Gordon Haskell - The 1980s and 1990s

The 1980s and 1990s

Haskell arrived at the doorstep of the 1980s deeply in debt and dissatisfied with the music business. He left for Denmark in 1984, playing "seven nights a week to drunks in bars." During this time his voice became a lot stronger. His debt eventually eliminated, he returned to England and continued playing solo and small-band gigs in tiny pubs and clubs. "I was trapped," Haskell recalls, "but the time wasn't wasted. I was practising. I was in the wilderness for a long time. But I met a lot of really interesting characters in bars, and that's where my songs tend to come from. I was self-contained, self-supporting, and I didn't really have anything to do with the recording industry."

His single "Almost Certainly" reached number one in South Africa in 1990. An album called Hambledon Hill followed. It did well on airplay with BBC Radio 1's DJ, Bob Harris saying "he loved it". A single of the same name was planned but the distributor went bankrupt and the deal fell through. However in 1994 the Voiceprint record label re-issued the album.