Spending time listening to acclaimed songwriter Alan O’ Hare talk is one of those great pleasures in life. Passionate about his craft, the city of Liverpool, justice, truth and making sure people understand what Liverpool means as a place of music and art, Alan O’ Hare gives forthright answers with absolute honesty and candour.
Having crafted ten incredible songs for the new album From Muddy Water To Higher Ground at Crosstown Records with Million-selling producer Jon Lawton, Alan O’ Hare is entitled to feel relaxed and content with life if he so wishes but there is a tremendous feel to the man’s world that suggests seismic change, the ability that erupts from under the surface of a very talented wordsmith is never far from exploding and taking down viable targets with it.
The record is a rich and diverse range of styles and sounds, all held together by a tight grasp on melody and attention to detail. Featuring strings arranged by Laura McKinlay (Bill Ryder-Jones, Bird) and the wonderful harmony vocals of rising star Vanessa Murray (LIPA, Operation Lightfoot), From Muddy Water To Higher Ground reveals itself as a work of truth and beauty. Promo single Higher Ground has been a YouTube hit, while B.B.C. Radio Merseyside and The Anfield Wrap have play-listed both the strings-driven Green Eyes Singing and the rip-roaring, Waterboys-esque Gypsy Boy. Folk tale Captain Of Your Soul is another highlight – with a swirling, Celtic flute-led reel outro stealing the limelight – and the story-driven St Saviour’s Square has set tongues wagging too.
In a rare moment off for this busy man, I was able to catch up Alan inside the Liverpool Echo building and ask him about the new album and his thoughts on the power of words in a well written lyric and the poetry contained within.
Your album’s been out for about a month now, it’s a fine piece of work –
Alan: “That’s always good to hear!”
Has making this album though changed your perspective on what’ more important recording or performing?
Alan: “Recording this album was the best recording experience of my life, I’ve always been kind of more concerned with the live work. If you listen to my old band The Trestles stuff, I’m still very proud of the records but it’s on stage that we picked up followers but as with anything, you learn as you go along and you appreciate different things. I suddenly found the craft of recording and it led me to songs to a different level. It was the best recording experience of my life is down to the people around me now – Laura McKinlay who plays the violin and Jon Lawton – he was a kind of guide to me on this record, he sort of co-produced the album. I was just the best recording experience of my life!”
When the first Only Child set of songs came out on the debut E.P., I did refer to some of the lyrics as being very poetic, very similar to the style of Roger McGough, it’s surprising how there are very many great poets and musicians, Damian Dempsey is one who crosses over into both areas, Ian Prowse is another one who has the ability to take a poem and into music. I don’t know whether it’s because of the connection you have to both of them but it seems very similar. There is this great sense of dramatic poetry all the way through it, which just screams out, it’s a wonderful thing!
Alan: “There are lots of people and places in the songs, which is a very folk sort of thing, the music might not be very folk but it’s a very folk style in the writing in terms of writing about what’s around you and what’s in the streets. I think it is that street poetry I guess, funny mentioned Roger McGough. It’s like St. Saviour’s Square – the acoustic song with the trumpet on it, that’s got a reference to Adrian Henri – those kind of people have a massive influence on me and it’s an inverted truth, it’s not the truth that makes sense to me when I listen to Roger McGough and Adrian Henri. There’s an underground truth to the things they say and they may use a metaphor that you can’t work out and that’s why I’m not interested in impressing people. I’m interested – communicating with the community! A lot of the reviews, and your one was amongst the first and the rest that have followed, have all talked about the crying! The review for Liverpool Acoustic mentioned crying when they heard song While She’s Asleep, the man from Liverpool Live, he wrote a review that touched him, you mentioned in yours – tears of laughter, tears of joy. That’s what I’m trying for.
Every day, you ask my wife, I’ll get upset or excited about the most ridiculous things, they come out of nowhere and they take you. I could be listening to a new song by one of my favourite artists and getting excited at the kitchen table to reading a book and having to squeeze the spine so I don’t wake the wife as she lies next to me! That’s the sort of thing I’m interested in.”
Reading newspaper articles each day must be a rich source of material?
Alan: “I’ve just been reading about Scotland and whether they are prepared to break from the U.K., we go there every year, I take the same two books to read along with other ones, which are Bob Dylan’s Chronicles and Mike Scott from The Waterboys, his book. I go back to them, it’s not like I’m reading a book where when it’s read it’s over, it’s like they move, when you go back to them they’re still alive, that’s the kind of writer I’m interested in.”
With that in mind then, poetry and the whole idea of words in books, how important do you think words are in the 21st century when everyone is has so much to say but they never have enough time to say it.
