On October 28, UK’s Esoteric Records will be reissuing a long out of print – and VERY rare album by Bill Nelson. Bill Nelson is, as many of you know, the core of the underrated Be Bop Deluxe, and an excellent guitar player on top of it all. The album is Getting The Holy Ghost Across (titled On A Blue Wing in the US on Portrait Records).
Getting The Holy Ghost Across was originally released in 1986. It was held in reverence by Be Bop Deluxe and Bill Nelson fans. Of course, by this time, Be Bop Deluxe had dissolved leaving behind several classic recordings on Harvest Records.
Getting The Holy Ghost Across is an ’80s-styled recording with an experimental bent to it. Well, that’s what Bill Nelson did, experiment. Regardless, from the strange opening intro of “Suvasini” followed by the the wonderful and instrumentally gorgeous “Contemplation”, and on through the rest of the original album, Nelson’s brilliant composition and instrumental work on Getting The Holy Ghost Across (for me, On A Blue Wing, with a different sequence of tracks), is memorable.
The lack of this album on CD for many fans created a ‘must have’ for acquisition. Thankfully, Cherry Red, as they marched across the reissues of Nelson’s music, finally arrived at this long unavailable album. And again, on October 28, you can get your copy with more than you expected.
Not only is the album arriving with the original UK sequencing intact, the original UK cover, and the original UK album title, but there will be new remastering, the complete collection of the 12″ EPs from these sessions that include Living For The Spangled Moment, and Wildest Dreams. From those, there are three previously unreleased on CD bonus tracks. To cap it off, Bill Nelson will pen new liner notes for this new reissue. What is not to be excited about here?