Glasgow is a homage to Findlay’s adopted home
Findlay Napier album review: Glasgow
The first thing I was reminded of when I picked up the new Findlay Napier album Glasgow was of a photo of the late Scots balladeer Matt McGinn standing in his beloved Calton. And when I started listening to the album, McGinn’s influence was still there, along with those from a more contemporary Glasgow folk and wider music scene. Glasgow is the second solo album from the acclaimed Scottish singer-songwriter Findlay Napier, related to Arran through his wife Gillian Frame and as regular visitor to the island as well teaching at the annual Feis Arrainn.
Following huge acclaim for his 2015 solo debut VIP: Very Interesting Persons, Findlay again unites superb songwriting, magpie-minded imagination and compellingly vivid vocals on his new album Glasgow. A characteristically wry yet lyrical, offbeat yet heartfelt paean to his adopted home town – marking 20 years since Napier arrived from his Highland birthplace – it features freshly-penned, instantly memorable originals alongside classic and contemporary gems from the city’s rich ballad canon.
Continuing their fruitful collaboration on VIP, revered UK songsmith Boo Hewerdine reprises his roles as producer and co-writer.
From modern-day vignettes like opener Young Goths In the Necropolis – its bittersweet emotional charge evoking a Caledonian Loudon Wainwright – to the tenderly imagined love-story of The Locarno, Sauchiehall St 1928, reminiscent of the late great Michael Marra – whose wonderfully whimsical King Kong’s Visit to Glasgow is also covered – the album’s musical map spans shipyards and late-night chippies, wily street veterans and warring football fans, patron saints and musical icons. It all evokes the sounds and images of the Glasgow I know.
If there is one weak track on the album, to my mind it is his rendition of the classic Hamish Imlach song Cod Liver Oil and the Orange Juice. The song needs real Glasgow guttural vocals and Findlay’s voice is just ‘too nice’ to do it justice, but that’s just my view. He more than makes up for it with tracks like the dreamily ardent rendering of The Blue Nile’s A Walk Across the Rooftops, and a gorgeous new ballad, Marchtown, by ex-Delgado Emma Pollock. The final track, Blue Lagoon, is reminiscent of Brian Protheroe from 40 years ago, but that’s older than Findlay himself who is still in his 30s – just.
With accompaniment mostly distilled to artful acoustic guitar, plus occasional piano and Donna Maciocia’s delicate backing vocals, Napier’s remarkable voice – by turns burly, gritty, fierce and forlorn, bitingly acerbic and exquisitely nuanced – is rightfully foregrounded throughout, capturing scenes and characters as potently as the CD cover image by Pulitzer Prize-winning Magnum photographer Raymond Depardon, including the shot of Findlay reminiscent of McGinn.
Napier’s fast-growing stature as one of the UK’s most distinctively gifted contemporary folk artists builds on his previous band work with Back of the Moon and The Bar Room Mountaineers, also reflecting his long-time immersion in the vibrant stylistic melting-pot of Glasgow’s world-famous music scene. As promoter of the decade-old Hazy Recollections concert series and founder of the Glasgow Songwriting Festival, he’s been particularly influential in fostering cross-fertilisation between the city’s folk and indie communities. Spring 2017 saw him touring with acclaimed contemporary protest-song showcase Shake the Chains, whose album release this month is followed by more dates early next year.
While the sorrow and anger simmering through Glasgow track There’s More to Building Ships – originally written for Shake the Chains – highlight Napier’s political leanings, humour is an equally vital element in his work, both recorded and live – as reflected in his recent sideline career as a stand-up comic. Hence his readiness to embrace not only the oft-disparaged label of folk singer, but also another, likewise timeless role.
He said: ‘I do love that old-fashioned, all-round idea of an “entertainer”, but then that’s totally what the best folk singers are; they’ll have you in absolute hysterics, in between punching you in the gut – people like Loudon Wainwright, John Prine, Michael Marra: that’s the absolute pinnacle, as far as I’m concerned.’
The album Glasgow is out on Cheerygrove Records on October 13.
For more information and the latest tour dates, visit www.findlaynapier.com