Paris (Supertramp album)

Background and recording

According to Roger Hodgson, Supertramp had several reasons to record a live album at the time, including a desire to introduce their pre-Breakfast in America works to USA listeners and a mutual sentiment that some of their songs were pulled off better live than in the studio. However, he admits that the chief purpose of the album was to buy time; the band was under pressure to produce a suitable follow-up to the immense success of Breakfast in America, and needed to get off the treadmill of touring and recording for a while in order to consider their direction for such an album. Taking such a breather meant the next studio album wouldn't be finished until 1981 at the earliest, and so something was needed "to fill the gap."

Using the band's mobile studio, a number of shows in Canada and throughout Europe were recorded. However, when Pete Henderson and Russel Pope presented the band with unlabeled cassettes containing rough mixes of these recordings, and the members voted on their favourite tracks, the majority of votes coincidentally fell on recordings from the 29 November show at the Pavilion. A few tracks were taken from other concerts during the band's stay in Paris, and studio overdubs were also added, chiefly for the vocals and John Helliwell's organ. However, Helliwell contended that the amount of overdubbing was minimal compared to most live albums of the time: "A lot of people, when they make a live album, just keep the drums and bass and redo everything else." Filmmaker Peter Clifton shot the concerts in 16 mm film, missing only five songs ("A Soapbox Opera", "You Started Laughing", "From Now On", "Ain't Nobody But Me" and "Downstream") to lower expenses and give the camera crew some rest. A&M Records requested music videos out of three songs, “Dreamer”, “The Logical Song” and “Asylum”. Clifton edited them along with Sarah Legon, and even extended his work to ten songs. However, the studio never sent an approval, so Clifton retreated back to his Sydney home and brought the negatives along to Australia.

The album's set list contains almost all of the 1974 Crime of the Century (except for "If Everyone Was Listening"), three songs from Crisis? What Crisis? (1975), two from Even in the Quietest Moments (1977), three from Breakfast in America (1979) plus "You Started Laughing", the B-side to the track "Lady" from Crisis? What Crisis?. The hit "Give a Little Bit" was played on the tour but not included because, according to Hodgson, "we were shocked when we listened back to the live tapes to find how bad all the versions were. There just wasn't one version that we felt that we wanted to put on the album." Other songs that were on the tour's set list but not on the album are "Goodbye Stranger", "Even in the Quietest Moments", "Downstream", "Child of Vision" and "Another Man's Woman". All of these tracks, including "Give a Little Bit", later showed up on the second live disc included in the deluxe anniversary edition of Breakfast in America and on the 2-CD/DVD set Live in Paris '79.

Remastering and DVD release

In July 2006, the original master tapes of the album were rediscovered in the Northern California barn of the band's drummer Bob Siebenberg, along with video footage. The tapes were sent to Cups 'N Strings Studios in Woodland Hills, California, for digital remastering. The tapes were initially in bad technical shape, but were successfully transferred to a digital format.

In 2010, Clifton was contacted to finish editing the initial three videos, aiming to later release a concert film out of the Paris concert. The footage was delivered to Roger Hodgson before a concert in Sydney. Once Supertramp manager Dave Margereson and Eagle Rock Entertainment offered to cover the post-production costs, Clifton worked on finishing the film, doing his initial work in Australia. By the time he moved to London to conclude the project, Clifton found out his original idea to feature heavily footage of Paris, adding a story akin to his work in The Song Remains the Same, was nixed by the band, who edited most of what he had done without consent to instead showcase more of the group. The sound was remixed by Peter Henderson and Supertramp's original sound engineer Russel Pope from the original multi-tracks.

Under the title Live In Paris '79, the concert film was released on 27 August 2012, with editions in both DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Hodgson would later express his disapproval with the finished project, saying the rest of the band did most decisions regarding the DVD without asking his input. The DVD was repackaged in 2015 with the full show on two CDs.

Reception

Allmusic's brief retrospective review dubbed the album "a competent but ultimately unnecessary live album that fails to live up to the standards of Supertramp's studio material."

Track listing

All songs written by Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson except [*] by Roger Hodgson.

Side one

1. "School" – 5:41
2. Lead vocals: Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies
3. "Ain't Nobody But Me" – 5:24
4. Lead vocals: Rick Davies
5. "The Logical Song" [*] – 3:56
6. Lead vocals: Roger Hodgson
7. "Bloody Well Right" – 7:23
8. Lead vocals: Rick Davies

Side two

1. "Breakfast In America" [*] – 2:57
2. Lead vocals: Roger Hodgson
3. "You Started Laughing" – 4:02
4. Lead vocals: Rick Davies
5. "Hide in Your Shell" – 6:54
6. Lead vocals: Roger Hodgson
7. "From Now On" – 7:05
8. Lead vocals: Rick Davies

Side three

1. "Dreamer" – 3:44
2. Lead vocals: Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies
3. "Rudy" – 7:08
4. Lead vocals: Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson
5. "A Soapbox Opera" – 4:51
6. Lead vocals: Roger Hodgson
7. "Asylum" – 6:51
8. Lead vocals: Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson

Side four

1. "Take the Long Way Home" [*] – 4:57
2. Lead vocals: Roger Hodgson
3. "Fool's Overture" – 10:57
4. Lead vocals: Roger Hodgson
5. "Two of Us" – 1:25
6. Lead vocals: Roger Hodgson
7. "Crime of the Century" – 6:31
8. Lead vocals: Rick Davies

Personnel

Production

2002 A&M reissue:
The 2002 A&M Records reissue was mastered from the original master tapes by Greg Calbi and Jay Messina at Sterling Sound, New York, 2002. The reissue was supervised by Bill Levenson with art direction by Vartan and design by Mike Diehl, with production coordination by Beth Stempel.