Beg, Steal, or Borrow: Stage Door Pop Launches with CD Premiere of “The Singing Nolans”
Stage Door Records is well-known for celebrating the music of Broadway and the West End on CD. Now, the label is launching a new imprint that will bring the same dedication and quality to pop repertoire. Stage Door Pop launches this Friday, October 27, with the CD premiere of The Singing Nolans, the 1972 debut album from The Nolans.
Between 1978 and 2009, the girl group from Blackpool – the family had its roots in Dublin before moving in 1962 – notched four Gold albums in the U.K. as well as more than ten hit singles; though they attained their greatest popularity outside of Great Britain in Japan, their songs have also charted in such territories as Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, and South Africa. The Singing Nolans takes listeners back to an earlier incarnation of the group.
The LP arrived in 1972 on producer Jim McLean’s Nevis Records label and featured a larger line-up than on their later hits. All ten members of the Nolan family were involved including mother Maureen, father Tommy, brothers Tommy Jr. and Brian, and the six sisters: Anne, Denise, Maureen, Linda, Bernadette, and Coleen. By the time of their major label debut The Nolan Sisters for Epic in 1979, the core group had been whittled down to sisters Anne, Maureen, Linda, and Bernadette. (Coleen provided additional vocals on that first Epic LP and later returned to become a full-fledged member once again.) The Nolans lineup has since comprised various permutations of the sisters only.
Recorded with McLean in just one day at the famed Regent Sound Studios on Denmark Street in London, The Singing Nolans was based on the family’s popular club act of the time. The material would have been familiar to cabaret-goers, with medleys from Oliver! and The Sound of Music as well as hits such as Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway’s “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,” Bobby Russell’s “Little Green Apples,” and Ron Miller and Orlando Murden’s “For Once in My Life.” The album was mainly sold at the Nolan family’s concerts and as such became a rarity in their expansive catalogue.
Stage Door is appending a number of bonus tracks to the album’s CD debut including the Nolans’ first single “Blackpool” b/w “Apple Pie” and a four-track Christmas EP featuring “Silent Night,” “White Christmas,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.” Every track on this reissue is new-to-CD, and all have been sourced and freshly remastered from the original Nevis Records master tapes.
The expanded edition of The Singing Nolans is due from the new Stage Door Pop imprint on Friday, October 27. You’ll find order links and the track listing below!
The Singing Nolans (Stage Door Pop, 2023) (Stage Door / Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
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- Oom-Pa-Pa/Where Is Love
- I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing
- Mother of Mine
- Little Green Apples
- Danny Boy/My Ain Folk
- Beg, Steal, or Borrow
- For Once in My Life
- The Sound of Music (Medley)
- Blackpool
- Apple Pie
- Silent Night
- Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
- Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town
- White Christmas
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