The Tourists

For other uses, see Tourist (disambiguation).
The Tourists

The Tourists, 1980. L-R: Jim Toomey, Eddie Chin, Annie Lennox, Peet Coombes and Dave Stewart.
Background information
Origin London, England
Genres
Years active 1977–80
Labels
Associated acts Eurythmics
Past members David A. Stewart
Peet Coombes
Annie Lennox
Eddie Chin
Jim Toomey

The Tourists (1977–1980) were a British rock and pop band. They achieved brief success in the late 1970s before the band split in 1980. Two of its members, singer Annie Lennox and guitarist Dave Stewart, went on to achieve massive international success as Eurythmics.

Early history

Peet Coombes was a guitarist singer-songwriter, while Dave Stewart, also a guitarist, had been a member of the folk rock band, Longdancer, who were signed to Elton John's Rocket label. The two moved to London and encountered Scottish singer Annie Lennox who had dropped out of her course at the Royal Academy of Music, where she had been studying flute and keyboards, to pursue her ambitions in pop music.

Forming a band in 1975, the three of them initially called themselves The Catch, and released a single "Borderline/Black Blood" in 1977 on Logo Records. The single was released in the UK, The Netherlands, Spain and Portugal but was not a commercial success.

'The Tourists'

By 1977, they had recruited bass guitarist Eddie Chin and drummer Jim Toomey, and renamed themselves The Tourists. This saw the beginning of a productive period for the band and they released three albums: The Tourists (1979), Reality Effect (1979) and Luminous Basement (1980), as well as half a dozen singles, including "Blind Among the Flowers" (1979), "The Loneliest Man in the World" (1979), "Don't Say I Told You So" (1980) and two hits, the Dusty Springfield cover "I Only Want to Be with You" (1979)[1] and "So Good to Be Back Home Again" (1980), both of which reached the top 10 in the UK.

"I Only Want to Be With You" was also a top 10 hit in Australia and made the US Billboard Hot 100 (#83). Coombes was the band's main songwriter, although later releases saw the first compositions by Lennox and Stewart, who were also in a relationship together for a time. The band's music expanded using their folk roots, demonstrating some punk energy, reggae and 1960s pop influences. In 1980, the band signed to RCA Records.

The band toured extensively in the UK and abroad, including a support role on Roxy Music's Manifesto Tour in 1979 but, despite some chart success, they were critically savaged by the UK music press. This, along with some legal wrangling and personal tensions, led to the group disbanding in late 1980.

After the break-up

Coombes and Chin reputedly began a new project named Acid Drops[2] but this met with little success and Coombes, despite originally being the main artistic force behind the Tourists, drifted out of the music business after the disbanding. Lennox and Stewart soon split as a couple but decided to continue working as an experimental musical partnership, under the new name Eurythmics.[3] They retained their RCA recording contract and links with Conny Plank, who produced their first album, In The Garden in 1981. The untimely death of Coombes in late 1997 acted as a catalyst for Lennox and Stewart to revive their friendship and musical partnership, after they had disbanded Eurythmics in 1990.

Release trivia

Band members

Discography

Albums

Year Title UK SWE[4]
1979 The Tourists 72 —
1979 Reality Effect 23 45
1980 Luminous Basement 75 —
1984 Should Have Been Greatest Hits — —
1997 Greatest Hits — —

Singles

Year Title UK IRE[5] AUS CAN USA[6] Album
1979 "Blind Among the Flowers" 52 — — — — The Tourists
"The Loneliest Man in the World" 32 — — — —
"I Only Want to Be with You" 4 13 6 50 83 Reality Effect
1980 "So Good to Be Back Home Again" 8 9 — — —
"Don't Say I Told You So" 40 — — — — Luminous Basement
"From the Middle Room"[7] — — — — — promo single

References

  1. ↑ http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-tourists-mn0000921200/biography
  2. ↑ http://www.eurythmics-ultimate.com/interview-1980-03-the-tourists-were-not-tourists-we-live-here-nme/
  3. ↑ http://www.mtv.com/artists/eurythmics/photos/3002279/
  4. ↑ Swedish Charts. Retrieved: 2009-09-19.
  5. ↑ The Irish Charts. Retrieved: 2009-09-19.
  6. ↑ The Tourists - Billboard Singles. Allmusic. Retrieved: 2009-09-21.
  7. ↑ Promotional single, only released as a bonus with Luminous Basement album.

External links

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