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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZATKIN, Pete, and Clive JamesSongwriting team. Atkin (b Cambridge, England) sang and played guitar; James (from Sydney, Australia) wrote lyrics. They met at Cambridge U. in the mid-1960s, sharing a love for the elegance and wit of songwriters such as Cole Porter and the best of modern pop. They appeared in the Cambridge Footlights Review with Julie Covington (who made an album of their songs, The Beautiful Changes '71). Their own first albums were folk-based: Beware Of The Beautiful Stranger and Driving Through Mythical America; the more ambitious A King at Nightfall '73 included 'Screen Freak', on James's film obsessions. A collection of parodies Live Libel savaged Leonard Cohen, James Taylor, Steeleye Span and Marc Bolan; the songs were sometimes too clever, but welcome in the arid, pretentious early '70s. The Road Of Silk and Secret Drinker were other sets; The Essential Pete Atkin was a 14-track collection including the haunting 'Girl On A Train', catty 'Wristwatch For A Drummer'. James became a popular and very funny TV critic for the Observer, published doggerel, literary/film criticism (described Arnold Schwartzenegger as looking like a condom full of walnuts), volumes of autobiography etc, and became a TV host. Atkin had a play produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and became a producer for BBC radio. |