In the early 1970s, critics at British music publications widely praised the songs Pete Atkin wrote with Clive James, yet the duo never achieved meaningful sales. Their deliberate blend of Tin Pan Alley discipline with rock’s personal voice, paired with an unwillingness to restrict lyrical topics, placed them at odds with label marketing teams from the outset. A typical Atkin-James record might move from a fleeting train-carriage meeting to the Vietnam War and then to the struggles of an aging session player, while James drew references from art, film, literature, and poetry that sometimes drew charges of excessive verbosity or pretension. Atkin’s own contributions matched this breadth, pulling melodic and harmonic ideas from show tunes, folk, jazz, and rock alike. When punk’s anti-elitist stance swept through Britain, neither the lyrics nor the music could compete, and after six albums the partnership ended amid label neglect and the rise of bands such as the Clash.
The two first encountered each other in 1966 while taking part in the Cambridge Footlights Revue, the same troupe that later produced talents ranging from Beyond the Fringe satire to Monty Python surrealism. That shared history later led to joint appearances with John Cleese and Peter Cook at Amnesty International benefits later issued on DVD as the Secret Policeman’s Ball series. James, who had recently arrived from Australia, was then a postgraduate student six years Atkin’s senior and already regarded as a mentor by younger undergraduates.
Although the pair privately funded recordings of their earliest material, a proper release did not appear until 1970 with Beware of the Beautiful Stranger. Originally cut as demos intended for other performers, the tapes reached producer Don Paul, a friend of BBC disc jockey Kenny Everett, who began airing the opening track on daytime Radio 1. Philips therefore issued the album unchanged, launching Atkin’s recording career. Later that year, fellow Cambridge student and future Evita star Julie Covington issued The Beautiful Changes, an album consisting almost entirely of Atkin-James compositions.
Everett’s repeated plays of “Master of the Revels” failed to translate into purchases, and the more rock-focused follow-up Driving Through Mythical America, released in 1971, cemented their cult standing. For their final RCA album in 1975 they filled the track list with satirical portraits of Leonard Cohen (“Doom from a Room”) and James Taylor (“Sheer Quivering Genius”); James made his singing debut on a parody of Telly Savalas’s hit “If,” a track later dropped from the CD edition. After repeated clashes with RCA, Atkin accepted a post as a BBC radio producer while continuing occasional appearances at small folk venues.
James, meanwhile, became a fixture on British television, his sharp wit and verbal dexterity generating a long string of tailor-made programs that continued until the late 1990s. A prolific author, he also distinguished himself as a novelist, essayist, critic, and poet; his Observer television column in the late 1970s helped establish serious TV criticism, and the first installment of his memoir Unreliable Memoirs became a best-selling success.
The story might have remained closed had it not been for the Internet and a devoted fan, Steve Birkill. His 1997 Smash Flops website revived interest among longtime listeners and encouraged Atkin to resume live performance. James soon rejoined him onstage, drawing larger crowds, many of whom remained unaware of James’s earlier role as lyricist and wondered about the identity of his collaborator. The renewed attention also prompted comprehensive CD reissues of Atkin’s catalog, previously represented only by the uneven compilation Touch Has a Memory.
Older admirers wondered whether new songs would follow. In 2001 Atkin answered with The Lakeside Sessions, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, sets of freshly recorded versions of previously unreleased 1970s material. The partnership itself resumed in 2003 with the all-new album Winter/Spring. While stylistically consistent with earlier work, the record showed James trimming his lyrics to greater spareness and Atkin occasionally adopting a funk-inflected approach shaped by his longstanding admiration for Steely Dan.
