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The Kirsty MacColl web site
CONNECTIONS
An essential reference guide for anyone sad enough to play "Six Degrees of Kirsty"
British
trumpet and flugelhorn maestro Guy Barker was born in Chiswick, West London.
At the age of 17 he sat in with Clark Terry, he also played with Dizzy
Gillespie and became a friend of the bebop master. He stayed in New
York for six weeks at the age of 21, where he met and played with many young
musicians. Studio work and engagements for the BBC and with bandleaders such
as John Dankworth kept him more than busy into the early Eighties.
As the new decade progressed, Guy continued to widen the variety of his work. He formed a quintet with the alto saxophonist Chris Hunter and was also in constant demand as a sessions musician. His credits include George Benson, Sting, Grace Jones, Quincy Jones, Carla Bley, Paul McCartney, The The and Wham! He toured and recorded with Gil Evans in 1983 with both his British and New York orchestras, and following the break up of the Barker-Hunter band he worked with Lena Horne in 1984 and then with Bobby Watson's 'Young Lions' band in 1985.
As a session player on Kite, Guy contributed trumpet to Fifteen minutes, Don't come the cowboy and Complainte pour Ste. Catherine; in the company of Stuart Brooks and Malcolm Griffiths. Connection-wise, his work with Sam Brown brought him in common with Chucho Merchán, Gavin Wright, Dave Gilmour (Sam worked with Pink Floyd as well), Mark Berrow, Stuart Brooks and Ben Cruft. He also played with Stuart Brooks and Phil Palmer in Alphaville in 1986, with Gavin Wright on Deacon Blue's When the world knows your name and with George Chandler on Richard O'Brien's 1999 album.
Another connection links Guy with Martin Belmont and Malcolm Griffiths on the 1980 solo album by Paul Carrack. He played with Scottish jazzman Tommy Smith (Beasts of Scotland). Finally, he still plays with jazz act Working Week along with Chucho Merchán and Kim Burton. He was musical director and band leader in the film The talented Mr. Ripley, and has his own Quintet playing a mixture of "fiery bop, lyricism and many beautiful ballads". He is currently working with Jools Holland's Rhythm & Blues Orchestra.
A French rock singer,
collaborating with Frida of Abba fame in 1983-84. Daniel sang a duet
on Frida's single Belle. Around this time,
Kirsty and Frida went to Paris and sang backing vocals on Daniel's song Dieu
que c'est beau. Additionally,
Daniel co-wrote a song called The Face which
appeared on Frida's Shine album.
Engineer.Bazza (Barry Farmer) was the studio engineer on Elvis Costello's debut album My Aim is True and on early Rockpile albums with Dave Edmunds. The briefly monikered one was "Sound Director" to Liam Sternberg's producer on They don't know/ Motor on, and played guitar on Desperate Character as well as producing the album. He also produced the single You still believe in me/ Queen of the high teas. At Polydor, Bazza asked Kirsty to add a vocal to a backing track of the '60s anthem Keep your hands off my baby. She later said, "It would have been an 'illegal' single but I thought 'So what?' because no-one will ever hear it. When we did it, I thought it was so much better than the stuff I'd done for Polydor that I ought to tell them. So I did and we put it out because it was ready to go." He has no obvious connection beyond this but is credited with "special thanks" on the Kite liner notes.
Bazza "made coffee, translated and played with the gadgets" on the Sniff'n'the Tears album Fickle Heart - including smash hit Driver's Seat - and worked at Pathway Studios. He also mixed the Live Stiffs album. A Bazza also appears to have featured in Instant Agony, a punk band from Birkenhead Hocky (vocals), Ant (guitar), Tabby (bass) and Bazza (drums). Same guy?
Since Kirsty's favourite album of all time was Pet
Sounds, clearly
the surfin' dudes would belong in a list of connections anyway, having inspired
the young singer to learn all about those stunning harmonies. They feature
doubly though, since Kirsty has recorded their songs You
still believe in me in 1981 (Brian Wilson/ Tony Asher) and Don't
go near the water (Al Jardine/Love) in 1991.
vibraphone n. (ca.
1926): a percussion instrument resembling the xylophone but having metal
bars and motor-driven resonators for sustaining the tone and producing a
vibrato. Also - vibraharp.
