Van Morrison & Willie Nelson. Steal My Heart Away

The Lady In The Van. R.I.P. Maggie Smith.

Remembering Henry McCullough.

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of my brother Paul passing away, so we had a little family meet-up to remember Paul. Looking through photos with my niece Lee I came across some previously unseen photos of singer-songwriter guitarist Henry McCullough from the times when Henry played in Paul’s pub in County Mayo, Ireland. I thought it might be a good idea to write a little piece about Henry and use the photos to illustrate the story. Hopefully some of Henry’s fans and friends might like to see it.

Firstly, I’ll just tell you briefly a little bit about Henry in case you are not familiar with his history. He was born in Portstewart, Northern Ireland in 1943. In the early 1960s he was playing guitar in the Skyrockets Showband from Enniskillen. In 1967 he joined a psychedelic rock band in Belfast and later that same year they moved to London where they were spotted by Jimi Hendrix’s manager Chas Chandler who renamed them as Eire Apparent. During a North America tour supporting The Animals Henry got busted for Marijuana in Vancouver and repatriated. He was replaced in the band by Mick Cox. He then joined the great Irish Folk group Sweeney’s Men who you may remember I wrote about on this blog page last December. His stay with Sweeney’s Men was short lived, but they did take the Cambridge Folk Festival by storm in 68.

Henry departed to join Joe Cocker’s Grease Band where Henry was the only musician from Ireland to play at the legendary Woodstock Festival in 1969. After playing on the Grease Band’s eponymous album Henry went on to play on the original recording of Jesus Christ Superstar. He also wrote Step Right Up for my favourite female singer Anne Briggs on her 1971 album The Time Has Come. In 1972 Paul McCartney invited Henry to join Wings and Henry stayed for a year touring and playing on the album Red Rose Speedway. Henrys improvised playing on My Love is often cited by critics as being one of the greatest ever guitar solos. In 1973 Henry can be heard on one of the best-selling albums of all time Dark Side Of The Moon saying, “"I don't know; I was really drunk at the time". 

In 1975 Henry joined the Frankie Miller Band for one album The Rock, and recorded a solo album Mind Your Own Business on George Harrison’s Dark Horse label. He later played with Roy Harper, Eric Burdon, Marianne Faithfull, Ronnie Lane, Donovan, and Dr Feelgood. Henry moved back to Ireland in 1980 and continued to work, producing several solo albums. One of my favourite songs of his is Failed Christian from 1998 which I first became aware of when it was covered by his friend Nick Lowe. (I have shared a video of Henry performing that song live below) Sadly, Henry suffered a major heart attack in 2012 from which he never made a full recovery, and he died at home in Ballymoney, County Antrim in June 2016.

I only ever saw Henry perform live once. That was in 1999 at the Acoustic Stage at Glastonbury. He deserved a much bigger audience than he got but performed brilliantly. Paul and Henry had become good friends in the 1990s after Henry’s appearances in the pub, so Paul went backstage to meet him after the show, and they set off on a long walk all over the site. Henry was blown away by it all because Glastonbury was the biggest festival he had been to since Woodstock in 1969. At the end of the day one of the staff drove Henry back to his hotel. I never met him, but from what Paul told me about him, and what other people have said he was a great person, a true gentleman with none of the ego pretensions of a lot of famous musicians. I can’t think of anything else to say about him now except I hope you like the photos and thank you Lee for showing them to me.

Henry, Denny Laine, Paul McCartney.

Henry McCullough - Failed Christian

Cold Sea by Oisin Leech.

