Another musical love that stems from my first live experience of Richard Thompson. Clive Gregson and Christine Collister were part of his band in those days (those days being, in this case, 1986) as well as making their first steps in a five-album career as a duo. Clive was the more experienced hand, having been in the business since the mid-70s when he fronted Any Trouble, a pub-rock/new wave band that he has since described as that most unfortunate of things, the unpopular pop group. After seeing Collister perform in a folk club, he was steering her towards a solo career with him producing before it became apparent to both of them that the act made more sense as a duo.

Together Clive and Christine seemed to be a perfect combination. He was a great songwriter, a fine guitarist and possessed a warm, characterful voice. She had a once-in-a-generation voice that astonished me when I first heard it at that Richard Thompson gig and still has the same effect on me today. Gregson once said that it’s hard to get people to recognise you as a guitarist when you spend time on a stage next to Richard Thompson, and hard to be recognised as a singer when you’re at the mic next to Christine Collister. He’s got a point, but he’s also a fine performer on both counts himself. His instrumental section in their cover on this album of Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It Through the Grapevine is a fine example: imaginative, rhythmically inventive and – in places – genuinely funny (in a good way).

They delivered five albums as a duo before parting company, failing to pull off the Fleetwood Mac trick of keeping the act together once their offstage romance had faltered. In Dead Man Singing, Dave includes their second album Mischief (1987) in his 100 albums, and my decision to give the name 'Clive' to the producer he is working with when we first meet him might offer a clue as to why that particular album had crossed his radar, but it’s Home and Away (1986), the duo’s debut album, that I return to most often.

Home and Away is entirely acoustic, with the two magical voices backed only by Gregson’s guitar. But when the playing and (especially) the singing is as good as this, you don’t necessarily need additional bells and whistles, bass and drums. Some tracks are recorded live at various folk club performances, while others are studio cuts; virtually all of them are classics.

Lead vocals are split fairly evenly, with a slight lean in Collister’s favour, but each of them has the opportunity to shine on some of the album’s high points. The album opens with Christine’s impeccable It’s All Just Talk, which the duo performed on the Jonathan Ross' The Last Resort, and which Collister was still performing when I saw her play in 2025 . Other Collister highlights include All Because of You, the heartbreaking Touch and Go, and my personal favourite When My Ship Comes In. Gregson provides some fine moments too, particularly his kitchen-sink drama All The Time in the World (a song he brought with him from his days in Any Trouble) and his cover of Merle Haggard’s Mama Tried. Perhaps the highest praise I can give is that the country classic is in no way diminished by being sung in Gregson’s noticeably Mancunian accent.

Another Gregson lead, Northern Soul, highlights one the great strengths of the duo. Whichever one is front and centre, the other is capable of sensitive backing vocals that magnify the effect of the song without competing or jarring. No matter how good either of them are alone, the blend of their voices is just perfection. It seems unlikely that the pair will ever reunite, either on stage or on record, but as a time capsule for some of my fondest musical memories, Home and Away is just wonderful.