This is the 11th solo album from Dick Gaughan and to my mind it’s his best in years. I should perhaps qualify that statement by pointing out that there’s absolutely no such thing as a poor Dick Gaughan album. I’m just one of many who think that he sounds best “in the raw,” just voice and acoustic guitar, which in the main, is exactly what’s on offer here.
Where extra instrumentation does feature, it’s sensitively executed by Gaughan’s regular performing partner Brian McNeill, who also gets three compositional credits on this CD. It’s a McNeill song “The Yew Tree,” which gets things underway, and from the opening guitar flourish you know that you’re listening to Dick Gaughan, a point that’s emphasised by the following original instrumental “Florence in Florence.” It’s an extremely affecting performance and a timely reminder that whilst today “a Celtic guitar hero is something to be,” it was Gaughan’s Coppers & Brass which defined the genre back in 1977.
From there on in, it’s songs all the way. Eyebrows may well be raised in the 21st Century at the inclusion of the names Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs among the compositional credits. Gaughan is a singer who only sings songs that he believes need to be heard, and cares not a whit for the vagaries of fashion. Consequently “Tom Joad,” and “When I’m Gone,” are delivered as if they were written last week. This level of conviction is apparent on every track, from the venerable Scots ballad “Dowie Dens of Yarrow,” to Kimmie Rhodes’ “Wild Roses,” passing through the works of Si Khan, Graham Moore and Gaughan himself along the way.
I’m struck by the rather odd thought that if a doctor were to subject Dick Gaughan to a spinal X-ray, They’d find the word “integrity,” embossed on the man’s vertebrae. It’s hard to think of another singer (apart from Martin Carthy and Christy Moore) who’s managed to maintain such commitment, passion and enthusiasm for what they do this far into such a long career.
According to the CD booklet this album was “recorded mixed and mastered at Panda Sound, Robin Hood’s Bay, England, July 2001.” Are we to believe from this that making a CD of this quality only takes a maximum of four weeks? Of course it doesn’t. A more realistic time-scale is provided in the lyrics of Gaughan’s own “Outlaws & Dreamers.” “Thirty-five years of singing and playing, thirty-five years of life on the road….”
(Appleseed, 2001)
