To celebrate the release of Maid in Ireland, a new
Fruupp compilation released on 24.07.20 by those good people at Esoteric
Records, I include below a piece I did on the origins of Fruupp as part of the
sleeve notes for the new CD. This is the first Fruupp complication to feature
the remastered versions of the songs which were undertaken for the 2010 re-releases
of the original four albums. The Dawn of Fruupp is included here by kind
permission of Esoteric Records.
I met Vince McCusker in
September 1964 when I moved from the Intermediate School in Magherafelt,
Northern Ireland, fifty yards back towards the town centre, to the Technical
College. Vince was from the neighbouring village of Maghera and he played
guitar. At that point I was into Ray Charles, Hank William, Otis Redding,
Beatles, Kinks, Them and Dylan. Vince was more of a Rolling Stones fan and into
RnB. I imagine through our shared interest of both music and the beautiful
girls of the Tech College we became mates and good friends.
For the annual college Christmas concert, in 1965,
we formed a wee group called Goggles Anonymous – we all wore glasses and Hedgehoppers
Anonymous were enjoying the first and only flush of UK chart success at that
time. I still can’t remember exactly my (non-performing) involvement in the
group bar the fact that I owned a copy of the Beach Boys Sloop John B, the song
Goggles Anonymous performed at the concert. Anyway, on the appointed night, I
do remember a lot of screaming from the audience. Either the audience were
screaming as they had seen people do on TV to the Beatles, or, they were
screaming in horror at the harmonies. I’m prepared to give GA the benefit of
the doubt on that one.
Christmas over, Vince and three of his mates from
Maghera and one of their mates from The Rainey School, formed a group called
the Blues by Five. There were five of them and they played their version of the
Blues.
Things were so simple in those days.
The Blues by Five’s material was based on the Them
Again album, Otis Redding, Wilson Picket, Ray Charles and songs from a compilation
called, Ireland’s Greatest Sounds. I went to hear the group. They were
excellent musicians, had a great sound, and they had Paddy Shaw, one of
the best singers I’ve ever witnessed live. The remaining Northern Irish singers
in my Top 4 would have been: Paul DiVito (The
Interns) Billy Brown (The Freshmen) and Van Morrison (Them).
The Blues by Five rehearsed a lot but didn’t play
many gigs. Luckily enough a fine gentleman by the name Dixie Kerr lived two
doors down from me. Dixie played saxophone in The
Breakaways showband. So, I knocked on his door and asked if he could give the
Blues by Five the relief spot at some of the dances The Breakaways were
playing. Dixie being Dixie said, “Why of course.”
The Blues by Five were delighted at the several
bookings I’d secured for them and immediately appointed me as their manager. I
was 15 years old at the time. The Blues by Five were to be Vince and my first
steps in the music business.
I left Magherafelt in Sept 1967 (quite literally) to
head to London so that I’d be able to see the Beatles live on a weekly basis.
Or so I thought.
In those days it took a long while for the buzz on
the biz to reach Ulster. I arrived at Euston Station only to discover the
Beatles had stopped touring a few months previously.
Not to worry, sure weren’t there lots of other
groups to see and hear. Pretty soon I was
a regular at the Marquee Club and writing a weekly music column for Belfast’s
City Week which eventually became Thursday Magazine.
Vince started to visit London and would always crash
at my flat in Wimbledon. He’d work late into the night on a bunch of songs he
was writing for a group he was thinking of forming back in Belfast.
I thought these songs, Decision, Garden Lady,
and Olde Tyme Future, were brilliant. Vince’s main concern was he felt
that they might be a wee bit too progressive for the Irish Market.
So, we hatched our plan. Vince would return to
Belfast and form his new group. I would set up a few gigs for them in London
and I would bring some managers and record companies down to see them. They,
Fruupp, would get signed up, go on to fame and fortune and I’d happily continue
with my writing. Sadly, it didn’t really happen that way and so, by default, I
became the manager, the agent, the roadie, the sound engineer, the lyricist,
the writer of the stories that linked the songs on stage, and… the last one to
be paid.
Fifty years later they’re selling more CDs than they
ever did back in the day! (a clue to this phenomenon might just be that CDs
didn’t come along until the mid-1980s!)
Which all brings us nicely to our latest collection,
Maid In
Ireland. Maid in Ireland was a title we had picked
and reserved for a live album, should we ever do one. And we did. Well at least we recorded one. We recorded the
band at the legendary Friars Aylesbury, on Sat 6th
December 1975. Sadly, the tapes, along with all my worldly possessions, were
destroyed by a fire in my flat in Peckham the follow year.
I believe the title also covers this selection
perfectly. Peter Farrelly’s
wonderful Fruupp’s Face on the cover was ever
present in everything we did. As it was when I was listening to the songs for
this collection.
Prince of Heaven is
unique for two reasons in that this song, a synopsis if you will, of the story
I wrote to be the basis for our third album, The Prince of Heaven’s Eyes,
didn’t appear on the actual album. It is also the only Fruupp song written
and composed by the four original members of the group.
The idea for Sheba’s Song came from a news
story I read in The Daily Mirror about a wild cat’s escape from a zoo. I just love
what the band did with the chase and capture sections of the song. Musically
it’s always been so visual to me. I’ve often wondered what rap artist Talib
Kweli heard when he first came upon the track and decided to sample it for Soon
the New Day, a line (taken from the original lyric) he used for his title.
I found it very refreshing that Talib and his people were very generous to us
with credits and publishing.
“Another day begins the same
The things you do you’ll do again.”
Two lines from Ivan “Touche” Valley’s beautiful poem, which was the inspiration behind Vince’s song, Decision. I always found Vince’s music to be passionately visual and that he should have been writing music for films. Decision has to be included in any Fruupp collection as it really is the best of Fruupp
Until the next time,
stay safe.
Cheers
pc
