Hard Travellin’ was the first solo album released by Dave Sharp on 27 August 1991 in the UK and USA/Canada on CD and cassette and in Japan as a promotional release 21st September 1991

Recorded in six days flat, by the Bob Johnston, the flawless production captured Dave at the top of his game as a songwriter, together with The Barnstormers: Dr Joe De Lorenzo, Rockabilly Billy Penn, Reverend Charlie McIntosh – they created a timeless record that still sounds as good today as it did when it was recorded.

Recorded at a time of change with a bunch of skilled musicians for a backing band. This is a defining piece of work which captures a songwriter enthused by challenges ahead and moving apace in a new direction. “It seemed logical at that time to record my first solo album”, says Dave. “Bob Johnston, whom I was working with at the time, suggested The Barnstormers and I meet up at the Hit Factory in New York City to record. “By the end of one studio session, we pretty much had an album together. We completed it in Nashville later. We called it ‘Hard Travellin’ for good reason”. – from www.davesharp.org

The legendary Bob Johnston knew. He saw it. And he had produced the greats – Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson – everyone. Here’s a note he sent to Dave Sharp after they had recorded Hard Travellin’ together, and Dave was nervous about taking it into IRS, as it was so different to The Alarm. Bob knew.

Transcription – Remember. They are only record men. Not MUSIC men. So go in and hit them over the goddamned head. We know how good it is, and what it can be. My love to Kelly”
(Photo courtesy of Kelly Dougherty supplied to the archive by Graham Lampen)

Track Listing
Electric
1. In The City
2. It Ain’t Long For The Day
2. Wonderful World
4. Long Black Night
5. Last Smilin’ Villain From The South
6. New Age Eden
Acoustic
7. Hard Travellin’
8. In The Dead Of The Night
9. Big Road Blue
10. Joey The Jone
11. Homeless Child

Discography
UK releases

(v) 27th August 1991: Dave Sharp – Hard Travellin’
Released in the UK on CD by I.R.S. Records, catalogue Number EIRSCD 1059
Released in the UK on Cassette by I.R.S. Records, catalogue Number IRSCTC 1059

USA & Canada releases

(v) 27th August 1991: Dave Sharp – Hard Travellin’
Released in the USA on CD by I.R.S. Records, catalogue Number X2 13090
Released in the USA & Canada on Cassette by I.R.S. Records, catalogue Number X4 13090

Japanese release

(v) 21st September 1991: Dave Sharp – Hard Travellin’
Released in Japan on CD as a promo by I.R.S. Records, catalogue Number VICP-510

Record Coll Article/Interview 1991
Dave’s solo album, issued on IRS early in September, is the result of a long, restless period spent travelling alone across the U.S.A., in stark contrast to the cushioned, air-conditioned passage usually taken by visiting rock stars. “We did an album with Tony Visconti a while back called `Change’,” Sharp explains, “and after that, Mike said to me that he didn’t want to tour, or record, for an unspecified time in the future. I packed a bag and a guitar and decided to go to New York

“I landed in Greenwich Village, and began to get a totally different perspective on things, without being responsible to these three other people in the band. I was exposed to a number of things you don’t see from a tour bus. I met people who were trying to stay alive on the streets: as soon as I arrived, a 12-year-old kid tried to peddle me some crack. A young lad got shot on the streets of Teeneck, down the road in New Jersey. And I started to write songs about what I was seeing. “At the same time I noticed a real resurgence in the singer-songwriter scene, among people who were reflecting concerns about the environment, political problems, human relations. I found myself writing about civil rights, homelessness, pollution, politics – something I hadn’t done in a long time. After playing clubs and bars in New York, usually to just a few dozen people, I got in a car and d rove off across America. Wherever I could, I played fundraisers or benefit shows, and I found a real social consciousness in the people across the country that just isn’t there in Britain.”

