PeetCoombes (died 1997) was the guitarist and vocalist with Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart in the two pre-Eurythmics bands, The Catch, who only released one single, "Borderline/Black Blood" (1977, Logo) and the Tourists, who had quite a few UK hits in the late '70s.
Coombes and the newly formed Eurythmics spilt up with the Tourists in 1980, in which Coombes then led a tragic downspiral until his untimely death in 1997 at age 45.
Peet was the loveliest, most gentle geordie guy you can imagine - (I lived in the bedsits with him when he was dying).
Coombe Abbey was founded as a monastery in the 12th century.
Coombe Abbey was bought by Coventry City Council in 1964 and opened to the public, and the grounds of the abbey are now a popular nature reserve and country park.
A coombe or (variant spellings) ''coomb'', ''combe'' or cwm is a short valley or hollow on a hill or coastline.
Along with PeetCoombes, you and Dave formed the Tourists and got signed to Logo Records.
PeetCoombes, who's dead now, was a very, very prolific songwriter and took copious amounts of speed.
At the end of the Tourists, we were on our way to make a tour of Australia, and Peet came to us and said, "I don't want to do this anymore." We were just sort of limping off to Australia minus him.
The Tourists' third album found the group continuing to expand its musical horizons, especially by integrating Annie Lennox's keyboards into the mix, while maintaining their basic pop/rock focus.
Peet Coombes's lyrics had an inward-looking, psychoanalytical focus, and Lennox, on her one contribution, "One Step Near the Edge," maintained that...
Thus, Coombes and bassist Eddie Chin broke off to form the Acid Drops (who have not been heard from since), while Lennox and Stewart became Eurythmics.
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David A. Stewart (as he also sometimes was credited on record) was born September 9, 1952 in Sunderland, England; the product of an upper-middle class family, he enjoyed his first taste of musical success during the early 1970s while fronting the band Longdancer.
In the late 1970s he was also introduced to an aspiring singer named Annie Lennox; the two became lovers, and with Coombes they formed a group dubbed the Tourists, issuing a trio of new wave-influenced LPs between 1979 and 1980.
When the Tourists came to a halt in late 1980, Stewart and Lennox's romance ended as well; they agreed to continue their musical partnership, however, rechristening themselves Eurythmics.
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Stewart (formerly of a folk-rock group Longdancer) and Lennox (a student at the Royal Academy of Music) quickly became lovers after meeting in the late 1970s, and formed a group called Catch with Coombes, after Jeff Coombes, Stewart's guitarist and songwriting collaborator.
By 1979 (see 1979 in music), Catch with Coombes had become The Tourists, who released three moderately successful British albums, The Tourists, Reality Effect and Luminous Basement.
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Those ever-popular “creative tensions” surfaced between Stewart and Coombes, mainly over the direction of the band’s music, which had taken a distinct turn away from the 60’s pop aesthetic and towards a more modern, electronics-dusted sound.
If the power struggle between Stewart and Coombes wasn’t bad enough news, a myriad of external issues concerning everything from the band’s management to record label woes to the tender mercies of the acid-blooded U.K. music press combined to bring about the end of the band in a matter of months.
Perhaps worst of all, Lennox and Stewart’s relationship fell apart at around this same time, though the ex-lovers (perhaps sensing they were onto something special) continued working together as a creative team after their romantic breakup.
Living in a small apartment together meant that things became even tougher for a while, but the two played with ideas and used a friend's studio in which to practice.
What followed was Annie and Dave's incarnation in the shortlived band The Catch which only released one single in Borderline and far from the success that was expected.
When Annie and Dave added more members to their original line-up of three (including PeetCoombes) with Jim Tooney and Eddie Chin, this was met with disapproval from their record label.
In the late '70s, she met guitarist Dave Stewart through a friend.
Stewart, who had previously played with Longdancer, asked Lennox to join a new band he was forming with a songwriter named PeetCoombes.
The band was named the Tourists, and they released three albums between 1979 and 1980 and scored a number four U.K. hit with a cover of Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want to Be With You."
Symptomatic of the quintet's shortcomings, the crowning achievement of their three albums was a dull remake of Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want to Be with You."
As a Tourist, Lennox — who was later revealed to be a far more expressive vocalist — sang with strength but no character; her duets with guitarist PeetCoombes (the band's primary songwriter) resemble the Jefferson Airplane.
Elsewhere, the group recalls It's a Beautiful Day, the Byrds, Mamas and Papas, the Who and others.
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Or the waitress, which is what Lennox was when she met Dave Stewart at a London health food restaurant in the mid-'70s.
They formed a band called the Tourists, dominated by singer-songwriter PeetCoombes, and had a minor hit with a cover of Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want to Be With You" (which is also what Lennox and Stewart decided romantically).
But in 1979, after three albums, the Tourists broke up, as did Lennox and Stewart.
The couple soon shacked up together, and frequented a friend's studio to work out their musical ideas.
Dave and songwriting buddy PeetCoombes had contacts at Logo Records, but they couldn't get signed to the label because the company bosses thought the pair couldn't sing.
When Annie signed on as lead vocalist, the trio was signed to a six-album deal.
Cynthia Rose, A.M. THE TOURISTS ARE A BAND WHO feel they’ve proved that pressures to conform and problems of access needn’t be insuperable barriers.
They were founded two years ago, by singer Annie Lennox, who left her native Aberdeen to study at The Royal College of Music in London, and two musician friends, PeetCoombes and Dave Stewart.
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