SCOTT FAGAN + CIAN NUGENT
Aiken Promotions presents
SCOTT FAGAN
plus support
CIAN NUGENT (SOLO)
^ Upstairs ^
Tickets priced €20 (incl booking fee) on sale Wednesday July 13th @ 9am from www.ticketmaster.ie www.whelanslive.com
Lost 60s folk cult-hero Scott Fagan comes to Ireland SOUTH ATLANTIC BLUES: ★ ★ ★ ★ MOJO ★ ★ ★ ★ RECORD COLLECTOR ★ ★ ★ ★ THE TIMES “ A taste of Scott Walker, a flicker of Bowie, Lou Reed and Tim Hardin, but a sound that is purely and utterly Fagan.” — The Guardian “An eccentric, genre jumping pop/psych/folk masterpiece.” — Dangerous Minds “Sott Fagan’s time has come at last” — The Quietus Reissued late last year to great acclaim, Scott Fagan’s 1968 debut album South Atlantic Blues reintroduced the world to one of the great lost folk singers of the 1960s, and an extraordinary story to rival that of Rodriguez. Fagan, the father of Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, was mentored by legendary songwriter Doc Pomus, almost signed to the Beatles’ Apple Records and played on the same bill at the Cafe Au Go Go as a pre-fame Jimi Hendrix.An epic song cycle about Fagan’s hard-scrabble life in the Virgin Islands, 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.
Now, audiences will get to see what all the fuss is about as Fagan prepares to embark on his very first tour of Europe.
Check out the Scott Fagan Session on NPR World Cafe