Kevin is a musician friend of mine. He sent me the Trees album a couple of years ago that I hadn't heard for 30 years. Kev phones me up occasionally and we have chats about music and one evening I mentioned to him about Annie Briggs and Vashti Bunyan and Kev said ,"There's another great singer who disappeared as well, Shelagh McDonald,she used to live in Bristol and she was good, check her out". A few days later I remembered what Kevin had said, so I looked on the net to see if there were any Shelagh McDonald albums available and there were three, The Shelagh McDonald Album, Stargazer and Let No Man Steal Your Thyme which was a double album comprising of her first two albums and other earlier recordings, demo's and out-takes, and that is the one I opted for. A few days later the CD popped through the letter box.
The first thing I noticed on opening the package was how nice looking she was, the elfin mystical looking long haired hippy chick of the early 70's. Opening the accompanying booklet I was amazed to see the list of great musicians who played on her albums, it was the glitterati of the British folk/rock scene of the time. Richard Thompson, Keith Christmas, Gerry Conway, Andy Roberts, Keith Tippet, Gordon Huntley, Pat Donaldson, Dave Mattacks, Danny Thompson and even Katie Kissoon on backing vocals plus lots of others. What an line-up of talent. Also the notes told the story of Shelagh up to 2005 when this compilation was released. Not a lot is known about her early life except that she came from the Edinburgh area of Scotland. She discovered a talent for singing and playing the guitar and when she left school in the late 60's she left home and headed for Bristol where she soon made a name for herself playing in the clubs of Bristol's thriving folk scene and she began an on off relationship with singer Keith Christmas. Soon her talent was spotted and she headed for the bright lights of London and a record contract. Her first album received lukewarm reviews but her second one Stargazer was a hit with critics and a growing following of fans. Karl Dallas one of the leading music journalists hailed her as the new Sandy Denny and she was compared to Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. Just when she seemed set for fame and fortune, her world began to fall apart. One fateful night she took a tab of acid and the experience left her a psychological mess. Even weeks later she was still suffering from horrible hallucinations. I have every sympathy. British LSD in the 70's was the strongest in the world up to Operation Julie in 1977 which took it off the streets. To borrow from Allen Ginsberg I saw some of the best minds of my generation destroyed by LSD. It always seemed to be the sensitive, creative types who suffered the most. In desperation Shelagh headed back to Scotland and did not contact any of her old friends and for 33 years up to the release of this compilation cd and the sleeve notes being written nothing was heard of her. She had completely vanished.
So, I put on the first cd and the opening couple of tracks were not that impressive to me. They were early recordings from a radio series called Dungeon Folk.However when the third track called Mirage played then I was really impressed.She had made the transition from folk singer to folk-rock singer. That whole side was really good, but CD 2 went from really good to quite stunning. It is a mini-masterpiece,As good as Fairport Convention, Pentangle, Nick Drake or any of the luminaries of the folk rock scene of the time. The production by Sandy Robertson is quite superb as well. Every track on the Stargazer album is brilliant. The lyrics of Liz's Song almost suggest she was planning to disappear but that could be just a coincidence. Some tracks like Odyssey and The Road To Paradise are like progressive rock. I would have loved to have seen her with this band in concert, that would have been really something. Sweet Sunlight is a beautiful song and her voice is exquisite. Stargazer, the title track speaks for itself . I particularly enjoyed Canadian Man which has a real Joni Mitchell influence. Good Times has some great funky saxophone, Dowie Dens Of Yarrow would have graced any Sandy Denny album. Spin, and City's Cry are also great. The latter with the unmistakeable sound of Richard Thompson's guitar reminding me of Fairport's album What We Did On Our Holidays.I can't praise this album enough.
I looked on Wikipedia to find out more information and discovered there is one final twist in the tale. When this album was released in 2005 it prompted an article about Shelagh in The Independent by Charles Donovan. This led to similar copycat articles in other papers including the Scottish Daily Mail. In November 2005 Shelagh read the article and turned up at the newspaper office to tell her story. She revealed that after her bad acid experience she had totally lost the ability to sing and she had worked in a department store till 1981. Then she met a hippy bookseller called George Farquhar and they adopted an itinerant lifestyle travelling around the Scottish Islands and abroad and eventually lived in a tent, camping wherever they could. She told the newspaper that her voice had returned and she had started writing songs again. Since that visit to the newspaper 5 years ago though nothing else has been heard from Shelagh and she has disappeared back into the mists of obscurity from which she had so briefly emerged.
I'm not expected Shelagh McDonald to rekindle her career now but it would be great if more people discovered her music and realised what a great talent she was. I urge you to listen to the song 'Stargazer',the choral ending is quite brilliant. Also, thank you very much to Kevin for telling me about Shelagh McDonald.
Postscript.
There is a very happy ending to this story. I received a message yesterday from a fan of Shelagh's to say that she is playing her first official gig in 40 years next week in Camden Town.That is brilliant and I wish her every success with that. I hope it leads to more dates.The gig is sold out apparently and I found out too late or I would have loved to have seen her live.