It is a dark and rainy Sunday afternoon here. I don’t think I will be venturing out anywhere today, but that is ok, I am quite content to stay home and listen to some music. I thought I’d tell you about a cd that arrived here a few days ago. It is called Cold Sea by Oisin Leech. You may recall a few years ago I wrote reviews of albums called Trails Of The Lonely and After The Fire, After The Rain by The Lost Brothers. Well, the Lost Brothers were Mark McCausland & Oisin Leech. I hadn’t heard anything from them for quite a while, until a couple of weeks ago a Facebook friend mentioned that Oisin Leech had his own radio series called Caravan Radio on RTE Radio 1 which I listened to and enjoyed immensely. The first episode I heard featured people I have written about on here such as This Is The Kit, Ger Wolfe, and others. When I was singing the praises of this show on Facebook another friend said I would enjoy Oisin’s recent solo album Cold Sea, so I ordered a copy from Music Magpie that very evening, and here we are.

The first thing I thought on opening the package was what an attractive sleeve design the album has. The front and back covers are paintings by Sinead Smyth. I looked her up on the internet and it said that Sinead is an artist from Inishowen - the most northerly peninsula in Donegal. Her paintings explore landscapes and seascapes as places of memory, connection and a nurturing influence on being human. That is very appropriate because to me this album in many ways is a painting in music and words, a soundscape influenced by the beauty of nature. The album was recorded in an old schoolhouse in Malin in which Oisin and producer Steve Gunn set up a temporary studio. I have always associated Malin with the Shipping Forecast which again seems very appropriate because on one track Maritime Radio you can hear a lady reading the forecast. Oisin has assembled some great musicians for this project. As well as doing a great job on production Steve Gunn also plays guitars and synths. Oisin has worked with Tony Garnier on bass before. He is best known as Bob Dylan’s long time bass player.  He has also recorded with M. Ward previously who I have enjoyed listening to since 2006 when a friend gifted me his Post War album. I found it quite coincidental because Steve and M Ward have both cited John Fahey as a big influence, and I have been listening to and writing about John Fahey very recently. (Scroll down if you want to read my piece about John Fahey). The legendary Donal Lunny plays bouzouki on a couple of tracks. Roisin McGrory who like Sinead also hails from Inishowen adds strings to some tracks. The ensemble is completed by Chris Vitalaro on percussion and Alan Comerford slide guitar.

I think the album must have been recorded during the summer because in the sleeve notes Steve mentions swimming in the sea. To me the songs have a very autumnal feel. This obviously applies to the opening track October Sun which has a sparse melancholy lonesome sound. It is a wonderful song, (Please watch the video below). Listening to the words, I was reminded of a Beatles song ‘Sexy Sadie, what have you done? You made a fool of everyone’, but that’s just me. Colour Of The Rain also conveys a sense of loss and the passing of time reminding me that we are entering the days of the leaves. A feeling of sadness runs through One Hill Further. There is a reference to ‘a brother lost his brother’ which might be some tragic event that inspired Oisin to write the song. Steve’s unobtrusive accompaniment is perfect for this atmospheric song which slightly put me in mind of Life In A Northern Town by Dream Academy. 

Maritime Radio is a nice little guitar instrumental featuring the voice of weather girl Deirdre Lowe reading the forecast. I bet she loves this album. I’m not sure what Empire is about, but the guitars sound exquisite. Malin Gales is a bluesy love song featuring Donal Lunny. The title track Cold Sea is a short sweet instrumental displaying Steve Gunn capturing the feel of the cold Atlantic. I hadn’t heard of Trawbeaga Bay before, so looked it up on Wikipedia. It is a small, protected area on the Inishowen Peninsula noted for Barnacle geese, Brent geese, choughs, and all manner of water birds. To me this is one of the outstanding tracks, a beautiful wistful song and wonderful string accompaniment by Roisin. Another atmospheric synth and bouzouki instrumental Daylight brings this most enjoyable album to a close. 

I might be wrong, but I think it is possibly the second shortest album I have ever bought. I remember in 1968 buying Friends by The Beach Boys which was only 25 minutes, So Cold Sea is two minutes longer than that. It doesn’t matter at all because great things often come in small packages, and I have really enjoyed listening to this little gem of an album. I look forward to hearing more music by Oisin Leech in the future.

