Colin Blunstone was lead singer with The Zombies, who released two albums in the 60s (with an improbably large number of compilations released since), and then launched a solo career in the 70s. There was then a big gap before he recorded new versions of his "greatest hits" and in recent years has released two excellent solo albums and two albums with Rod Argent. He featured on many Alan Parsons Project albums and on the self-titled album by KEATS. There was a reunion album with The Zombies released in 1990. This only had a minimal contribution from Rod Argent.

His first three albums ONE YEAR (1971), ENNISMORE (1972) and JOURNEY (1974) are truly superb. ONE YEAR is freely available on CD in the UK and there have been U.S. and Japanese releases too, including one in a Digipak. ENNISMORE had two different covers which may have represented U.K. and U.S. releases. It is available from Japan. I have seen mention on eBay of UK releases of *both* these albums in Digipak form.

JOURNEY had a different cover in the U.S. and indeed two tracks were different. Skivhugget in Sweden once listed something something they called "JOURNEY + 1" with a release date of 20th March 2002 and this is a title I have seen elsewhere though I haven't ever actually seen a copy or a track listing. In Japan in 2002 Sony/EPIC have rereleased JOURNEY with the UK running order plus the two tracks that were only on the US release and elsewhere this is referred to as "JOURNEY + 2".

Colin followed the above albums with PLANES (1976), NEVER EVEN THOUGHT (1978) and LATE NIGHTS IN SOHO (1979). The first two are good but I never got into the last one. As far as I know these never made it to CD and any CDs of PLANES on eBay are really CD-R transfers.

A compilation of the first three albums called I DON'T BELIEVE IN MIRACLES (1979) was released in 1979. This is NOT the same as the currently available compilations (plural!) of that name. It never had a CD release. I don't have a full scan of the cover but the above will give you the idea.

Over a decade later Colin released new recordings of ten of his best known works and two new tracks as SINGS HIS GREATEST HITS (1991) on Castle and they later rereleased it on Essential where it seems to get listed just as SINGS (I don't know if the cover is different). Mystic Records rereleased it as GREATEST HITS (1998) with the last two tracks replaced with later new recordings and this version is also available as SAY YOU DON'T MIND (2000). More recently still ANTHOLOGY (2002) has been released which has added the two replaced tracks from the original album on to the end. I have seen this listed as "with three bonus tracks" as if there was originally an eleven track version (i.e. GREATEST HITS without "She's Not There '98" on it). Anyway as if that wasn't enough there is also COLIN BLUNSTONE (2002?) at a budget price which is the GREATEST HITS version again. The last four of these albums all seem to be available in 2003 and as will be revealed below, that isn't the end of the story…

The release MIRACLES (1993) seems to be a compilation of the first five albums and has just about vanished from all the listings now. I have actually seen this listed in other discographies with dates including 1979 and 1983 which seems improbably unless there was an earlier vinyl version.

There is also a compilation of live sessions featuring material from his first three albums originally called LIVE AT THE BBC (1995) and then later reissued as just ON AIR (1998). This also gets listed as ON AIR: LIVE AT THE BBC.

A must have is the superb compilation album of the first three called SOME YEARS: IT'S THE TIME OF COLIN BLUNSTONE (1995). The only two relatively weak sounding tracks on the album come from the U.S. version of JOURNEY (it is a U.S. produced compilation). These sound somewhat unusual for his sound at the time but have grown on me and I think it is really lack of familiarity that has counted against them. It has been rereleased as I DON'T BELIEVE IN MIRACLES - THE VERY BEST OF COLIN BLUNSTONE (2000 ?) and indeed when I saw a copy it was only the insert that had changed and the rest of the packaging was still from SOME YEARS. Amazon even have the cover of one with the title of the other.

In 1995 Colin released an excellent new solo album ECHO BRIDGE (1995) (originally on Permanent, then in 1998 on Indelible ,and now a little elusive with the original cover). The album was reissued with a new cover in February 2004 on Big Beat. This was followed three years later by the even better THE LIGHT INSIDE (1998) and then another three years later he teamed up with Rod Argent for OUT OF THE SHADOWS (2001). There is a Japanese version (2000) of the latter with two extra acoustic tracks.

Sony/Epic in Japan also released another album called I DON'T BELIEVE IN MIRACLES - THE BEST OF COLIN BLUNSTONE (2002), often just listed as BEST OF, which seems to be a compilation of the first three albums plus one track I don't recognise. So that seems to be three compilation albums with the same name now! You can get it from HMV Japan and no doubt elsewhere.

In early 2003 a budget priced 2-CD set called OLD & WISE (2003) is being released (March 31st 2003 is now the consensus). I came across a track listing for this and the first CD is clearly ANTHOLOGY and the second CD no less than the whole of THE LIGHT INSIDE. There is another budget priced album called SUPER HITS released by Sony on 1st September 2003 and contains ten tracks compiled from the first three albums. I haven't compared the listing with any others.

Colin and Rod Argent have recorded another album which was intended to be launched in mid-2003 to coincide with a performance at the Bloomsbury Theatre being recorded for a DVD release. However it wasn't quite finished in time and indeed the release date has turned out to be 26th April with the album called AS FAR AS I CAN SEE . It was apparently available earlier than that from tour merchandising. They have released the album as The Zombies. The DVD seems to be coming out later in the year and it sounds like there might be a live CD as well.

Colin was said to be planning to record a new solo album in September 2003 but I don't know if this actually happened. I've heard no more on the subject.