DICK GAUGHAN
Touring Australia & New Zealand
September/ October 2007
http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/
"He takes ‘folk’ and shakes it until it rattles”
Scottish musician, singer, songwriter, guitarist, composer, record producer and man of social conscience. Dick is one of the worlds most admired guitarists and songwriters and his work with Billy Bragg, Andy Irvine and bands Boys of the Lough, Five Hand Reel and Clan Alba is legendary. His guitar playing is innovative, sensitive, expressive, and beautiful; his voice is by turns tender, angry, passionate and totally unique. Nobody sings like Dick Gaughan.
4/10-21/10- New Zealand Dates
Thursday 4/10- Kauaeranga Hall, Kuaueranga, Thames
Friday 5/10- Katikati F/C Nisbet's Packhouse, Katikati
Saturday 6/10- Tir na nog F/C @ The Irish Club, Rocky Nook Bowling Club, Rooky Nook Ave. Mt. Albert
Sunday 7/10- The Venue @ Wharepuke, Kerikeri
Thursday 11/10- Hastings-Theatre Hawkes Bay
Saturday 13/10- Dunedin Celtic Arts Festival
Sunday 14/10- Christchurch Folk Club
Wednesday 17/10- Greymouth- Blackball Working Men’s Club
Thursday 18/10- Westport Motor Hotel
Sat/Sun 20/21/10- Wellington Folk Festival
Born from Highland Scots and Irish parents, Dick Gaughan is the established voice of Scotland, singing songs of struggle, resistance and love. A professional musician and singer since 1970, Gaughan made his first solo album in 1971 and has recorded extensively since then and in many countries and in various combinations. He’s produced 15 solo albums and contributed to a further 20 compilations. His work has always entwined with the Union movement and the album ‘True and Bold’, made for the Scottish Mine Workers Union during the miners strike of 1985 was a most notable and powerful album.
Much of Dick’s output has been a mixture of traditional and contemporary material mostly of other writers. His latest work has focused much more on his own song writing and his latest album “Lucky for Some’ includes eight new songs out of ten on the album. And while his love of the tradition guides most of his endeavours his writing covers a wide spectrum of contemporary social and political issues.
Gaughan has also become a prolific record producer and composer; composing music for films for the BBC, Scottish Arts Council and independent producers; in 2004 composed a brand new continuous 90-minute suite of 12 sections arranged single-handedly by its composer and combining traditional instrumentation with the Orchestra of Scottish Opera.
Dick’s greatest musical love is for the ancient traditional Scots ballads. Also known as The Muckle Sangs (the big songs), these are the big story songs, which form a substantial part of Scotland's living wealth of traditional song. Full of mystical and supernatural references, they are very dramatic and powerful, and Gaughan is the greatest living exponent of these powerful traditional compositions.
Lists his greatest influences as Karl Marx, Groucho Marx, Flann O'Brien, Bert Jansch, Betty Frieden, John Lennon, Vladimir Illych Lenin, Hugh MacDiarmid, Davey Graham, Doc Watson, Hank Williams, Jeannie Robertson, Ewan MacColl, Somerled, Bertolt Brecht, his mother (Gaughan's mother, not Brecht's), his father (likewise), Calgacus, Dolinna MacLennan, Crazy Horse, Sandy Denny, Martin Carthy, Clarence White, Sean O'Riada, Jack Mitchell, John MacLean, Big Bill Broonzy, Hamish Henderson and Robert Burns.
Check out this wonderful video link- http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/player/?item=dick_gaughan_bbc4
What they said- (more at http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/)
Latest album ‘Lucky for Some’- 2006
The Scotsman
Another powerful and heartfelt collection of songs from this most committed of singers and a fine showcase for his guitar playing as well. Although a folk singer at heart, Gaughan draws equally directly on blues and rock. With the exception of Anna Mae, a song about the murder of a native-American activist, all the material is Gaughan's own, including an arrangement of a traditional song and a lovely instrumental. Topics include the loss of 1960s idealism, the chilling tale of a mercenary, and a couple of contrasting songs about the vagaries of the musical life. Kenny Mathieson
Billy Bragg- Gaughan is one of my favorite artists and has been a tremendous influence on my career.
Frets Magazine- Gaughan is absolutely one of the best in the world
The Independent, London
Gaughan's remarkable guitar playing propels and underpins that astonishing voice, the kind of voice that could stop a train in its tracks. There can be few other singers capable of turning from aching tenderness to the high dudgeon of political rage within the space of a line, or, on occasion, even in the turn of a single word. Extract from article- by Tim Cumming
Folk Roots
Dick Gaughan, for all his complexities, is first and foremost a man of the people. With a list of requests like a phone book he could have gone on all night, but he called it a day ('tomorrow' as it happened) at just the right time. A truly masterful performer.
Extract live review- by Colin Harper
Edinburgh Evening News
Scotland's own Man in Black, loquacious as ever, turns any performance into cultural enlightenment for the audience…Gaughan does not languish in the past and he certainly does not view the future through a bland, rosy haze. In these days of diluted celto-folk, voices like Gaughan's rise high. An hour or two with him is an education in itself.
Extract from live review- by Kaye McAlpine
The Guardian
But Dick Gaughan takes no prisoners, and his songs of the dispossessed were delivered with the electrifying passion of a zealot, cutting through any arran-sweatered Celtic twilight mist like a Stanley knife at a rave……..He takes "folk" and shakes it until it rattles, making songs from 1707 as relevant as today's rap rants. A hard-hitting vital force, Gaughan batters his guitar with the blurring speed of a thrash metal band………Those who welcomed a return to social realism in pop with Bruce Springsteen's depressive The Ghost of Tom Joad, should seek out Gaughan's blast-furnace performances to hear how music from the gut really sounds. Extract from live review- by Bob Flynn
http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/
www.acrosstheborders.com.au
Contact: John McAuslan
Across The Borders, PO Box 477, Brunswick, Vic 3056
Ph (03) 9387-3376 or johnbmf@vicnet.net.au