'October Sun' by Oisin Leech.- Feat. Steve Gunn, M Ward & Tony Garnier.

John Fahey & The Legend Of Blind Joe Death.

In the very early 1970s I saw a film called Zabriskie Point which was directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. It was a forgettable film, but it had one saving grace which was an eclectic soundtrack containing music by the likes of Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, Patti Page, and a guitar instrumental called Dance Of Death by someone I hadn’t heard of before called John Fahey. About five decades went by before I was reminded of his name again when recently I was talking to a muso friend about great guitar players, and he recommended I check out Robbie Basho and John Fahey. Well, I still haven’t listened to Robbie Basho yet, but I looked on Youtube for John Fahey and watched a video of him performing in Hamburg Germany in 1972. (See video below) I was so impressed that I decided to order a CD. I chose The Legend Of Blind Joe Death because I was amused and intrigued by the title. It arrived here a few days ago.

The copy I received is a remastered version from 1996, 75 minutes long containing 21 tracks. The album was actually recorded three times, in 1959, 64, and 67. My copy includes tracks from all three recordings. It also contains a very informative booklet which told the whole saga of the history of the album. The first thing to say is that there was never a person called Blind Joe Death. He was a fictitious character invented by John Fahey in 1959 when he was 20 years old. John was a self-taught finger style steel string guitar player who invented a genre known as American Primitive Guitar. He was an avid collector of old-time music, blues, hillbilly, gospel and jazz, and also had a contempt for the popular sanitised folk music of the day. He decided to release an album of his own compositions and his arrangements of other blues songs, and paid for the recording himself from his earnings working in a gas station. There were only 100 copies pressed, one side was credited to Blind Joe Death and the other to John Fahey although they were both the same person. The label was called Takoma Records after his hometown of Takoma Park, Maryland. Some copies got broken in transit, others were given away to friends and folklorists and it took three years to sell the remaining copies. By 1964 John was finally getting some recognition with live performances, and his second album Death Chants, Breakdowns & Military Waltzes which was distributed nationally. Feeling that his guitar playing had improved dramatically since 1959, he decided to re-record Blind Joe Death again. He also wrote spoof sleeve notes parodying the writing style of the time under the name Chester C. Petranick which was the name of one of his old schoolteachers. The third and final recording was in 1967 for the burgeoning stereo market.

I love the music on this album. I have never played the guitar, so I am always wary of commenting on a guitarists technique in case I’m just displaying my ignorance. However, my ears tell me that John Fahey is one of the greats. I am in awe of his dexterity of syncopating the rhythm with his thumb while he fingerpicks music of dazzling complexity. When I saw Richard Thompson playing live I couldn’t believe how he could make one acoustic guitar sound like three, and John Fahey is just the same. Although he worshipped the blues masters, and his college thesis about Charley Patton was published as a book, that was only his starting point. You can hear influences of country, and jazz, even Indian style raga. Also, classical music. It says in the booklet that he was influenced by composers such as Charles Ives and Bartok.  I couldn’t comment on that, although at times I thought he sounded as good as Julian Bream playing Bach. There is one track of over 10 minutes length called The Transcendental Waterfall which is an epic composition of many styles of music. Most of the tracks were composed by John Fahey, but there are some other tunes such as St Louis Blues written by W.C. Handy and the traditional John Henry, but they all receive the John Fahey unique arrangements.

John had a lot of mixed fortunes in his life, with broken marriages, health issues, homelessness, and drug and alcohol addictions. After spending many years in obscurity, he did have a resurgence in popularity in the 1990s when he was championed by people like Sonic Youth, Cul De Sac and John O’Rourke. He also began to be noticed as an abstract painter. Sadly, he died aged 61 in 2001 after undergoing major heart surgery. His reputation continues to grow as a giant of American music. There have been documentary films and tribute albums to him. I am very pleased I checked out the music of John Fahey, and I might have a listen to Robbie Basho before too long as well.