Alan: “That’s spot on, listening is a lost art. I have a saying that I bore my friends and family with – people don’t listen to you, they wait to speak – present company excluded! Have you ever noticed when you are talking to someone say about art and culture, music, poetry, reading, singing, whatever, when you are talking to them, they are not listening, they are waiting their turn to speak. It’s such a shame because everything I’ve ever learnt in life is to listen to someone talking about those things or through an artist speaking. The written word is vital; it is one of the few remaining things like music that will remain tangible. You can try and distort the truth but you can’t do it forever. It gets out because of the written word. We look at what’s going on with the inquests about Hillsborough, it’s in the news; we’re sat in the Liverpool Echo offices today. Those inquests have come about because of what has been written down, their feelings, their thoughts, they haven’t let the truth go. Other people have used the written word to try and distort it but you can’t forever as it will come back.”
It always seems to me that the point that you’re making is that it’s almost the difference between light and dark. The lightness of a poet being able to say it’s wrong to an audience, the truth is here and darkness in the disguising by certain people in power.
Alan: “Now, people talk about the media as one thing, they talk about politicians as one thing, people tar everything with the same brush. These days, not much has changed, you just have to dig that little bit harder. Bruce Springsteen wrote a song in 1978 called Candy’s Room, about a prostitute. The lyrics state that ‘in the darkness, there will be hidden words that shine’. That’s what we’re talking about I think, for every sort of Daily Mirror, Daily Mail or anything else out there that might make you read, for every bad piece of music or poetry that makes it through these days, the underground is there if you dig just that little bit harder. You have to look harder now for your records, for your books, for your poems.”
Do you think that those who use social media for instant reactions are concerned about the legality of it all?
Alan: “I would agree with that and also complaining about it, complaining about social media now and instant opinions, it’s futile – the genie’s out of the bottle. You can’t go back on what you’ve said now. Two hundred years ago, someone was complaining about the invention of the phonograph, where are they now? Technology always moves on, the tail wags the dog, that’s the way it is. You have to learn to exist as an artist within that framework or you don’t have to, you can exist outside of it and not let it infiltrate you – your rewards might be fewer commercially but artistically you can still pursue what you want to do.”
The new album that you have out, all the musicians that you have on there, it must have been very special having Vanessa Murray on there, she must be one of the busiest musicians in Liverpool?
Alan: “Only Child started out Laura McKinley, she’s my second in command, she started on day one as my violinist, she’s the soul of Only Child, I saw Vanessa at Ian Prowse’s Monday Night Club at some stage with an acoustic guitar and it was something about her voice that I thought it work well with mine, I asked her to play bass as you know and she wasn’t really playing the bass at time but I said we’d sort that out so she came in and just to hear those harmonies is amazing, they are all over the new record. When we perform live, the voices just sound great together. To have Rachel Cooper playing flute, it sounds fantastic, it does something to me, I don’t know what it is. Vanessa’s singing; there are lots of different people on it. Laura wrote a lot of string arrangements for Higher Ground and she played all her own parts which was amazing. Then we had Luke Moore come in on cello, he’s great, he came in for a day and we had his parts written out for him and he did his thing and put his own Luke Moore slant on it.
We had John Gibbons from the Anfield Wrap as well, he played trumpet; he’s played in bands all his life, that’s another instrument that can contribute to the Caledonian sound like the flute that I’m looking for, the Celtic/Irish thing. The trumpet is a sound of the North for me; that wounded optimism. It’s battered and bruised and that’s why it’s on St. Saviour’s Square, that’s what that song is – battered and bruised song, it talks about the Toxteth Riots and it talks about immigration. We’re also very lucky to have Jon Lawton the producer, who’s studio we used, he played all sorts on the album – rainsticks, electric guitar, did the programming as well. Only Child is just me, the songs sound like they do because of the way I’ve lived for six months but they wouldn’t live and breathe without all those other people.”
It’s an amazing album, I’ve really enjoyed it, I already know it’s going to be in my top 30 albums of the year! It’s been played lovingly to the point it might be worn out! I hope there’s going to be a third album?
Alan: “Yes! We’re about to start it, because I’m about to become a dad, we haven’t been able to capitalise on the album playing live yet but there were a lot of people at the album launch at Zanzibar, well over a hundred people and we got great reviews on the night as well. We’ve got two gigs lined up, one at the end of August – 30th which is for the Liverpool Classic Music Festival – we’re doing Off The Beaten Track at the Bluecoat. At the end of November, we’re headlining Liverpool Acoustic at the View Two Gallery. In between there will be more gigs! A third release – the songs are written, it’s formulated in my head how it will sound and we’re going to start it very soon!”
If music ever becomes a bind, I could watch you perform poetry!
Alan: “I’m scared to perform on the acoustic guitar, let alone solo!”
That’s a compliment! Enjoy becoming a dad!
Alan: “See you on the other side!”
For more information go to http://onlychildmusicuk.wordpress.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/from-muddy-water-to-higher/id879483325
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icvbWdjvRJQ
Ian D. Hall