The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
One last time: AWB’S Gorrie picks up the pieces in home town
Farewell tour: The Scottish funk and soul band that once topped the US charts are saying a long goodbye on the road
Alan Gorrie’s final gig in his hometown of Perth was always going to be “an emotional night” for the Average White Band (AWB) bassist.
The Fair City-raised musician spoke to The Courier ahead of his final gig at Perth Concert Hall last night – the latest of the Average White Band’s lengthy farewell tour, which has been dubbed Let’s Go Round Again, One Last Time in a nod to one of their best-loved songs.
Alan is one of two original members left in the chart-topping outfit, which has its origins in late ’60s Dundee, alongside guitarist Owen “Onnie” Mcintyre.
“Perth is where I was born and brought up and that will be an emotional night,” he admits in the build-up to the gig.
“I’ve had a few messages ahead of the gig, but sadly a lot of my contemporaries from around the Tayside music scene have passed away, including Michael Marra and Dougie Martin. Also my ex-vikings Graham Duncan and Dougie Wightman.
“There’s not a whole lot left of the people I grew up with.”
After more than five decades at the R’N’B coalface, Alan says the difficult decision made last year to call time on life on the road has long since sunk in.
“It’s very gruelling touring,” Alan, 77, tells me when we speak ahead of the Perth show.
“It doesn’t leave you much time for a family life and other niceties, so that’s why we decided to be honest and up front about it and make it a farewell tour so everybody can see us for a last time.
“I’ve come to terms with it, as has Onnie and the other guys, that’s just the way it is.”
BLANK CANVAS FOR PAINTER ALAN
The former art student says the demands of performing around the world have made him a virtual stranger in his own home, while also preventing him from creating new music.
“I’m going to stop touring so that I can hopefully get my head back into song writing, painting which I love doing, and other pursuits including my family who have been denied my input for half a century,” Alan explains.
“All these things are in the pot as priorities rather than AWB. I was at Dundee Art College so painting’s always been there, but it’s very much been on the backburner until recently.
“I’ve been getting into it again and want to pursue it much more than I’ve been able to, so I’m looking forward to doing more.”
Asked if it’s been difficult resuming his artistic career after decades spent consumed with music, he quips: “It’s like riding a bike, innit?”
Originally formed in 1972, Average White Band’s early line-up also included Dundee musicians Malcolm “Molly” Duncan, Roger Ball and Robbie Mcintosh, who had all earlier played with exvikings mainstay Alan on Tayside, along with westerners Mcintyre and Hamish Stuart.
Despite modest sales for their 1973 debut album Show Your Hand, Atlantic Records were sufficiently impressed to offer the Scots a deal and they upped sticks from London to Los Angeles.
A follow-up, AWB, was released in August 1974, but tragedy struck weeks later when drummer Mcintosh died of a heroin overdose at a party in LA. The iconic album subsequently went to No 1 Stateside the following year, as did the classic funk single Pick Up The Pieces, with the band going on to record a further five studio albums for Atlantic in the next four years. However, Alan denies that the label’s tough demands played a part in their eventual split in 1983.
“The Beatles had around 10 years and it was over,” says the Connecticut-based star.
“We had about the same and everybody had other things that they wanted to do and other avenues to try out, which is only natural.
“There’s only so long that you can stay glued together and that was really all
Groove we made fitted into hip-hop music
there was to it, but it was nose to the grindstone all the time and I think one or two albums suffered in quality for that.
“It would have been nice if we could have made an album every two years – instead they wanted three every two years. You can’t be on the road and writing good music at the same time.
“It doesn’t work. The road is a job all of its own and making an album is a job for being off the road, and concentrating on nothing else.”
HIP-HOP LEGACY WAS ‘LUCKY STRIKE’
Since regrouping in 1988, AWB have attracted scores of new listeners thanks to their work featuring in songs by such American hip-hop luminaries as Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and Christina Milian, making them one of the most sampled artists in history.
“It just so happened the kind of groove that we made fitted into hip-hop music – it was a lucky strike,” Alan declares.
“Certainly it was a lovely endorsement of what we had done and it also brought us a whole new audience, so we had no complaints about that at all.
“In the beginning the artists actually had to pay us for using those samples – that doesn’t happen any more and record deals don’t happen anymore.
“The conventions of the music business have changed 180 degrees from when we started. There are so many things that are no longer available to younger musicians I wonder how they get going nowadays.
“We’re at the right end of the tunnel and are able to say: ‘Thank you, that was wonderful – it’s time up.’”
It’s nothing if not a long goodbye from AWB, with shows across the UK and USA booked right up to mid-november.
But Alan says he’s looking forward to “a couple of days in the hills” and a rare festive season at home when it’s all over. ■ Tickets for Average White Band’s Let’s Go Round Again, One Last Time tour are still available and the tour continues in Edinburgh tonight.