Harvard Tapes

Product Description

”Vintage Gaughan” concert from 1982 now available for the 1st time! A definitive release featuring some of his best material.
Dick Gaughan has been at the cutting edge of Scottish folk music for almost five decades – a guitarist, singer, songwriter, actor, musical director, arranger, record producer, engineer, he has been there and done it all. He is a brilliant singer with a passion in his wonderfully expressive voice which is allied to an amazing guitar technique which can leave you mesmerized.
Dick Gaughan has been at the cutting edge of Scottish folk music since 1970 – a guitarist, singer, songwriter, actor, musical director, arranger, record producer, and engineer. In December, 2009, Dick was honored by being included in the Scottish Trad Music Hall of Fame and within a year he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC 2's ceremony in London.
His album ”Handful of Earth” on Topic Records was chosen by a critics' poll in fRoots as the ‘Best Album of the 1980's'. As well as a successful solo career, Dick was an early member of The Boys of The Lough, the legendary Five Hand Reel and the founder member of the short-lived but quite extraordinary Clan Alba.
In October, 2016, an MRI scan confirmed Dick had suffered a stroke several months previously, from which he is now gradually recovering but which has prevented him from touring. Having said that, he bravely joined the cast of the ‘Far, Far From Ypres' stage presentation in several concerts, plus an extensive tour in 2018.
In 2019 Brian O'Donovan, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, a broadcaster (WGBH Boston)and journalist, sent to Scotland tapes of a recording he had made of Dick in a concert in The Old Cambridge Baptist Church, near the Harvard University Campus. Ian McCalman and Ian Green heard the tapes and agreed this was ”Vintage Gaughan” and Dick himself approved wholeheartedly. It was a concert shared with the late great Johnny Cunningham and the recording included a version of them together in The Freedom Come All Ye, quite unique.
Features some of Dick's all-time greats : Erin Go Bragh, Now Westlin Winds, Song For Ireland, Your Daughters and Your Sons, The Worker's Song and a three-reel instrumental plus more, all from these tapes. Previously unrecorded by Dick are Leemings and a second instrumental, Sliabh na mBan, from the Milngavie concerts and Connolly Was There from the Greentrax archive. Plus three ‘Bonus' tracks were added. A truly remarkable and definitive collection!

Review

Scottish folksinger Dick Gaughan has been a legend in Celtic-music circles since his recording career began in 1970; adepts will remember him as a former member of Boys of the Lough as well as a distinguished solo artist. His sharp, reedy voice and his advanced guitar technique (easy to overlook if you aren't paying close attention, because he rarely intentionally draws attention to it) make him an unusually compelling performer in a solo acoustic setting, as you can hear from this concert recorded at the Cambridge Old Baptist Church in 1982 and never previously released. Highlights include the utterly heartbreaking ”Song for Ireland” and the ballad ”Glenlogie” (”the only ballad I've ever heard that had a happy ending”), and there's even a medley of instrumental reels on which you can really get a sense of his guitar chops. Recommended to all folk collections.
Rick Anderson –CD Hotlist November 2019