Pete Atkin - Revival

Revival

In 2001, 2003 and 2005 Atkin and James undertook national tours of the UK talking about, reading and singing, their songs, poetry and prose. In 2003 the duo also toured Australia. Atkin has also performed occasional concerts in folk clubs.

The revival, however, dates back to 1996 when Steve Birkill, an electronics entrepreneur and satellite television pioneer, approached Atkin at a concert and asked permission to create a website celebrating his work. Pete provided a good deal of background information for this, and along with the usual fansite materials, there was a mailing list to which the interested and the curious could subscribe. Unusually Birkill elected to distribute the messages manually rather than relying on an electronic mailing list such as majordomo. He named the list "Midnight Voices" from the lyric of the song "Payday Evening".

Birkill also invited Atkin to headline a local folk festival he supported in Monyash, Derbyshire. On the strength of Atkin's performance and the response to it, not to mention Atkin himself realizing he still had an audience, this was repeated the following year, with accompanying performance CD releases by subscription. The second show also featured a tribute band, a varying cast of amateur players under the rubric of "The Beautiful Changers" whose performance was at least enthusiastic. Consensus among the Midnight Voices was that the shows should be an annual event. Later versions of the show used small theater or school hall venues, with other professional artists invited to perform as well.

At the 2000 show, Atkin announced that the music conglomerate BMG, which had acquired the RCA catalogue and rights, had finally released the master recordings for the final four of his albums. They were subsequently re-released on CD in the same fashion as the first two, whose rights had been owned by a different company.

Atkin then recorded The Lakeside Sessions—a double CD of new recordings of some of the Atkin/James songs which never made it onto vinyl the first time round. The CD Winter Spring is made up entirely of new material co-written with James. His latest CD "Midnight Voices" made with Simon Wallace consists of reworkings of 15 songs originally written and released in the seventies. It is available from Hillside Music's website only in 2007 but set for a wider release in 2008. The title is in part a tribute to the "virtual and actual group of friends and aficionados" i.e. Steve Birkill and the other members of the Midnight Voices discussion group.

In 2002 the electronic music outfit Lemon Jelly used a guitar sample from The Pearl Driller (from Driving Through Mythical America album) as part of the Nice Weather For Ducks.

Atkin resides with his American wife in Bristol where he performs as the piano/keyboard player in Bristol-based band The Shrinks.

The Midnight Voices mailing list has now been replaced by an online discussion forum with multiple subject areas.