Along the way, Sharp stumbled across a backing band: “I met up with some hillbillies in New Jersey – there are hillbillies in New Jersey, believe it or not-when I walked into a bar one night. There was this rockabilly trio playing, called the Barnstormers, and I thought they were just fantastic. I climbed onstage with them, playing some of the songs I’d written very simple songs – and it felt great. The record company got to hear about it, and asked me if I wanted to make an album of the songs I’d written while I was in the States. And I wanted the Barnstormers on the record.”

To produce the album, Sharp approached the legendary Bob Johnston, the man behind the controls on albums like “Blonde On Blonde” by Bob Dylan, “Johnny Cash At San O~aentin”, the early Leonard Cohen LPs and more recent work by Willie Nelson. “He was supposed to have done some work with the Alarm, but it didn’t work out,” Sharp explains, “and he was excited by the songs I played him. We went into the Hit Factory studios in New York, and cut about twelve electric songs in twelve hours. I also wanted to record some acoustic stuff, so we flew down to Nashville and did it there. We taped and mixed the whole album in six days. “As a producer, Bob liberated me in the studio. With the Alarm, we’d gradually been getting closer and closer to recording live, and this was the natural extension of that. Bob left it all up to me. I kept asking him what he thought, and he’d say, what the hell are you asking me for? What do you think? “AI Kooper came in for the Nashville sessions, and put some wicked keyboards down on some of the tracks. And Mac Gayden too, he’s a great guitar player. All I knew about him before the sessions was that people said he can levitate, three feet oft the ground. If you meet him, you can believe it!”

The “Hard Travellin’ ” album has a refreshingly raw, live sound, as befits a record made in less than a week. Arranged defiantly in two ‘sides’ as if CD had never been invented, it kicks off with a blast of Dylanesque rockabilly which recounts Sharp’s initial impressions of life “In The City”. The Dylan influence, perhaps cultivated during the 1988 American tour on which the Alarm supported the erratic genius, pervades the whole album, either directly (as on AI Kooper’s keyboard interjections on several tracks) or obliquely, through the influence of Dytan’s own hero, Woody Guthrie.

The title of the album also links the two men: it’s a phrase that cropped up in one of Guthrie’s Dustbowl Ballads, and was then borrowed by Dylan in “Song For Woody”. Sharp explains that “Woody has always been a massive source of inspiration for me. I’ve always been very involved in folk music-my mother was a flamenco player, and I grew up hearing traditional European music, and was then knocked oft my feet when I heard American folk. What Woody taught me was that you have to give when you play music, rather than just taking.” The Guthrie/early Dylan tradition of social commentary through the folk ballad is best exemplified by the most direct of the acoustic songs on the album, “Joey The Jone. “=He was a 14-year-old Mexican kid shot by a policeman in New Jersey”, Sharp recalls. “He went out in a racial riot with something that looked like a gun. There was a cop who reacted the only way he knew how, and Joey died. I got a lot of stick when I sang that song at New York Town Hall. But I wanted to highlight both sides of the story, and bring the issues of violence and racism to the forefront.”

It’s that spirit of idealism – a quality for which the Alarm have suffered heavily at the hands of the press over the years – which permeates the whole of “Hard Travellin’ “. The record will appal anyone who believes that modern rock has to reflect modern technology, but as a hint of where the Alarm may be headed with Sharp as their vanguard, it’s an encouraging shot in the arm
for the cause of what the guitarist-turned-social commentator describes as “real music”. (PD)

Fan Comment – Brian Travis – THIS RECORD. Such a perfect album. I love the production, the musical direction and every song. I’ve listened to it thousands of times
Fan Comment – Lily Elsayed – What a masterpiece. Has totally stood the rest of time and as relevant today. Listen to it all the time
Fan Comment – Graham Lampen It’s a masterpiece. One of the best albums of all time in this genre. I’ve often said If Dylan or Young had released it, it would be held in the same regard as Blood on the Tracks or After the Goldrush. It’s THAT good.

Video & Audio Sources
Audio File – In The City
Audio File – Wonderful World
Audio File – New Age Eden
Audio File – Hard Travellin’
Audio File – Big Road Blue
Audio File – Homeless Child