Anyhow, Roger has had a wide variety of jazz outfits. As VOX said in a review, "Roger Beaujolais has his shit well down on the groovy toobs, but more than that; dear God does he have a hot band". Outfits he played with included the Ray Gelato Band and the Chevalier Brothers. He also featured on Fairground Attraction's debut The first of a million kisses (linking with Roy Dodds and Eddi Reader) and is now a part of Fairground member Mark Nevin's band, and recently played on Buena Vista Social Club star Omara Portuondo's solo album. For Kirsty he played the vibes on Bad. Photo by Tom Benjamin from Roger's web site.
Tenor sax player with Graham Parker's one time Rumour Brass, along with "Irish" John Earle on baritone sax, Chris Gower on trombone and Dick Hanson on trumpet. They featured as a unit on several albums by Shakin' Stevens. Ray played with the Rory Gallagher band on the 1990 album "Fresh Evidence" alongside John Earle and Dick Hanson, and with John Earle on Mike & the Mechanics 1986 album. Paul Brady used the whole Rumour Brass on his 1983 album "True for you". Ray's connection with Kirsty in common with the rest is Desperate Character, where he played tenor sax. He also connects via the Rumour with guitarist Martin Belmont.
A renowned and much travelled guitarist who plays acoustic & electric guitars plus six string bass guitar and even the banjo on occasion. Born in 1948, his career started with London pub rock band Ducks Deluxe from 1972 to 1975 before becoming part of Graham Parker's great backing band the Rumour (connecting with the Rumour Brass of Hanson, Beavis, Earle and Gower.). Part of the Stiff scene, he appeared on Elvis Costello's track From a whisper to a scream on Trust, connecting of course with Pete Thomas and Steve Nieve of the Attractions.
Martin also played with Thomas on albums by the Bhundu Boys, and on the Nick Lowe produced album by John Hiatt Riding with the king in 1983. Carlene Carter once said "Basically I think Nick and I are both alcoholics. I do think every day about a drink. I felt so bad the other morning and all I did was drink red wine. Martin Belmont and I stayed up till about 5 working out songs and gettin' creative". Another connection links Martin with Guy Barker and Malcolm Griffiths on the 1980 album by Paul Carrack. In 1981 Belmont was part of a short lived outfit with Nick Lowe called Chaps which also featured Carrack, who of course spread his talents around the likes of Ace, Squeeze, The Frankie Miller Band, Roxy Music, Mike & The Mechanics, The Undertones, The Smiths and The Pretenders.
Ever hard working (and as we already know, hard drinking), big Martin was a staple with the Hank Wangford band ("I especially enjoyed hearing the legendary Martin Belmont cutting up a storm on the six-string bass") and along with Attractions drummer Pete Thomas, the Balham Alligators in 1997. He even found time to cut his own album in 1995 (Martin Belmont: Big Guitar) on Elvis Costello's Demon label. He has been a frequent Elvis guest star, as far back as 1978. He appears on the Live At El Mocambo album, and made the occasional appearance at U.K. shows in 1978, 1979, and 1981. In the spring of 1980, Steve Nieve was injured in an auto accident and Belmont stepped in as the third Attraction for a tour of Europe in April and May. Belmont also toured with Elvis in January and February of 1981, appearing midway through the show and staying to play guitar for the rest of the set.
Recently (1999) he has been appearing with Bobby Valentino & Los Pistoleros in venues such as Allendale Village Hall with B.J. Cole on pedal steel guitar, Kevin Foster on lead guitar and Bobby Irwin on drums. Martin played guitar alongside Valentino on the BBC Sessions album (What do pretty girls do?).
Songwriter.Fred wrote the song Darling, let's have another baby, memorably recorded by Kirsty with Billy Bragg. Fred was the bass player with the Johnny Moped band.
Violin.Mark is a regular performer in various orchestras, for example the London Metropolitan Orchestra appeared with Page & Plant in 1994, and he was in the orchestra on Björk's Homogenic album, which was led by the ubiquitous Gavyn Wright. Clearly not one to be typecast, he also featured in the orchestra in Michael Crawford & Sarah Brightman's Phantom of the Opera. His contributions in smaller string sections include work with Sam Brown (alongside Wright, Chucho Merchán, Dave Gilmour, Guy Barker and Ben Cruft.), Seal with Wright and Pino Palladino, and most recently former One Dove chanteuse Dot Allison's Afterglow album. He has drifted into Brazilian music with Maria Bethania alongside Dave Woodcock and Wilf Gibson. For Kirsty, Mark played violin on Innocence and You and me baby.
We may never know the true identity of one "Billy", who contributed backing vocals to the Desperate Character album.
