Something and maybe nothing

Lgue releases new country folk album

“The older people in the country music scene, they have a good habit of telling you what doesn’t work,” songwriter Kevin Logue says, some what diplomatically as he sits in the Celt office. “And that’s what’s being told to me all the time: you have to be doing the country and Irish dance stuff.

“And it just wasn’t on my radar to put my name on that.”

The Bawnboy man is recalling the post-mortem of his first serious album, released in 2003. Despite a little burst of fanfare on its release, the album never gained any traction.

Asked what it was called, he replies, “‘This could be Something’.

“Turned out to be nothing,” Kevin wisecracks without missing a beat.

His songs were influenced by the music that was on his radar - American country folk song-writers. “I grew up on John Prine, Guy Clark, Kris Kristofferson, and then the mainstream Merle Haggard, Weylon Jennings at the time - Townes Van Zandt, Iris DeMent, and in later years Rodney Crowell.”

A smile breaks across his face: “I wasn’t listening to the usual country that is marketable in Ireland. I was away on that train of songwriter more than the dance scene that’s here,” he recalls, describing that debut album, produced by Charlie McGettigan as “essentially a folk country album”

“I’d say people didn’t know what to make of it at all,” he concedes.

“We didn’t really follow up with gigs or anything like that. We didn’t get the attention we thought we’d get to do it, and it just didn’t happen. I got a bit disillusioned.”

Over two decades, and a job, marriage to Marie, four kids - Dylan (11), twins Leanne and Katelin who turned eight on Monday and Jessica (5) - later, and he’s finally back with a second album, this time titled ‘Without Compromise’.

Delivered in Kevin’s voice that runs as deep as Brackley Lough it can carry the more earnest love songs and is at its best when wryly lamenting a broken relationship.

The album’s flavour is distinctly American and that’s further enhanced by the pedal steel guitar of Martin Cleary.

“Martin’s a serious player,” Kevin correctly observes. “I love the sound of a steel, it brings a lovely atmosphere into a song.”

With 11 tracks, highlights for the Celt include ‘The Next Fool’ about a cheating lover, which includes the lyric, ‘I guess I was your fool until the next fool came around’.

Then there’s the catchy ‘No Drug Strong Enough’ with the memorable line: ‘I introduced her to Ed who introduced her to his bed’.

Kevin laughs: “I was bringing all the things you shouldn’t say in a song into it.”

However for Kevin his favourite track is one titled ‘I Wish I Was a Cowboy Again’.

The song was triggered when filmmaker Padraig Conaty had sought to use a version of Kevin’s song ‘The World Made a Man Out of Me’ recorded by the late singer Eddie Fitzsimons in the film ‘No Party for Billy Burns’.

During their conversation, Padraig loosely sketched out the plot of the film to Kevin. Inspired by these broad strokes, Kevin penned the ‘I Wish I Was a Cowboy Again’ the next day. Although it didn’t make the film, it quickly became a cornerstone of Kevin’s live set.

“I took a liking to it, and a few people I respect as songwriters liked it, so I was happy enough to put my name to it.

“I like it for the reason of the innocence, getting back to when things were simple.”

Apart from the quality musicianship in the album, what lives longest in the memory is Kevin’s voice.

“My voice was as deep when I was 14 or 15, I’m not joking. I wasn’t allowed to sing in school. We were singing in the class and I remember my headmaster telling me to be quiet - ‘Logue! Shut up.’”

He’s not shutting up no more.

Having given the album a first airing in Townhall Cavan last November, Kevin Logue will bring it to the Island Theatre stage in Ballinamore on Saturday, February 1. For tickets click here.