Nadir's Big Chance

Nadir's Big Chance is the fifth solo album by Peter Hammill, released on Charisma Records in 1975. It was recorded shortly after a decision to re-form the band Van der Graaf Generator and Nadir's Big Chance is actually performed by the reformed Van der Graaf Generator line-up. The title track tells a story about the fictitious character of Rikki Nadir, who is an attitude-filled rocker and can be considered an alter-ego of Hammill. The album's songs vary greatly in style, as acknowledged by Hammill in the sleeve notes, which refer to "the beefy punk songs, the weepy ballads, the soul struts". In a 1977 Capital Radio broadcast, John Lydon of the Sex Pistols played two tracks from the album, "The Institute of Mental Health, Burning" and "Nobody's Business", and expressed his admiration for Hammill. The album includes two of Hammill's most frequently performed ballads at concerts and radio interviews, "Been Alone So Long" and "Shingle Song", and a reworking of Van der Graaf Generator's first single from 1968, "People You Were Going To". The album presented Hammill's first use of the Hohner clavinet D6 keyboard, which featured prominently on the next few Van der Graaf Generator albums. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadir's...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)