Boz
is legendary on the rockabilly scene. Among the many bands he has played
with are The Polecats, Boz And The Bozmen, Ronnie Dawson, The Deltas, John's
Children, Blubbery Hellbellies, Adam Ant, psychobilly band Jet Black Machine
and has even toured Japan with all girl rockabilly band The Shillelagh Sisters
in addition to some 1995 live shows with Kirsty's band. In his own My
wild life's gonna get me down - a "proper solo
album in the Ray Campi style" (he played virtually all the instruments)
he ran the gauntlet through rockabilly, blues, hillbilly and rock'n'roll. Clearly
fond of the odd tipple, he was involved with Cowboy Barnes & his Drinking
Buddies' two albums about over indulgence in alcohol such as I
fought the beer, I ain't drunk, I'm just drinkin,
Bar Potion Number 9, I
drink, therefore I am and a whole liquor store more.
Boz is also a producer, with Morrissey/Siouxsie and Jet Black Machine credits as well as Perfect Day, Irish cousin and The butcher boy for Kirsty. The clever lad also did the string arrangements on Perfect Day and recorded I am afraid and the TV theme Picking up the pieces with her. In his own time he runs the House of Boz Studio, and is an avid record collector, especially of rockabilly stuff of course. With this mutual passion, it's easy to see why Morrissey and Boz are a natural combination - he has become one of Mozz's writers and mainstay players in recent years.
He played in the band at the live tribute concert. As he says in his tour diary, "It went so fast, but everyone performed great. Phil Jupitus was the compere, he recommended the strawberry scones in hospitality but there was none left, I suspect he ate em all. Me and Roddy Frame had to hide the second plate. I met a great violinist from Cuba called Omar Puente. Brian Kennedy sung like an Angel, especially on the song Angel. I don't think I've seen him since I played the double-bass in a Sweetmouth video 12 years ago. Johnny Marr was bang on form and we chewed the fat for a while. Mark Nevin was also there in a great hat, David Gray flew over from Boston. I lent him a microphone once many years ago and he remembered picking it up. Good to see Spider and Gem from the Pogues, we shared a dressing room. Evan Dando looked great in his Dickies T-shirt. I played clarinet on the song "Bad " with Mary Coughlan, a fiesty Irish redhead. I also played acoustic on "Cowboy" sung by Brian Kennedy, and then I played lead guitar on the last song of the night "Chipshop" with the enigmatic vocals of Tracey Ullman."
Billy Bragg (8) Connecting
from 1979. Songwriter & Singer. 
A
key connection: Bragg was on Chiswick Records (as part of Riff Raff) at the
same time as the Drug Addix and both bands had their debut singles released
on the same day - so Kirsty and Billy have been in the "business" for
exactly the same time (I'll let you work it out). His 1983 debut album, Life's A Riot With Spy Vs Spy,
was raw and economical, full of righteous indignation and romantic bitterness.
It caught the national imagination, topped the independent charts and made
Billy and unlikely star. Anyone who saw Bragg live back in the early 80s
will have been bowled over by the man with naught but his guitar and amp,
and his wonderful songs. Clearly
Kirsty agreed and purloined Bragg's classic A
New England which
with the aid of some re-writing by its author was expanded and turned into
Kirsty's biggest solo hit. It was the first time he'd been covered by another
artist.
Since those days, Bragg has been a tireless political campaigner against oppression and injustice and has toured the globe taking his music to the people in as many obscure places as he could reach. In recent years, he has grasped the joys of fatherhood ("Gray Dad") and rekindled the spirit of Woody Guthrie with his wonderful Mermaid Avenue albums with Wilco. Most recently he has been poking his wand into the embers of English nationality with his album England, half English, recorded with the Blokes.
His writing contribution to Kirsty's career also includes the rare gem from the Mad Love soundtrack, As long as you hold me. His only recorded appearances with Kirsty are on a Madison B-side and on the BBC sessions album (What do pretty girls do?) where they duet on New England and Darling let's have another baby. In return she has contributed backing vocals on Bragg's albums Talking to the Taxman about Poetry and Don't try this at home. She appeared to be having no little fun in the video for Sexuality. Both have appeared with some regularity at charity gigs and even attended classical concerts together.
Some other connections from Bragg - Bobby Valentino played violin on Talking to the Taxman about poetry, while Johnny Marr contributed guitar. Jody Linscott played percussion on Don't try this at home, while James Eller plays bass.
