 The Waterboys"Fisherman's Blues"
(EMI/Chrysalis LP) 1988
The early
output of the U.K. based band The Waterboys was nothing if not
ambitious. Founded by Mike Scott in the early eighties, amidst a London
music scene that seemed to be searching for a post-punk/post-new wave
identity, The Waterboys carved out a niche with Scott’s self-described
“big sound”. Scott fused elements of a new wave beat with layers of Ska-styled
horns and production that wouldn’t have been out of place on a George
Martin or Phil Spector project. Never “slick” affairs, the resulting
first three records were just a little too heavy-handed and Scott
couldn’t quite deliver on his lofty “big sound” aspirations. After Karl
Wallinger’s 1985 departure to form World Party, a musically frustrated
Mike Scott and longtime bandmate Anthony Thistlethwaite were persuaded
by Irish newcomer Steve Wickham to spend a few days in Dublin. Three
years later, the Waterboys were still in Ireland, had hooked-up with
some of the country’s finest traditional musicians and eventually
released what I consider to be one of the best dozen or so recordings of
my lifetime. Fisherman’s Blues is quite simply a masterpiece.
The fact that it took three years of roaming
around the Irish countryside, collecting musicians and material along
the way, and playing endless informal gigs, will not be lost on even the
most casual listener. It seems, on the surface at least, paradoxical to
refer to the playing as incredibly tight and, at the same time utterly
relaxed, but that’s how the record comes off. From the opening bars of
the title track, which some may recall from the soundtrack of “Waking
Ned Divine” (a spectacular achievement in its own right), you’ll feel
like you’ve been invited into a warm country home on a chill damp
evening and are sharing a truly special experience - some very old
friends making incredible music together. By the time they work through
a stunning cover of Van Morrison’s "Sweet Thing" and deliver a
half-drunken attempt to remake, or at least forgive, Hank Williams’
decadent reputation ("Has Anybody Here Seen Hank"), you’ll be convinced
these folks must have been playing together since childhood. After their
romp through Scott’s self-deprecating reflections on his failed
love-life ("And A Bang on the Ear"), the gorgeous haunting balladry of
“When Ye Go Away” and Toma McKeown’s sung/spoken version of “The Stolen
Child”, a W.B. Yeats poem set to music by Scott, you won’t want it to
end. For most people it doesn’t; they just start the record over again
and pour another Guinness.
Fisherman’s Blues is still widely available on both LP and CD. If
you’ve got a decent turntable, seek out the original 1988 pressings in
favor of the “heavy vinyl” re-issue from Simply Vinyl. The former can be
found relatively easily in most decent used record shops and, like so
many of their other re-issues, Simply Vinyl seems a lot better at
delivering a plastic manhole cover than they do at getting the
re-mastering right; either they just don’t know what they’re doing or
their source material isn’t a first generation master tape. Whatever the
reasons, eschew the “audiophile” label and stick with the thin floppy
vinyl of the eighties pressings for the cleanest sound.
-Scott
|
