Steve Nice (also titled Steve Nice + Cockney Rebel) is an unreleased collection of Harley’s earliest recordings before he adopted the Harley name and before Cockney Rebel were formed as a band. The nine tracks were recorded at Venus Recording Studios in 1971.
Background
In April 1971, Harley recorded a number of his own songs as demos using his classical guitar at Venus Recording Studios in Whitechapel. At the time, he was still working as a journalist, but frequently writing songs. On Stewart Griffin’s Cockney Rebel Connections Show in 2021, Harley said the songs were recorded with “just me and a Spanish guitar”. The Venus Recording Studios in Whitechapel were run by one of Harley’s primary school friends and the friend’s brother.
More details on the material came to light in 2022 when an Emidisc acetate of nine songs was one of a number of items due to be auctioned by Harley through the Lacy Scott & Knight Auction Centre on 16 September 2022. Harley gave the auctioneers boxes of various acetates and white label vinyls without realising this particular acetate was among them. Once Harley realised it was part of the auction, he had it withdrawn before the auction date. He told the Cockney Rebel Connections Show in 2022, “[That] was a big mistake and thank heavens I spotted it. I’ve only glanced through the auction lots, but I did [accidentally] put in an acetate of my very earliest recordings. I saw that and said, ‘Crikey, no, that’s precious to me’, so I asked them to withdraw it for me and they did immediately. Yeah, I needed to keep that really – that’s not for public consumption.”
The acetate sleeve credits ‘Steve Nice’, whereas the label has ‘Steve Nice + Cockney Rebel’. It contains nine tracks, most of which have unfamiliar titles to Harley’s professional recordings with Cockney Rebel. “Spaced Out” is likely to be an early version of the Cockney Rebel song of the same name which appeared as the B-side to their 1974 hit “Judy Teen”. Harley later revisited the tune of “Laid in the Shade” when writing his 1975 UK chart topper “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)”. He recalled in 2022, “It’s the same tune, but with entirely different words”.
Harley revealed in 2021 that he had two reel to reels of the recordings and had them digitised onto CD by a studio years many later. He did not rule out giving them some kind of release on a “small scale” in the future, although he admitted “it’s not always good for a performer to expose his useless early self”.
Track listing
Side 1
- “All for Thee”
- “Silver and Gold”
- “White Raven”
- “Purple Annie Blues”
- “Spaced Out”
Side 2
- “Once from You”
- “Into My Room”
- “Spring (This) Is Only the Beginning”
- “Laid in the Shade by Maria”
