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The Kirsty MacColl web site
MEMORIAL
Uncut
March 2001
Uncut
was as shocked as everybody else in the rock world at the death of Kirsty MacColl
in a boating accident in Mexico on December 19. The daughter of folk legend
Ewan MacCoIl, Kirsty began her recording career with the self-penned They
Don't Know on Stiff in 1979 (later a hit for Tracy Ullman in 1983).
The semi-novelty There's A Guy Works Down The Chip
Shop (Swears He's Elvis) provided
her first taste of chart success in 1981, but it was her inspired reworking
of Billy Bragg's A New England four years later
that marked the beginnings of her association with some of the finest songwriters
of her generation.
The warm, distinctive voice exposing her musical Irish ancestry [Anglo Scottish surely? FW] made her a popular guest vocalist with Talking Heads, Simple Minds and Happy Mondays, to name but a few. Her backing vocals on The Smiths' Ask in 1986, produced by husband Steve Lillywhite, would also lead to a close working relationship with both Morrissey and particularly Johnny Marr, the latter playing on 1989's critically acclaimed Kite LP and co-writing numerous minor hit singles - Free World, Walking Down Madison - thereafter. Yet in spite of her own witty, emotive songwriting some of her biggest hits came with covers, including her interpretation of Ray Davies' Days in 1989, and she will always be remembered for her role as the intoxicated foil to Shane MacGowan on The Pogues' classic 1987 Christmas hit Fairytale Of New York.
The warm critical reception granted last year's Latin-influenced Tropical Brainstorm, a four-star album in Uncut and for many her best yet, makes her passing all the more tragic. The tributes from those she worked with spoke volumes. "One of the great one-offs," according to MacGowan. "Writes like a playwright, sings like an angel," in the words of Bragg, and to Morrissey quite simply "a supreme original".
She is survived by two children.
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