The Best Years of Our Lives (Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel album)
1975 studio album by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
The Best Years of Our Lives is the third studio album by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, released by EMI on 7 March 1975. It was the first album to feature Harley's name ahead of the band's (the band was previously known as Cockney Rebel). The album was produced by Harley and Alan Parsons, and contains the band's only UK number one, the million-selling "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)".
Background
In July 1974, the original Cockney Rebel split at the end of a major British tour which promoted their second album The Psychomodo. Jean-Paul Crocker, Milton Reame-James and Paul Jeffreys quit the band after Harley refused to comply with their demands to write material for the group, despite the initial understanding that Cockney Rebel was a vehicle for Harley's songs. Unfazed by the split, Harley announced to Record Mirror that he was going to return with "the greatest rock 'n' roll band ever heard". In 2014, he recalled, "The people at EMI were right behind me. They believed I could find new band members without too much of a problem and continue on to a new level of success. They believed it wasn't a major stumbling block."
As Cockney Rebel were already scheduled to play Friars Aylesbury and the Reading Festival on 24 and 25 August respectively, Harley quickly assembled a temporary line-up. With original member Stuart Elliott remaining on drums, the line-up featured guitarist Jim Cregan, keyboardist Francis Monkman and bassist George Ford.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Best Years of Our Lives (Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel album)” as 1975 studio album by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1975 studio album by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7716841. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1975, 1974 and 2014.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. 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.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Best Years of Our Lives (Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel album)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Best Years of Our Lives (Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel album) primary sources, The Best Years of Our Lives (Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel album) archive and Best research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Best Years of Our Lives (Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel album)”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Best Years of Our Lives (Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel 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.