NORTH-EAST musical legends Lindisfarne have a song back in the music charts 13 years after their last hit.

Almost two months after their farewell gig at the Newcastle Opera House, a previously unknown Dorset schoolgirl has entered the top 40 with a track from their penultimate studio album Here Comes the Neighbourhood.

Erin Rocha, a 16-year-old from Poole, Dorset, recorded a cover of Can't Do Right for Doing Wrong while undertaking work experience at a local music studio.

The gentle love song entered the charts at 36 just before Christmas.

The song also features on Time Gentlemen Please, the recently released CD, DVD and video of the Opera House gig.

Lindisfarne enjoyed great success in the early 1970s, and their 1971 album Fog on the Tyne went to number one.

It stayed in the charts for 43 weeks.

The band's last chart success was in 1990 when they reached number three in the singles chart with a reworked version of the song Fog on the Tyne, which famously featured the former Newcastle United football player Paul Gascoigne.

Lindisfarne founder member Rod Clements, who won an Ivor Novello song-writing award for Meet Me on the Corner, which made number five in the charts in 1972, wrote Can't Do Right for Doing Wrong with Nigel Stonier.

The song had been intended for US jazz and blues singer Norah Jones, but Erin's recording convinced Flying Sparks Records boss Ian Brown he had a potential hit on his hands.

Erin has appeared on Top of the Pops, and the song has topped the Radio 2 playlist.

Rod Clements, who became the band's main songwriter after the death of Alan Hull in 1995, is concentrating his efforts on making a success of his solo career as a country blues slide guitarist.

The band's spokesman, Dave Hill, said: "It is a great song and was always destined to be picked up by someone."

Published: 02/01/2004