''The Fool Circle'' is the twelfth studio album by Scottish

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a heavier subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and Distortion (music), distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the Garage rock, garage, Psychedelic rock, psychedelic and blues ...

band

Nazareth Nazareth is the largest Cities in Israel, city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. In its population was . Known as "the Arab capital of Israel", Nazareth serves as a cultural, political, religious, economic and ...

, released in February 1981. "

Cocaine Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated a ...

" was a live cover of the song written by

J. J. Cale John Weldon "J. J." Cale (December 5, 1938 – July 26, 2013) was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Though he avoided the limelight, his influence as a musical artist has been acknowledged by figures such as Neil Young, Mark Knopf ...

and recorded in 1977 by

Eric Clapton Eric Patrick Clapton (born 1945) is an English Rock music, rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the most successful and influential guitarists in rock music. Clapton ranked second in ''Rolling Stone''s l ...

. There are remastered editions of the album with different sets of bonus tracks. Because in 1997

Castle Communications Castle Communications, also known as Castle Music, was a British independent record label and home video distributor founded in 1983 by Terry Shand, Cliff Dane, and Jon Beecher. Its video imprint was called Castle Vision. The label's producti ...

was unwilling to produce a 2-CD set of the double live album

'Snaz ''Snaz'' is a double live album by the Scottish hard rock band Nazareth, released in September 1981. The title is rendered on the album artwork in all-capital letters, and when the gatefold-sleeve is opened, the title appears as "IT'SNAZ", but ...

, four tracks were removed so that a remastered version could be released on a single CD. Rob Corich, who was doing the remastering, included these songs here as bonus tracks to rectify this. ''The Fool Circle'' is notable for a reggae sound on many of the songs. In an interview bassist Pete Agnew commented: "'Fool Circle' was the nearest we came to making a concept album, trying to inject a bit of humour into a pretty heavy subject. I think the fact that we recorded it on the island of

Montserrat Montserrat ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies. Montserrat is about long and wide, wit ...

might account for a teeny bit of reggae poking its way through."

Track listing

*''Cocaine'' was recorded at Wendler Arena,

Saginaw, Michigan Saginaw () is a city in Saginaw County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. It had a population of 44,202 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located along the Saginaw River, Saginaw is adjacent to Saginaw Charter Township, ...

on 25 May 1980.

2002 30th Anniversary Bonus Tracks

2010 Salvo Remaster Bonus Tracks

*''Morgentau'' and ''Crazy (A Suitable Case for Treatment)'' are also available on Salvo reissue of

album. *The last four tracks are from unedited version of the EP ''Nazareth Live'' released in 1980.

Personnel

Band members

* Dan McCafferty – vocals * Manny Charlton – guitars *Pete Agnew – bass, vocals *Darrell Sweet – drums

Additional musicians

* Zal Cleminson – 12-string acoustic guitar on "Cocaine" *

John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 28 October 1704 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thi ...

– keyboards * Jeff Baxter – synthesizer,

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''vo''ice and en''coder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder wa ...

Other credits

*Recorded and mixed at

AIR Studios Associated Independent Recording (AIR) is an independent recording company founded in London in 1965 by record producers George Martin, John Burgess (record producer), John Burgess, Ron Richards (producer), Ron Richards, and Peter Sullivan (rec ...

Geoff Emerick Geoffrey Ernest Emerick (5 December 1945 – 2 October 2018) was an English sound engineer and record producer who worked with the Beatles on their albums ''Revolver'' (1966), '' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' (1967) and ''Abbey Road' ...

– sound engineer *Alan Schmidt and Pat Carroll – sleeve design *Illustration by Chris Moore

Charts

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fool Circle Nazareth (band) albums 1981 albums A&M Records albums Vertigo Records albums Albums recorded at AIR Studios Albums produced by Jeff Baxter