Bremner can be accorded semi-legendary status for his guitar work during the Stiff Age of British music, being one quarter of the great Rockpile lineup along with Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe and Terry Williams. His country rock/rockabilly guitar stylings backed many an artists, including Shakin' Stevens, Edmunds (Repeat when necessary) and Lowe solo albums prior to the formation of Rockpile.
For Kirsty he contributed guitar to the Desperate Character album, and featured on album releases by Lowe's then wife Carlene Carter. Carlene's exceptional country pedigree fused perfectly with straight ahead retro-rockers Rockpile. Later in the mid nineties he was to back another country star, Rosie Flores on her album "Honky Tonk reprise". Back in the early 80s Bremner was called up by the Pretenders, playing lead guitar on Back on the chain gang and My city was gone, and rhythm guitar/ vocals on Thin line between love and hate along with Andrew Bodner (ex Rumour) and Paul Carrack.
Other luminaries using his services included Lulu, the Walker Brothers, Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Johnny Cash and Little Richard. Billy Bremner had almost become Billy Murray early in his career. Anxious to avoid confusion with the Scottish football great of the same name, he went to tour America under the Murray name ... just as Bill Murray was rising to fame in the States. Faced with clashing again with another celebrity, he decided he might as well stick with his own original surname. Now he has the name to himself, and is still recording his own stuff - his voice is a little weaker than Dave Edmunds' but otherwise he remains true to rockabilly, country-blues and good old rock'n'roll. In 1998 he released a version of Elvis Costello's Shatterproof as part of a Costello tribute album, as part of the Refreshments there was a live CD recorded in Sweden, and a solo album also done in Sweden called A good week's work.
Bass player with the Boomtown Rats, the name taken from Woody Guthrie's
novel Bound
for Glory. Briquette changed his name from Patrick Cusack, presumably
thinking Briquette was more rock'n'roll. The group moved to London in
October 1976 and released their debut single, Lookin'
After No. 1,
in August 1977. It was the first of nine straight singles to make the U.K.
Top 15. In November 1978 the band had their first number one hit in
Rat Trap. I Don't
Like Mondays was
the big one for the Boomtown Rats and their second number one hit in the
UK. This record was subjected to an unofficial ban by most US radio stations,
who were wary of legal action from the parents of a schoolgirl (Brenda Spencer
from San Diego) who shot her classmates 29th January 1979, explaining her
reason as she didn't like Mondays. As
I recall it was number one for weeks, you couldn't avoid the bugger. Briquette
continues to play bass with Bob Geldof, and has worked with Tricky (Maxinquaye)
in 1995, a Dutch singer named Bloem de Ligny and a French singer named Renaud
in addition to producing Dublin band The Frames D.C. He married Stiff
star Jane Aire and co-wrote the unreleased second single for Kirsty, You
caught me out with Kirsty
and Simon Crowe. The Rats also played on the single.
Nigel remixed Innocence with Pete Glenister for the single release, and that's the sum total of what we at Freeworld know of him.
Jazz trumpeter, whose recorded work in the 80s was mainly with Icelandic jazz outfit Mezzoforte along with Phil Todd. In 1982 he also played for Norwegian jazz great John Surman. His Nordic associations presumably led to his appearance on the Björk hit I miss you from her Post album. Other jazz activities included playing with Mike & Kate Westbrook along with Tony Marsh, and indeed on the 1990 album by Riley-Castonari-Marsh "Wishing on the moon" . He also played with Guy Barkerand Phil Palmer in Alphaville in 1986. Commercial pop recordings included trumpet on Kirsty's Don't come the cowboy with me, Sonny Jim! and Complainte pour Ste. Catherine;, plus appearances with Sam Brown (along with Bobby Valentino and Dave Gilmour), Everything but the Girl's Baby the stars shine bright (along with Gavyn Wright and Phil Todd), George Michael Older in 1996 and with George Harrison on Still got the blues in 1999. Most recently he appeared on ex The Verve man Richard Ashcroft's solo debut alongside Judd Lander, Pino Palladino and Jamie Talbot.
We've not been able to trace Teddy Bear back beyond his engineering & mixing
on Electric Landlady. Since then he
has presumably worked on many albums, including as engineer on Queen's Live
Magic and The
miracle. He mixed Gabrielle's Dreams in
1993, and the 1999 remix of Yazoo's Only you. For
unspecified reasons he is thanked by Heaven 17 in the credits for Pleasure
One.
