condition (record/cover):  NM / EX (ring wear)

Two inserts included.

A 12" 45 RPM benefit record released in November 1984 to raise funds for the striking British coal miners during the 1984-1985 UK miners' strike. Chris Cutler initiated the project, enlisting ex-Henry Cow members Tim Hodgkinson and Lindsay Cooper, plus Robert Wyatt (who had performed with Henry Cow on several occasions), Bill Gilonis of The Work and the poet Adrian Mitchell. The record was recorded across late October 1984 at Cold Storage in Brixton and issued the following month on Rē Records (Re 1984). All artists, the studio, the label and distributors waived their fees; all proceeds went to the Miners Strike Fund.

The record is fifteen minutes long and contains four pieces. "Moments Of Delight" is a new Hodgkinson composition with Cutler text and Wyatt's lead vocal, one of the most quietly moving recordings of Wyatt's mid-1980s. "In The Dark Year" is a Cooper composition, again with Cutler text and Wyatt voice. "Bittern Storm Revisited" is a remix of "Bittern Storm Over Ulm" from Unrest. Mitchell's recitation of his miners-strike poem closes the record. The cover artwork, Ralph Steadman's caricature of a strangled nightingale, became as widely circulated as the music inside.

The original vintage Rē Records pressing on Re 1984 with the Steadman insert. The Last Nightingale is a benefit record by any conventional definition, but it is also one of the most concentrated expressions of British political-musical solidarity from the Thatcher decade, and contains some of Wyatt's most affecting vocal work of the period.