Everything about Dick Gaughan totally explained
Richard Peter Gaughan (b.
17 May 1948) is a
Scottish musician,
singer, and
songwriter.
He was born in
Glasgow's
Rottenrow Maternity Hospital, because his father was working in Glasgow as an engine driver. He spent the first one and a half years of his life in
Rutherglen,
South Lanarkshire, a suburb of Glasgow, after which the whole family moved to
Leith, a port on the outskirts of
Edinburgh. He has never returned to Rutherglen, and is proud to be a Leither. His mother was a
Macdonald from
Lochaber, and was a native speaker of
Gaelic. As a child in the 1930s she won a silver medal at the
Gaelic Mod. His father was born in Leith, and his paternal grandfather was an
Irish speaker from
Mayo, who played the fiddle. The three children, of whom Dick Gaughan was the eldest, grew up surrounded by the music of both Scotland and Ireland. The family experienced considerable poverty, which had a very strong influence on Gaughan's chosen path in life and his political views.
Dick Gaughan took up the guitar at the age of seven. Although he later sang in
Scottish Gaelic he isn't fluent in that language; however, he's a powerful command of
Scots. He sang in Edinburgh folk clubs and became a professional musician in 1970. Gaughan began playing mainly traditional songs on an acoustic guitar. He now writes his own songs as well as performing those of others. Although his approach to performing concentrates strongly on the song itself, Gaughan is known as being a master of the acoustic guitar. For an example of his purely instrumental work, listen to
Coppers and Brass (1977).
He made one solo album,
No More Forever, before joining
Boys of the Lough, singing and playing guitar on their debut album (
1972). After leaving, he was a guest of the
High Level Ranters when they recorded
The Bonnie Pit Laddie in 1975, performing on two tracks. From 1976 to 1978 there then followed a hectic period of his life pursuing two careers, one as a member of
Five Hand Reel and one as a soloist. It was a time of hard drinking, travelling
continental Europe in vans, and seeing very little of his wife and daughter. The crisis came when his daughter was knocked down by a car while he was away. The daughter survived, but Gaughan had to take stock of his life and re-prioritise things.
He taught himself to read and write music, and in the late 1970s he began to write reviews for what was at the time the only national folk music paper,
Folk Review. He also saw more of his family. He joined the
agitprop theatre group called, which was extremely popular at the time for its highly aggressive attacks on
Margaret Thatcher and the
New Right in general. In this, he appeared to be following in the footsteps of another socialist theatre-director-singer
Ewan MacColl, even recording a tribute album to him in 1978. (Gaughan has also taken part in a tribute to
Woody Guthrie).
At the beginning of
1982, Gaughan proposed and oversaw the organisation of a conference, held at
Cecil Sharp House, which set up an organisation in the UK called Perform ("Performance of Folk and Other Related Music") which was intended to be an umbrella body of people involved in "Folk and Other Related Music" in any capacity - performers, promoters, record companies, journalists,
broadcasters, etc - to facilitate greater communication and cooperation. One of the achievements in its short life was the coordinating of fundraising events to support
Nic Jones and his family after his serious road accident. Gaughan served two years as chair with Susie Stockton as secretary and
Matt Armour as vice-chair. Following Gaughan's stepping down as chair due to his voice problems at the beginning of 1984, he was succeeded by Matt Armour.
Gaughan's solo albums of the 1980s returned to the acoustic style in which he'd begun, containing both traditional ballads ("The Muckle Sangs") as well as his own songs, and using acoustic guitar (although he can play electric guitar and in fact most fretted instruments). His decision to concentrate on songs which convey a political message, rather than those which might be more easily attractive to the mainstream, is clearly shown in the important albums
Handful of Earth (1981) and
A Different Kind of Love Song (1983).
Handful of Earth was
Melody Maker's album of the year (1981) and in
1989 was also voted album of the decade by
Folk Roots (now fRoots) magazine in both readers' and critics' polls.
