Oscar was announced. Because of filming commitments, he could not go to the ceremony so the song was instead performed by Jose Feliciano.

Until now, the film has only been available on long-since deleted VHS tapes. It was released on DVD on Monday November 24, 2008 through the website moviemail-online.

The advert for the film says: "Jonathan Miller adapts Kingsley Amis's 1960 novel about Jennifer Bunn, a pretty, 20-year-old schoolteacher who is determined to remain a virgin until her marriage - much to the frustration of Patrick (Oliver Reed), who falls for her and pursues her."

The DVD costs £11.99. For more details on the film, go to the film and TV page.

 

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News:

A record containing a series of radio adverts put together by Reprise Records to promote the album Santa Monica Pier in America has surfaced.

The adverts were probably intended to boost Noel's popularity following the success of Windmills of Your Mind, which was released just after Santa Monica Pier.

The adverts all use lengthy clips from songs on the album, but bizarrely, the best track, I Shall Remember, was not used.

One of the four adverts was included as the bonus track on the compilation Life is a Dream, but the others have not been heard widely for the past 40 years. Click the links below to hear them now.

 

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Site update:

The site has been updated to include a new singles section. If you know any singles which are missing, please mention them in the forum.

There is also a new section looking at Noel's film and TV work.

The biography section has also been improved and the site can now be accessed by a shorter, address: www.noelharrison.co.nr as well as the old www.noelharrison.googlepages.com.

Details for several Noel albums not yet featured on the site are also being put together and will be published soon.

 

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News:

Noel Harrison's signature tune, The Windmills of Your Mind, is used as the theme tune in the 2008 advert for Channel Five's 'Five on Demand' service in the UK. The music is used quite well, click below to watch.

 

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Review:

(Noel has asked up to put up an alternative review of Life is a Dream to the one we had here from the Independent, which he didn't really like. This one is instead taken from the All Music Guide. But whoever reviews it, it's still a great album! )

 

Life is A Dream
Noel Harrison

Because he's far better known in the U.S. as an actor than a singer, some might be disposed to view this 26-track compilation of Harrison 's 1967-1970 recordings as celebrity vocal kitsch.

 

It's not brilliant stuff, no, but it's far worthier (or at least more inoffensive) than many might suspect.

 First, Harrison did start off as a singer/guitarist long before making his name as an actor, so he did know something about singing a tune and facing the right way into a microphone. Second, he had decent taste in cover material, usually going for folk-rock singer/songwriters like Leonard Cohen (who had yet to record when Harrison covered "Suzanne" for a small hit in 1967), Donovan ,Arlo Guthrie ,Gordon Lightfoot ,Joni Mitchell ,David Cohen (aka David Blue , whose "In Your Childhood," included here, was never released by Cohen /Blue himself), Bob Lind , and Tom Paxton.

And he was supported on this light pop-folk-rock by many of the best Hollywood session musicians of the time, including James Burton, Joe Osborn, Carol Kaye , Hal Blaine ,Jim Gordon , Earl Palmer, Larry Knechtel, and Bruce Langhorne.

 

He had an ingratiating if modest, slight way with a tune (albeit with a touch of British theatricality and a thin voice that strained to keep level on the high notes), also writing a few songs of his own, sometimes in a style heavily influenced by Donovan (as on "Santa Monica Pier" and "Leitch on the Beach").

 

Standing a bit above the breezy, mild norm of his Reprise work were "Sign of the Queen," a cover of a Brewer & Shipley composition with psychedelic sitar and reversed cymbal; his self-penned, little-noticed contribution to the late-'60s back-to-basics movement sweeping through folk-rock, "The Great Electric Experiment Is Over"; and what must have been the only cover of Joni Mitchell 's "Nathan La Franeer" from that time period.

 

Drawing from his Collage ,Santa Monica Pier , and The Great Electric Experiment Is Over LPs, this disc also adds four songs from non-LP singles, the U.K. 1969 single "Sparrow"/"California Weekend," and previously un-issued covers of Lightfoot 's "Mountains and Marianne" and Baker Knight's "Another Virgin Spring." (A radio promo ad for Santa Monica Pier and music hall-ish outtake Let’s Not also play as unlisted bonus tracks.)

 His own likable, non-self-aggrandizing liner notes, complete with comments on every song, form another plus.

 

Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide.