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Twice as Much -
Coldest Night of the Year
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Twice as Much -
Sittin' on a Fence
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Twice as Much -
Step Out of Line
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Dave Skinner and Andrew Rose, a songwriting and folk-singing duo.
David Ferguson Skinner (born July 4 1946) and Andrew Colin Campell Rose (born March 12 1946) were friends from Edgware, Middlesex who, in 1963, played together in a group called The Black Jacks. The band split up with Skinner attending college but the duo continued to perform, playing folk music in small clubs while perfecting their harmonies and writing songs. A mutual friend of the pair introduced them to Immediate records label owner Andrew 'Loog' Oldham resulting in the arrangement of an audition and Oldham signing the pair as a songwriting team.
However, the duo ended up recording as well as composing, and a Mick Jagger/Keith Richard song (through Oldham's connections with The Rolling Stones), entitled "Sittin' on a Fence", became their first release. Initially, the intention was to name the duo David and Andrew, but concern about confusing the name with David and Jonathan, UK Columbia recording artists with two UK Top 30 hits, resulted in the duo being christened Twice As Much. Oldham gave the release a big media promotion in England and on the Continent as well as releasing the single on MGM in the US (with a picture sleeve) and Quality Records in Canada. The single reached a peak of 25 in the UK and also charted in parts of Europe. The follow-up, "Step Out of Line", was a Skinner/Rose composition but it failed to enter the charts.
In November, the "Own Up" LP was released with seven Skinner/Rose, two Jagger/Richard and two Lennon/McCartney compositions. The album sessions included guitarists Joe Moretti, Big Jim Sullivan, Jimmy Page and John McLaughlin; Andy White on drums amongst others; and Nicky Hopkins and Arthur Greenslade on keyboards and percussion. The whole project was engineered by Glyn Johns and produced by Oldham. It is obvious that Oldham had high ambitions for Twice As Much since he produced all sides of the singles and both albums. Live performances were infrequent and there was a problem putting a backing band together. Their stage act was regarded as rather lacklustre and dull and consequently Twice As Much's releases did not sell well.
After a second album, "That's All", with Vashti (Bunyan) accompanying them on "Coldest Night of the Year" on vocals, the duo called it quits. The songwriting skills of the pair were used for Immediate artist recordings by Chris Farlowe, P.P. Arnold and Nicky Scott. In 1967, Oldham also recorded a series of tracks with Del Shannon, using the Skinner/Rose compositions of "Life Is But Nothing", "It's My Feeling" and "Easy to Say". Dave Skinner later played keyboards with Uncle Dog and toured with Roxy Music as keyboardist.
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