Seeing Is Believing: Deluxe Edition of Mike + The Mechanics’ “Living Years” Coming Soon to U.S.

Way back in the fall of 2013, our very own Mike Duquette reported on the release of Mike + the Mechanics’ The Singles 1985-2014, a two-disc compendium for the band founded by Genesis’ Mike Rutherford.  He teased, “This set has been pushed back to January 20, 2014…to better coincide with some more Mike + The Mechanics events in the coming year, including a U.K. tour in the winter of 2014, a forthcoming memoir from Rutherford and a planned reissue of Living Years for its 25th anniversary.”  Well, that year-old anniversary reissue of Living Years is finally receiving a U.S. pressing to coincide with a new tour.

Featuring guitarist/bassist Rutherford, vocalists Paul Carrack and Paul Young, keyboardist Adrian Lee and drummer Peter Van Hooke, Living Years marked an impressive sophomore release for the band. It was, of course, bolstered by the strength of the U.S. No. 1/U.K. No. 2 title track written by Rutherford and B.A. Robertson. No less than Burt Bacharach hailed the track as featuring “one of the finest lyrics of the last ten years,” and the song picked up the prestigious Ivor Novello Award in the United Kingdom. Paul Carrack sang lead vocals on the song, one of his six leads on the album. Bandmate Paul Young (not to be confused with the solo singer of “Everytime You Go Away”) handled the other four tracks’ leads. The album’s two other singles, “Nobody’s Perfect” and “Seeing is Believing,” reached No. 63 and No. 62, respectively, on the Billboard Hot 100.

The original Mechanics line-up remained intact for one more album, 1991’s Word of Mouth. By 1995’s Beggar on a Beach of Gold, Lee had departed the band, though he played on the album as a session musician. That album would also be Van Hooke’s farewell. 1999’s self-titled Mike + the Mechanics, also known as M6, was the last of the group’s records to feature Paul Young, who died the following year. Carrack and Rutherford soldiered on for 2004’s Rewired, but Rutherford alone put together a new line-up of Mechanics for 2011’s The Road.  Click the jump to keep reading!