Acrpost: A Project of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres

Event Description

WOW! Scottish Folk Icon DICK GAUGHAN is coming to Victoria! Dick is perhaps the most influential singer and guitarist of all time to come out of Scotland. There is NO ONE else like him and this is a rare appearance on Vancouver Island. This is one concert to say you were there for!

When it comes to folk music legends they don't come much bigger than the man from Leith. Dick Gaughan, pushing 70, has been around the block and back again and his impassioned style of playing and singing aligned with his strong sense of humane socialist politics has created a powerful body of work over the years. He is, in every sense, a protest singer, albeit one with a firm moral backbone and a way with melody that touches a nerve and stirs deep emotions, be they of anger or a wistful kind of nostalgia. His 1981 album A Handful of Earth is rightly acclaimed as one of the greatest folk albums ever, a mixture of the strident and the gentle. As politicians all around us of every hue cry their hot air ad nauseum it is still refreshing to see and feel the presence, warm humanity and passionate integrity of Dick Gaughan - a folk legend.

Dick Gaughan was brought up immersed in the musical traditions and culture of the Gaels, both Scots and Irish, which naturally, therefore, provide the foundation for everything he does. He has been a professional musician and singer since January 1970 (2014 is his 67th year on the planet), has been playing guitar since the age of seven and made his first solo album in 1971 (No More Forever). Working in the broad milieu of folk music Dick has recorded extensively in many countries and in various combinations with other musicians and has also worked extensively as a session musician in a wide variety of musical styles. Dick was an early member of the Boys of the Lough and is on their first album. He was with the now-legendary Scottish folk-rock band, Five Hand Reel, making three albums with them in the 1970’s. In the 1990’s he founded and produced the short-lived but quite extraordinary ensemble Clan Alba. According to a critics poll in fRoots, he recorded the best album of the 1980's (Handful of Earth: Topic)

Dick has been at the cutting edge of Scottish music for almost five decades! Guitarist, singer, songwriter, actor, musical director, composer, arranger, producer, engineer, he's been there, done it. He is a stunning singer with a wonderfully expressive voice belying passion, allied to a dazzling guitar technique; Dick just doesn't deliver gigs which are 'ordinary'. Well known for his forthright and long-time consistently held, oft-expressed political views Dick has never been attracted by a vogue of consensual, namby-pamby, pragmatic and equivocating politics. Dick gives voice to an uncompromising solidarity with the flotsam and jetsam of tunnel-vision global capitalism: the victims, the helpless, the wronged, the fighters, the brawny working-class bravehearts who made capitalism work (after a fashion). This has a particular resonance today in the early 21st century.

Dick Gaughan is a troubadour out there, on the road, taking his songs and music around the world and only making the occasional foray into the recording studio when the urge comes on him. And, in the course of it all, making new friends, new enemies, and influencing people. Dick has collaborated successfully over the past year or two with Canadian reggae act The Jason Wilson Band (feat. Dave Swarbrick and Pee Wee Ellis) while, at the same time, performing with his own top class (of course!) 7-piece band (feat The Bevvy Sisters) for the occasional gig.

In December 2009 Dick was honoured by being inducted into the Scots Trad Music Hall of Fame. Then, less than two months later in London, he received a Lifetime (not yet!) Achievement Award at BBC Radio 2's annual Folk Awards ceremony. Dick is the only performer to have been so honoured by his musical peers both north and south of the Border.

Advance tickets at Lyle's Place, Ivy's Books, Long & McQuade and online at www.beaconridgeproductions.com

For more information contact Marie at 250-472-0999