70s icon set for city gig
Ration-book image was key to 70s chart-topper Gilbert O’Sullivan’s success
GILBERT O’Sullivan puts the record straight, straight away.
It was long assumed – since 1970, in fact, when the singer-songwriter stunned many with his first Top of the Pops appearance – that his persona was dictated by a media-hungry management.
Surely no-one in their right mind would choose to wear a pudding bowl hairstyle, cutdown trousers with one leg longer than the other, and colliery boots?
“I must be the only artist whose image was hated by everybody,” says the man born Raymond O’Sullivan, from his Jersey home, his voice still bearing traces of his native Ireland.
“I wanted to be different. In 1967, long hair was here to stay so I went instead for the Just William look, which came from a love of Chaplin and Buster Keaton.”
Of the several employers he went through, without success, he says: “Every single record company didn’t like it. I was always being told to wear jeans, look like James Taylor and I’d be okay. But I’m proud of the fact I decided to be different and look like a freak.”
There’s no doubt the image captured attention, and in 1970 manager Gordon Mills signed the writer-performer – in spite of the image.
But there was another reason for creating an alter ego – shyness.
Ray O’Sullivan could stay home while Gilbert took to Top of the Pops or performed concerts.
“I’m basically as shy a person as I was when I once worked in an office in London in the late 60s,” he admits. “I like my own company. I didn’t need a lot of friends.
“But there’s a dichotomy in my character. There’s also a healthy arrogance which emerges when I don’t need someone to say to me, ‘I like your music.’
“When it comes to my songs I’m confident. Back in 1967, I would go to a publisher’s office, and tell them they just had to listen to my music.”
He adds, smiling: “My motto is, ‘You may not be as good as you think you are, but thinking you are is good.’”
O’Sullivan can perform in front of a couple of thousand people and exude confidence. But if he were to meet any of those people afterwards the shyness would strike a discordant note.
What’s apparent, however, is that O’Sullivan, who has just released an eponymously entitled album, still has the determination he had in 1970 when he signed with Mills’ MAM label. The perfect pairing created success after success.
In 1972, O’Sullivan was the biggest-selling solo artist in the world – outstripping Rod and Elton (the “Bisto Kid” image dropped and replaced by long cardies).
Alone Again (Naturally) sold two million copies in the US alone. But the “father and son” relationship with Mills crashed at the end of the 70s when O’Sullivan queried his deal and took the manager to court – and came out with £7m in back royalties.
While many musicians branch out as the decades roll
by, O’Sullivan has stuck to pop songs.
“I’ve never been interested in writing a musical because I love the discipline of a three or four-minute song,” he says.
“I’ve been doing it for nearly 60 years and the joy is to go into a room from nine to five and come up with something good or something unusual.
“The danger is we lose the melodic touch. We all love Paul Simon, for example, and his latest record sounds great instrumentally but it lacks the melodic songs of his early albums.”
The songwriter’s more serious works such as Nothing Rhymed suggest a fair deal of existential angst?
“I’m not into self-analysis,” he says. “I just knuckle down and write the songs. And they aren’t always about me.”
O’Sullivan, who married a Norwegian, Aase, in 1980, emerges as a simple bloke incredibly focused on his work. I wonder if he’s ever lost the plot?
“I hope not,” he says. “My feet have been on the ground. I don’t drive, but I like a nice home. I’ve never been a red carpet person. I’ve never been someone to get carried away with those telling me how good I was or whatever.”
He adds, grinning: “But I do have Norwegian chocolates and a glass of wine at the weekend.”
O’Sullivan’s mother played a massive part in his life.
After the family of six children emigrated from Waterford to Swindon, she bought the seven-year-old musicmad Raymond a piano which was kept in the garden shed.
His mum got him piano lessons in the hope he’d “at least be able to earn a bob or two playing in the local pub”.
Having been Gilbert for so long, does his wife, for example, call him by that name?
“Don’t be silly,” he says, smiling. “Everyone who knows me calls me Ray. But when people who don’t know me call me Gilbert that’s fine.”
What’s undeniable is that O’Sullivan hasn’t been changed by money or fame. Even the bushy hair remains, at 71.
But does he have any regrets on pop life so far? “Just one,” he admits, laughing. “I went too far in having pics taken in the short trousers. That was a big mistake.”
‘‘ I must be the only artist whose image was hated by everybody