Scotland's great lost album?
New Celeste's On the Line is a 1979 masterpiece. Now remastered and rereleased
You can read the essay below while listening to the Spotify playlist (it's at the end) or listen to me reading the whole thing, with the listed tracks played at occasionally relevant points, on Mixcloud here.
New Celeste — Johnny
An Ayrshire boy, I first saw the words ‘New Celeste’ in a rapturous Troon and Prestwick Times review of an Eglinton Folk Club gig in Irvine. At the time, the mid-1970s, I couldn’t imagine anything more glamorous than an acclaimed appearance at the upstairs lounge of the Eglinton Hotel. New Celeste were, said the paper’s folk correspondent, who I think was the late Derek Masterton “the best thing to come out of Glasgow since Rangers and Celtic. They are without doubt the best contemporary band in the country.”
I can quote this review exactly as it is reproduced on the inner sleeve of New Celeste’s superb 1979 album On the Line. Now, after 45 years, remastered and re-released on, well, line. To my mind, it’s Scotland’s great lost record, a scintillating blend of laconic, soulful vocals and instrumental prowess, great songwriting, re-arrangements of traditional tunes and a unique merging of Celtic and ‘world’ music, jazz, progressive rock and funk.
New Celeste — P stands for Paddy
Graeme Duffin — Spain
Alas, I was never to see the band live. Not long after the record’s release I met a young, extremely hirsute guitarist called Graeme Duffin, fresh from months on the European gig circuit with New Celeste. He and his wife Pamela - sound engineer for the band - had decided the glamorous van life of gigging from Irvine to Lorient, John O’Groats to Hamburg, was over. A settled life in Glasgow beckoned. At least for a while.
I knew Of Graeme’s previous exploits with legendary Glasgow jazz funk combo Maybe The Floor and his reputation as one of the city’s top guitarists. We became friends, and many hilarious, sometimes scary and lurid tales were told of Graeme and Pam’s days on the international folk circuit with New Celeste. Who in the meantime continued under Iain Fergus’s leadership in the first of several personnel changes. Iain and the band remain to the fore today. I’ve still never seen them live.
Lenny Kravitz — Let Love Rule
A vinyl copy of On the Line on the German label Hansa international was an early present from Graeme and Pam and I remember being quite taken aback by its power and quality. This wasn’t the drummerless folky ensemble I’d envisaged. Neither was it the sub-Steeleye fiddles-and-crunchy-guitars affair it might have been. Produced brilliantly by Ulli Weigel in his new studio in Berlin and mixed at the legendary Hansa on the Wall, soon to become famous for the work there of Iggy Pop and David Bowie, it combined Fergus’s terrific voice - a kind of slurred drawl, part John Martyn, part Dick Gaughan - with fine original songs and tunes. There were some radical rearrangements of traditional material such as Johnny (comes marching home) and fine playing from all concerned - including the twin-fiddle front line of Rod Dorothy and Ronnie Gerrard - ranging from the ferocious and frenetic to the tasteful and haunting. Graeme’s jazz-rock and funk chops are more to the fore on the album than anything else he’s done (those George Benson quotes!) and the bass playing from Stewart Smith, sometimes taking the lead (as on P Stands for Paddy) is just exquisite. Twisty arrangements include keyboards by the then-unknown Henry Hirsch, since then a superstar collaborator in the USA with the likes of Madonna and Lenny Kravitz, and drumming that always expands and never intrudes from Christian Evans (later to play with the likes of Jill Scott and Beverley Knight). It’s all complex but accessible , fresh and dynamic. I loved the record. I still have that original German pressing.
Madonna — Justify My Love
The re-release provides the opportunity to listen again with fresh, if aged and slightly damaged ears, and re-assess. In the years since, I’ve listened to all the great pioneers of folk rock, been given a crash course in fiddle-related Scottish music via Shetland and all who sail in her folk festival; travelled with and written about Runrig and Capercaillie, interviewed everyone from Richard Thompson to Bert Jansch, Rab Noakes to Barbara Dickson, Roger Daltrey to Loudon Wainwright and Dolly Parton. I have heard some of the greatest folk and folk rock ever made in Shetland and beyond. Been bought whisky by Simon Nicol at 6.00am on the island of Unst. But on listening to On the Line, I really wonder how it and the band failed to be recognised more at the time as, simply, brilliant. The record just explodes with youthful freshness. It combines jazz, rock and prog with Irish, Canadian and English folk, all filtered through a very Scottish sensibility in a way that I don’t think exists anywhere else. It has great depth and instrumental pyrotechnics that never overburden the songs. A number of circumstances brought the band to Berlin and Ulli Weigel at just the right time. Never would they access the resources and musicianship available in that city at that time again. And another thing: at just 37 minutes long, On The Line never outstays its welcome.
Wet Wet Wet — East of the River
I worried that on listening, 40 years on, this would be a magic trip down memory lane to those long curries in the Duffins’ Temple flat next to the Forth and Clyde Canal in Glasgow. But it’s a lot more than that; much more than a historical artefact. It’s a really great record. It still is.
New Celeste — Morrison’s Jig
Iggy Pop — the Passenger
As I say, I’ve never seen New Celeste live. The Eglinton Hotel is long gone, though the Irvine folk club still flourishes as the oldest continuously operating folk club in Scotland. Graeme joined Wet Wet Wet and is still touring with them. New Celeste are still going strong, and have recorded many more albums. This, though, must surely remain their masterpiece. Released in Germany, then France, and sold on the road, it’s never been available in the UK. Now, it’s offered to the world. And It’s a joy. The Troon and Prestwick Times would love it.
Download the remastered On The Line here:
Playlist:
New Celeste — Johnny
New Celeste — P stands for Paddy
Graeme Duffin — Spain
Lenny Kravitz — Let Love Rule
Madonna — Justify My Love
Wet Wet Wet — East of the River
Jill Scott — A Long Walk
New Celeste — Morrison’s Jig
Iggy Pop — The Passenger
David Bowie — Heroes
New Celeste — Such a Lovely Day