In
1991, Dick Gaughan invited seven other well-established Scots
musicians to take part in a band project called
Clan Alba. The original lineup was Dick Gaughan (
Boys of the Lough,
Five Hand Reel),
Mary MacMaster (Sprangeen,
The Poozies,
Sileas),
Brian McNeill (
Battlefield Band),
Patsy Seddon (Sprangeen,
The Poozies,
Sileas),
Davy Steel (
Drinker's Drouth,
Ceolbeg),
Mike Travis (Wildcat, Cauld Blast Orchestra),
Dave Tulloch (Spencer's Feat,
Five Hand Reel) and
Gary West (
Ceolbeg). The first performance of Clan Alba was at the Queen's Hall in
Edinburgh as part of the
1992 Edinburgh Folk Festival and over the next two years, Clan Alba performed at numerous
festivals across the UK and Europe including
Glastonbury,
Cambridge, WDR Festival in
Bonn,
Brugge,
Tønder and
Stainsby. In
1993, Gary West departed and was replaced by
Fred Morrison. In
1994 Clan Alba recorded a self-titled double CD with Gaughan as producer before disbanding in
1995. Since then, Gaughan has continued to pursue his solo career.
In 1983 Dick Gaughan was the subject of a
BBC Spectrum documentary entitled
Gaughan, and in 2005 a further television documentary entitled
A Different Kind of Love Song formed part of the
BBC Four Sessions series.
Dick Gaughan has many and various influences. In his guitar playing one can detect the influence of
Doc Watson,
Davy Graham and
Bert Jansch, but he also claims to have been influenced by musicians as diverse as
Hank Williams and
Seán Ó Riada. His powerful songs have been recorded by
Billy Bragg,
Mary Black,
Jessica Haines & Mark Kaiser and
Capercaillie amongst many others. He has also recorded extensively as a session musician.
Gaughan's deep interest in
composition and
orchestration has led to two orchestral commissions from the prestigious
Celtic Connections festival:
Timewaves (Lovesong to a People's Music) in 2004 and, in 2007, his first symphonic work,
Treaty 300 (a musical
examination of the effects of the
Treaty of Union of
1707 on Scottish culture) composed for the inaugural concert of the
Celtic Connections Youth Orchestra.
One of Dick Gaughan's strong interests is the
Internet, and he's a particular love for
Usenet in which he's been an active participant for many years. While recovering from voice problems in 1984 he took a course on computing and is one of the few professional singers who could easily get a job as a web designer. He designs and maintains his own extensive website, and is strongly in favour of
web accessibility.
In 2002 Gaughan released
Prentice Piece, a self-selected thirty-year retrospective of his career (although some material couldn't be included due to copyright disputes), and a studio album,
Lucky for Some, was released in April 2006. A live CD (the first since 1985) entitled
Gaughan Live! at the Trades Club, recorded at the Trades Club in
Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, was released on 1st April 2008.
Discography
- No More Forever (1972)
- The Boys of the Lough (1973) (Boys of the Lough)
- Kist O'Gold (1976)
- Five Hand Reel (1976) (Five Hand Reel)
- Coppers and Brass (1977)
- For A' That (1977) (Five Hand Reel)
- Songs of Ewan MacColl (1978) (with Dave Burland and Tony Capstick)
- Gaughan (1978)
- Earl o' Moray (1978) (Five Hand Reel]
- Handful of Earth (1981)
- Parallel Lines (1982) (with Andy Irvine)
- A Different Kind of Love Song (1983)
- Fanfare for Tomorrow (1985) (with Ken Hyder)
- Live in Edinburgh (1985)
- True and Bold (1986)
- Call It Freedom (1988)
- Clan Alba (1995) (with Clan Alba
- Sail On (1996)
- Redwood Cathedral (1998)
- Outlaws And Dreamers (2001)
- Prentice Piece (2002)
- Lucky for Some (2006)
- Gaughan Live! at the Trades Club (2008)
This discography excludes recordings to which Dick Gaughan contributed only a few tracks.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Dick Gaughan'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://dick_gaughan.totallyexplained.com">Dick Gaughan Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
