''The Fool Circle'' is the twelfth studio album by the Scottish hard rock band Nazareth, released in February 1981. "

Cocaine Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly used recreationally for its euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from the leaves of two Coca species native to South Am ...

" was a live cover of the song written by J. J. Cale and recorded in 1977 by Eric Clapton. 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 productio ...

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

'Snaz ''IT'SNAZ'' is a double live album by the Scottish hard rock band Nazareth, released in September 1981. The full album title is It's Naz but the artwork spread the title, in block-capitals, fully over the outside of the gatefold-sleeve: when ...

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

Track listing

*''Cocaine'' was recorded at

Wendler Arena The Dow Event Center (formerly known as Saginaw County Event Center and Saginaw Civic Center) is an indoor arena located in Saginaw, Michigan. The center consists of several parts: The Atrium, The Garden Room, The Theater, The Red Room, Huntington ...

Saginaw, Michigan Saginaw () is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Saginaw County, Michigan, Saginaw County. The city of Saginaw and Saginaw County are both in the area known as Mid-Michigan. Saginaw is adjacent to Saginaw Charter Township, Michi ...

on 25 May 1980.

1998 Castle Communications Remaster Bonus Tracks

*Those are the tracks that didn't fit on 1997 single CD remaster of

album.

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 William Daniel McCafferty (14 October 1946 – 8 November 2022) was a vocalist and songwriter best known as the lead singer for the Scottish hard rock band Nazareth from its founding in 1968 to his retirement from touring with the band in 2013. ...

- vocals * Manny Charlton - guitars * Pete Agnew - bass guitar, vocals * Darrell Sweet - drums

Additional musicians

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

Jeff Baxter Jeffrey Allen "Skunk" Baxter (born December 13, 1948) is an American guitarist, known for his stints in the rock bands Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers during the 1970s and Spirit in the 1980s. More recently, he has worked as a defense co ...

– synthesizer,

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') 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 was ...

Other credits

*Recorded and mixed at

Air Studios Associated Independent Recording (AIR) is an independent recording company founded in London in 1965 by record producer Sir George Martin and his business partner John Burgess, after their departure from Parlophone. The studio complex was founded ...

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 Roa ...

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

Chart performance

Certifications

References

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