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The Evangelist (album)

album by Robert Forster

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 20, 2025
Entity authorityQ7732633 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Evangelist is the fifth solo album by Australian singer-songwriter Robert Forster, released by YepRoc in 2008.

Background

Following the 1989 break-up of the Go-Betweens, the band he had formed at college in 1978 with his friend Grant McLennan, Robert Forster embarked on a solo career, releasing four albums under his own name between 1990 and 1996. In 2000, the Go-Betweens reunited and went on to record the albums The Friends of Rachel Worth (2000), Bright Yellow Bright Orange (2003) and Oceans Apart (2005). After winning Best Adult Contemporary Album at the 2005 ARIA Music Awards for Oceans Apart, Forster and McLennan began working on the tenth Go-Betweens album and had started writing eight songs together. McLennan died of a heart attack in May 2006, and Forster began work on completing three of the songs they had started writing together. The first new song that Forster wrote for the Evangelist was its title track, which was written in one day in August 2006.

Forster and his former bandmates, bass player Adele Pickvance and drummer Glenn Thompson, travelled to London to record the album with producers Mark Wallis and Dave Ruffy in the same studio they used to record Oceans Apart. In the studio, the band set McLennan's guitar and amplifier up while they were recording. The band used a string quartet that featured three musicians, including Audrey Riley, that had previously played on the Go-Betweens' 1986 album Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express. The Evangelist was released on 4 April 2008 in mainland Europe, 21 April in the United Kingdom, 26 April in Australia and 29 April the United States.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “The Evangelist (album)” as album by Robert Forster. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Evangelist, album and Robert.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2008, 1989, 1978, 1990—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2008-04. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Evangelist, album and Robert providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “The Evangelist (album)”, the useful work is to connect “album by Robert Forster” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 20, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7732633. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2008, 1989, 1978 and 1990.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Evangelist (album)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Evangelist (album) primary sources, The Evangelist (album) archive and Evangelist research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Evangelist (album)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.