Strawbs’ Deadlines, by the numbers: It was the band’s first album on Clive Davis’ Arista label, last album of the 1970s, third album produced or co-produced by Jeffrey Lesser (Rupert Holmes, Loudon Wainwright III, Barbra Streisand), and only album to feature the four-piece line-up of Dave Cousins, Dave Lambert, Chas Cronk, and Tony Fernandez. It’s recently been expanded by Cherry Red’s Esoteric Recordings arm as a 2-CD/1-DVD clamshell box set featuring numerous bonus tracks and a complete concert on CD and region zero DVD (playable on all worldwide DVD players).

As Cousins explains in his liner notes for this reissue, he had intended the band’s previous album, Burning for You, to be its last. He even went so far as to conclude the album with his song “Goodbye (Is Not an Easy Word to Say),” underscoring his intentions. But Clive Davis persuaded the durable band to press forward. Strawbs had formed in 1964 and released their first album in 1969, skipping from folk-rock to prog, glam, and for 1977’s Deadlines, straight-ahead pop-rock.

The making of the album was filled with tensions; though the band had successfully worked with Lesser before, Cousins wasn’t happy with his style (“a great engineer, but he did not understand the dynamics of the band as far as I’m concerned…”) nor with the choice to assign lead vocals to Dave Lambert. Cousins admits in the notes that he didn’t have enough material. On top of all that, the tapes became damaged late in the process and the band had to re-record the songs.

For all that, Deadlines remains a compelling listen. Guests John Mealing and Robert Kirby added color with their keyboards and piano, fleshing out the guitars, bass, and drums group. Producer-engineer Lesser brought his sonic mastery to the recordings, giving each song a distinctive character. The veneer was smooth – as Cousins puts it, “we sacrificed our rootsy element in favor of pop balladry” – but the musicianship was impeccable on both the uptempo tracks (“No Return,” with its prog-esque Polymoog, or “Joey and Me” with its boogie-woogie piano, both played by guest John Mealing) and the slower ballads (“Sealed with a Traitor’s Kiss,” “New Beginnings”). “I Don’t Want to Talk About It” would fit comfortably into a present-day yacht rock playlist; “Words of Wisdom” and “Deadly Nightshade” go into heavier territory. Deadlines proved to be the band’s final album for a decade, but stands as a fine encapsulation of the varied styles the band explored in the 1970s.

Esoteric’s expanded edition adds the eleven bonus tracks previously issued in 2012 on the Witchwood Media reissue including the urgent outtake “Midnight” and six of Cousins’ acoustic demos which present the songs distilled to their raw essence, minus the lavish production values.  Three tracks (“No Return,” “Joey and Me,” “Deadly Nightshade”) are also presented in their first recordings from Dublin before the band was forced to re-record in London due to the tape issues.

A concert from the following year is included here on both CD and DVD. The BBC Radio One Sight and Sound in Concert broadcast from London’s Golders Green Hippodrome was recorded on February 18, 1978; it features “The Last Resort,” “No Return,” and “Sealed with a Traitor’s Kiss” from Deadlines along with eight other Strawbs favorites. (A truncated version was issued in 1999 on the Concert Classics label.)  It’s fully authorized and licensed directly from the BBC.

The set includes a 16-page booklet with Cousins’ introduction, complete lyrics and credits for the original album, and an image of a note from Clive Davis in which he “suggests” the sequencing of the album – which, of course, became the sequence used. Each disc is housed in its own paper sleeve, and a foldout replica of a Deadlines ad is also included. Paschal Byrne has remastered the audio to fine effect.

The expanded Deadlines is available now from Cherry Red and Esoteric!

Strawbs, Deadlines (Arista AB 4172, 1977 – reissued Cherry Red/Esoteric ECLEC 32676, 2019) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1: The Original Album plus bonus tracks

1. No Return
2. Joey and Me
3. Sealed with a Traitor’s Kiss
4. I Don’t Want to Talk About It
5. The Last Resort
6. Time and Life
7. New Beginnings
8. Deadly Nightshade
9. Words of Wisdom
10. Midnight (Outtake)
11. No Return (Dave Cousins Acoustic Demo)
12. Sealed with a Traitor’s Kiss (Dave Cousins Acoustic Demo)
13. Time and Life (Dave Cousins Acoustic Demo)
14. Deadly Nightshade (Dave Cousins Acoustic Demo)
15. Words of Wisdom (Dave Cousins Acoustic Demo)
16. The Chosen Ones (Dave Cousins Acoustic Demo)
17. Sealed with a Traitor’s Kiss (Band Demo)
18. No Return (Dublin Production Mix)
19. Joey and Me (Dublin Production Mix)
20. Deadly Nightshade (Dublin Production Mix)

Tracks 10-20 first released on Witchwood Media WMCD 2055, 2012

CD 2/DVD: BBC Radio One Sight and Sound in Concert: London’s Golders Green Hippodrome, February 18, 1978

1. Lay Down
2. The Last Resort
3. Ghosts
4. No Return
5. Heartbreaker
6. Sealed with a Traitor’s Kiss
7. Simple Visions
8. Cut Like a Diamond
9. Out in the Cold
10. Round and Round
11. Hero and Heroine