"Shine on Silver Sun" is a song by English band

Strawbs The Strawbs are an English rock band founded in 1964 as the Strawberry Hill Boys. The band started out as a bluegrass group, but eventually moved on to other styles such as folk rock and progressive rock. They are best known for their hi ...

featured on their 1974 album ''

Hero and Heroine ''Hero and Heroine'' is the seventh studio album by England, English band Strawbs. Background After the tour supporting the previous album, ''Bursting at the Seams'' (1973), there was an acrimonious split leaving only Dave Cousins and Dave Lam ...

''. It is written by

Dave Cousins Dave Cousins (born David Joseph Hindson; 7 January 1945) is an English musician who has been the leader, singer and most-active songwriter of Strawbs, since 1967. Cousins is a founding member of Strawbs, which started out as the Strawberry H ...

and was intended as a "come-back" single after the post-"Part of the Union" band split. The single was a minor success peaking at number 34 in the UK Singles Chart.

B-Side

The

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph record, vinyl records and Compact cassette, cassettes, and the terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side of a Single (music), single usually ...

track "And Wherefore" is a band composition, not released on any studio album. It forms the second part of the composite song "Why and Wherefore" which appears on the compilation/rarities album '' Halcyon Days''.

Personnel

*Dave Cousins –

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

* Dave Lambert –

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are us ...

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

Chas Cronk Chas Cronk is an English musician, best known as the bass player and acoustic guitarist for the Strawbs from 1973 to 1980 and again from 2004 to 2023. Chas also toured and recorded with Steve Hackett and Rick Wakeman in the 1980s and Cry No Mo ...

– backing vocals,

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

Rod Coombes Rodney Coombes (born 15 May 1946) is an English musician. He was mostly known from playing drums with British bands Stealers Wheel in 1972 to 1973 and again in 2008 and Strawbs from 1974 to 1977 and again from 2004 to 2010. Career Rod is an ...

–

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

John Hawken John Christopher Hawken (9 May 1940 – 15 May 2024) was an English keyboard player, best known as a member of The Nashville Teens, Renaissance, and the Strawbs. He also played in Spooky Tooth, Third World War, Vinegar Joe and Illusion, as ...

–

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which causes a length of magnetic tape to contact a Capstan (tape recorder), capstan, which pulls i ...

References

"Shine on Silver Sun" at Strawbsweb official site

External links

Lyrics to "Shine on Silver Sun" at Strawbsweb official siteLyrics to "And Wherefore" at Strawbsweb official site
1973 singles Strawbs songs 1973 songs Songs written by Dave Cousins {{1970s-rock-song-stub