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Sleeve Notes
If you're one of the lucky ones who bought Jim McCann's first LP, there's really no need to read on, because you already know some of the most important things there are to know about Jim. They're to be found in his music — and the music speaks more than adequately for itself. However, if you're thinking of investing in this second album, I'd like to put forward some reasons why you should go right ahead.
First of all, don't let the titles put you off. Now if that seems a strange thing to say, I should explain that it's directed at those who prefer to "play it safe" and are only interested in LPs that contain songs they know. Fair enough. That's understandable … up to a point. But think of the songs you're missing.
Unknown, yes; but as enjoyable, or more so, than many an occupant of the top ten. Many of the songs Jim sings are in that category. Examples? Unless you follow the work of Steppenwolf, it's unlikely that "Snow Blind Friend" means anything to you. But in my book this Hoyt Axton opus is without a doubt the most harrowing anti-drugs song I've ever come across. "Gospel Changes", I first heard by John Denver. Jim's version uses a £3,000 Steinway to get a "Bridge Over Troubled Water" kind of pianistic effect. And that's Luci Johnston (an ex-member of one of the best groups to emerge from the folk scene in a long time, the Johnstons) helping out in the background.
A big favourite of mine, and a number that surely deserves to be taken up by many other singers, is "Sunny Outside (Rainin' in My Heart)", which John D'Ardis, producer of this album, wrote. If you're reading these notes in a record shop, you could do a lot worse than ask to hear this particular track. Jim McCann is a Dubliner (the city, not the group) whose voice, once heard, is remembered. Likewise his guitar playing. Small wonder, then, that's he's in demand as a session man. Wouldn't you know it... his mother bought him a guitar when he was about ten, and, being the inventive, resourceful fellow he was, he went and taught himself to play — only with the wrong tuning. So that when he eventually went for lessons … and here he makes reference somewhat mysteriously to a German with a pet hen who used to live in Clontarf, but "who's gone from us now; the German, not the hen" … he had to start from square one again For a while, Jim was a medical student at University College Dublin ("As a doctor, I was a dreadful possibility"). Then he went off to live in Birmingham and haunt the city's folk clubs. Back he came to Dublin, just in time to join the Ludlows, whom Jim remembers as "the first Irish group to get a No. 1 in Ireland". The record was "The Sea Around Us". After the Ludlows went their separate ways, Jim thought he'd try going through life solo.
It suited him and so he's stayed. Aside altogether from singing, Jim figures in some of the more memorable commercials on Irish TV. Maybe he has the right kind of face. Or it could have something to do with his flair hi comedy (the zanier, the better), but there he is, night after night, doing a great job selling various products. Quite indirectly, too, he's reminding you that he also makes records, and that he, Jim McCann is his own best product.
Which brings us conveniently back to this album. "When I started making the record, I didn't know I was going to do some of the songs on it," Jim recalls. "Then again, there are a couple of things which I'd been dying to record for ages, like 'I Know You Rider' (a showcase for acoustic guitar) and 'Darlin.' Companion.'
I love that from 'way back." It's interesting to learn that Jim found "Snow Blind Friend" very hard to sing. "The first few ways I did it, it didn't sound quite right, so I ended up doing it with no vibrato in my voice at all, more in a monologue style. It turned out to be the only way I could get anything out of it."
That last quote is typical of Jim and his painstaking methods to get things done as efficiently as possible.
In this case, the result is an LP that bears repeated listening.
Ken Stewart