FAGAN, SCOTT SOUTH ATLANTIC BLUES LP
€
32
$
37
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Description
Originally released on ATCO in November 1968, singer-songwriter Scott Fagan's bewitching debut album, 'South Atlantic Blues', is a genuine lost classic - a mystical, mythical and deeply soulful folk-rock masterpiece.
Remastered from the original tapes, South Atlantic Blues is reissued for the very first time on CD and vinyl by Saint Cecilia Knows - the same label that released the acclaimed 2011 Mickey Newbury box set, 'An American Trilogy' - in association with Scott Fagan's own lil'fish records.
An epic song cycle about Fagan's hard-scrabble life in the Virgin Islands (where he was raised and lived until 19, before returning to his birthplace, New York City), wrapped around an impassioned love story, 'South Atlantic Blues' is driven by Fagan's dense, allusive lyrics and experimental production that infuses his folk song stylings with R&B, jazz and Caribbean island rhythms.
Front and centre on the record though is Fagan's remarkable voice, rich with emotion and longing, which has been described as "somewhere between Scott Walker, Tim Hardin, early Bowie and Donovan".
The album's iconic cover photo, a portrait of a twenty-year-old Fagan, was shot by legendary photographer, Joel Brodsky, who took the famous 'Young Lion' photos of Jim Morrison and also shot the cover of Van Morrison's 'Astral Weeks' - released the same month as South Atlantic Blues.
That Scott Fagan never became a major star is mystifying. That even cult success eluded him is all the more surprising.
His is a story of extraordinary talent and monumental potential confounded by a series of frustrating near-misses, all of which conspired to obscure him from the public eye for decades.
Fagan began recording South Atlantic Blues in 1967, at Musicor Studios in New York, with producer Elmer Jared Gordon (co-producer of the debut album by experimental rock group, Pearls Before Swine) and arranger Horace Ott (songwriter of the Nina Simone/The Animals classic 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood').
Time and memory have conspired to obscure the musicians who played on the record, but they are believed to include veteran jazz and soul session players like drummers Bernard Purdie, Jimmy Johnson (of the Sun Ra Arkestra).
Virtuoso steel pan player Victor Brady, a fellow countryman from the Virgin Islands, was a featured player on the record.
The initial pressing of the reissued album comes in a limited edition, hand-numbered, 180-gram weight vinyl with a reproduction of renowned artist Jasper Johns' 1970 lithograph, Scott Fagan Record as cover art.
Johns discovered South Atlantic Blues in a cut-out bin in 1969, fell in love with the record, and used it as the inspiration for three artworks, which are now housed in (among other places) the permanent collections of MOMA, the Met and the Walker Art Center.
This marks the first time that Johns has ever licensed artwork specifically for an album release.
This is a reissue that heralds the rediscovery of a major talent, one that should finally see Scott Fagan accorded his place in the canon of popular music alongside his better-known 60s and 70s peers.
Label: SAINT CECILIA
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