Kirsty sang backing vocals
on Burns' single with the Big
Wheel, She grew
up. Jake was
of course the front man with Irish outfit Stiff
Little Fingers, who can still
be seen treading the board today after reforming in the 90s. Way back though
a group of young Belfast punks led by a straggly youth named Jake Burns got
together to record two now legendary songs, the incendiary Suspect
Device and Wasted Life. Shortly afterwards,
John Peel picked up on the three minute polemics which subsequently fuelled
a generation of disaffected teenagers. In many ways the archetypal punk band,
SLF split in 1982, leaving a legacy of four studio albums and a real live
one.
Kim
Burton has played with a wide range of musicians and a wide range of styles,
from Acid-Jazz pioneers Working Week and world music terrorists 3 Mustaphas
3 to jazz with Brazilian maestro Hermeto Pascoal and chanson with cabaret
singer Barb Jungr. She has also played salsa with both Latin and British-based
bands, klezmer in the concert-hall and at weddings, recorded with Somali
diva Maryam Mursal and young British sax wizard Julian Arguelles.
Kim played keyboards on Last day of summer but was certainly around in 1983 when she played with Robert Wyatt. In recent years Kim has played accordion with Merlin Shepherd's Klezmer Trio in and around London. Her CV also includes the category busting 3 Mustaphas 3 (as "Kemo Mustapha") along with Lu Edmonds of course. Fellow Mustapha and Globestyle supremo Ben Mandelson said "Kim had done lots and lots of Balkan things and is an exceptionally fine accordeon player in all the different Balkan idioms, as well as being the top Latin piano player of our time."
Finally, she still plays venues such as Ronnie Scott's with jazz act Working Nights along with Chucho Merchán and Guy Barker. Working Week were instigators of the so-called 'Great British Jazz Revival' of the '80s which brought jazz back to the pop charts and onto the dance floor. Working Nights, saxophonist Larry Stabbins' new band, develops the soulful Latin-jazz sound of his compositions for early Working Week, bringing it into the new Millennium, with many of the original line up: Larry Stabbins (saxes/flute), Guy Barker (trumpet/flugelhorn), Richard Edwards (trombone), Kim Burton (piano), Chucho Merchán (bass), Bosco D'Oliviera (percussion) and Nic France (drums). Other pop oriented work includes accordion and harmonium playing for Fairground Attraction and on Eddi Reader's debut solo album Mirmama, where she links with drummer Roy Dodds.
David Byrne was born in Dumbarton, Scotland, in 1952. When he was 2 years
old, his parents moved to Canada and he ended up in the suburbs of Baltimore,
Maryland. In 1970 David went straight from High School to the Rhode
Island School Of Design, where he met Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth who
were also enrolled as Freshmen. David studied Bauhaus Theory and took
a conceptual art course. The staff were not sure about David, particularly
when he put on a performance in which he had his hair and beard shaved off
onstage to a piano accordion accompaniment and a showgirl displaying cue
cards written in Russian. After that he travelled around the United States
before moving back to Providence, Rhode Island to see his friends Chris and
Tina. You'll have heard of their combo, Talking Heads.
Nowadays he's heavily involved in generally excellent quality roots based releases from his label Luaka Bop. Byrne's interest in worldwide rhythms started to creep into the Talking Heads output, and he was clearly in a hurry to pursue that side of his musical interests; Rei Momo was Byrne's first post-Heads album, and was produced by Steve Lillywhite. The concept was to write a song in each of a number of Latin music styles (e.g. mapeye, merengue, orisa, rumba, llesa). The album succeeds both in making good songs out of these rhythms, and showing that Byrne doesn't need Talking Heads to make good music. The lyrics avoid the deeper meanings of the songs on Naked; they're mostly just for fun.
Huge numbers of musicians were employed on the album, playing exotic instruments; Kirsty provided backing vocals on a few tracks, while Pogue James Fearnley contributes accordion. The song Dirty Old Town takes its title from the Ewan MacColl song which the Pogues of course covered. It was during the recording of these sessions that Kirsty got the Latin bug big time (though she'd long enjoyed the music anyway) and many of the session musicians on the album appeared on Electric Landlady two years later - Robby Ameen, Milton Cardona, José Mangual Jr., Lewis Khan, Enrique Orengo, Marc Quiñones, Steve Sacks, Joe Shepley, Angel Fernandez, Ite Jerez, Felix Farrar, Lloyd Carter and Jon Fausty as engineer and production coordinator. Another name which was to reappear a decade later in the Tropical Brainstorm era was Joe de Jesús. You can certainly say that David, and in particularly Rei Momo changed Kirsty's life.
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