Pete Atkin

In the early '70s, the songwriting partnership of Pete Atkin and Clive James was held in high esteem by the British music press, yet commercial success proved much more elusive. Their unique attempt to fuse the discipline and craftsmanship of Tin Pan Alley with the self-expression of rock, while refusing to accept any limitation on what constituted appropriate subject matter for lyrics, inevitably set them on a collision course with their record companies' marketing departments. An Atkin-James album could embrace a brief encounter in a railway carriage, the Vietnam War, and th...