Družice Fermi My acoustic homeland N° 5 / 1000

 

Shelagh McDonald – Album (1970) [2000]

 

 

Genre: Folk Ballads, Fusion, Jazz-Rock
Country: UK
Year: 1970 (2000)
Playtime: 1:04:00
Tracklist:
01. Mirage
02. Look Over the Hill and Faraway
03. Crusoe
04. Wating For the Wind to Rise
05. Ophelia’s Song
06. Richmond Sign In to rate!
07. Let No Man Steal Your Thyme
08. Peacock Lady
09. Silk and Leather
10. You Know You Can’t Lose
11. Ophelia’s Song
Bonus Tracks:
12. Jesus Is Just Alright
13. Book Of Rhyme
14. What More Can I Say?
15. City’s Cry [Version 1]
16. City’s Cry [Version 2]
17. Rod’s Song
18. Stargazer [False Start]
19. Stargazer

Shelagh McDonald (born 1948) is a Scottish folk singer, song-writer and guitarist who released two albums before her abrupt and mysterious disappearance in 1971. On her albums, she was backed up by many notables within the English folk-rock scene, including Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, Danny Thompson, Keith Tippett, Keith Christmas, the Fotheringay rhythm section, as well as Ian Whiteman, Roger Powell and Michael Evans, then members of Mighty Baby.

On 23 June 2005, by which time McDonald's albums had been reissued on CD, an article by Charles Donovan appeared in The Independent, the first high profile piece about McDonald's disappearance. This prompted copycat features in local papers, the Glasgow Herald and the Scottish Daily Mail. It was the latter of these that caught the eye of McDonald herself. In November 2005, McDonald turned up in the offices of the Scottish Daily Mail and told them her story. She retreated from public life after a bad LSD trip left her paranoid and hallucinating, with a ruined voice. Living with her parents and working privately in Edinburgh, she met and married bookseller Gordon Farquhar; together, they lived a nomadic lifestyle in north Britain, living on welfare benefits and moving from house to house, and later tent to tent.

As of 2005, McDonald says her voice has improved and she is again interested in music, and the renewed interest in her work by the public surprised and gratified her. Since then, however, nothing more has been heard of her.

Discography:

• The Shelagh McDonald Album - B&C Records, 1970
• Stargazer - B&C Records, 1971
• Let No Man Steal Your Thyme - Sanctuary Records, 2005

http://www.btinternet.com/~blackvelvet/

Mystery woman 

Shelagh McDonald was on her way to being a folk star in the Seventies when she disappeared. Charles Donovan investigates 

On the cusp of fame and fortune in 1972, talented and critically acclaimed songwriter Shelagh McDonald disappeared. Now her music is back in print, but the royalties remain uncollected, and her whereabouts are a mystery. 

On the cusp of fame and fortune in 1972, talented and critically acclaimed songwriter Shelagh McDonald disappeared. Now her music is back in print, but the royalties remain uncollected, and her whereabouts are a mystery.

A performer and composer with the poise of Joni Mitchell and the whimsy of Nick Drake. That was McDonald. But after unleashing two albums, she vanished. No one has seen her for 33 years. No death records exist to confirm the worst, yet her former collaborators are somehow certain she is alive.

McDonald came to London from Edinburgh in the 1960s and was feted by Melody Maker, NME and ZigZag. She was a composer with promise, a voice blending the melancholy of Sandy Denny and the birdsong of Joan Baez, and a beauty who didn't capitalise on her looks. Signed to Sandy Roberton's B&C Records, she didn't move many units with her first outing (1970's artlessly entitled Shelagh McDonald Album), but a second album was to prove a dramatic leap forward. However, within months of the release of Stargazer, a mini-masterpiece from 1971, she was nowhere to be found, and her phone had been disconnected.

There are rumours of a disastrous LSD experience, a move to North America, a career as a children's author, reinvention as a teller of folk stories in US, and the possibility of death. No theory has panned out, though none has been entirely disproved. Now her music is back in print, in the form of Let No Man Steal Your Thyme, a compilation comprising everything else she's known to have recorded. It's clocking up the kind of sales that McDonald never enjoyed when she was in the public eye.

Her friends and collaborators can shed little light on what happened to her. Keith Christmas, the singer/songwriter instrumental in landing Shelagh her record deal, recalls first seeing her at the Troubador. "She seemed so talented. The audience was in love with her - she had an elfin, raggedy-dress quality that downplayed her femininity and a strong Scottish reserve that made her mysterious."

Despite product in the stores, good reviews, and a "new Sandy Denny" sobriquet, McDonald was in trouble, as Keith Christmas witnessed: "She'd moved to a horrible block of flats in Islington just like the Gorbals, with about the same amount of soul."

McDonald is thought to have made only moderate use of narcotics, but moderation alone can spell disaster for some. "The last I heard, she'd had a bad trip, been taken to hospital and her parents had come to take her back," says Christmas. "She was a lovely person and deserved a lot more from some of her so-called advisers than she got. She was as a shy and gentle soul who somehow got lost in a nightmare."

Robert Kirby, arranger both to McDonald and to Nick Drake, remembers an upbeat woman. "She was jolly, very big smile, lots of conversation, great fun to be with." He doesn't think that her Islington flat brought about her downfall. "Yes, it was a tenement with grimy corridors, but when you're 22 that doesn't matter. I didn't really encounter her in depressed mode."

Kirby isn't certain that a bad acid trip is all McDonald was up against, and that an intense relationship with an unidentified man may have prompted her to flee. "It was not making her happy, that's my reading, and she was trying to get away from it."

Sandy Roberton has no leads. "I know she left London and went back up to Scotland. I just hope she is happy." There is no documented evidence of McDonald's death, and an APB put out on her in America has yielded nothing. McDonald's admirers and colleagues, including Geoff, who runs a website about her music, don't want to force her out of hiding.They just want her to know that the music that spilt from her soul remains locked in their hearts.

There is a groundswell of goodwill awaiting Shelagh, should she reappear, and one last twist: her royalties remain uncollected. She may have no interest in the funds owed to her, but to reassure her fellow musicians and longstanding fans that she is alive and well would be a much appreciated gesture.

'Let No Man Steal Your Thyme' is out now on Castle/Sanctuary records. To find out more about Shelagh, visit www.btinternet.com/~blackvelvet/

---

News & Actualities

archiv

News & accesories

Oblíbené odkazy

• About.com - Blues
• Absolutely Kosher Records
• Acoustic Guitar Magazine
• Adrian Recordings
• All Music
• All Scandinavian Music
• Alternative Tentacles
• ALT Sounds - Independent Music Journalism
• Amazon
• American Music podle Stefana Wirze
• Amplión Records
• Animal Music Records
• Anish Kapoor
• ANTI -
• Archa Theatre / Divadlo Archa
• Arch Hill Recordings - New Zealand Independent Record Label & Mu
• Art Design Café
• ARTA Records
• The Artist Shop
• Arts & Crafts
• Assumer Guide
• Asthmatic Kitty Records
• Atlantic Records
• Bandzone.cz
• Bar/None Records
• Barsuk Records
• BBC Radio 2
• BELLA UNION
• Better Looking Records
• Billboard
• The Bill Frisell Song Finder
• Black Canvas Records
• Black Hen Music
• Blind Pig Records
• Bloodshot Records
• Blue Note Records
• Blues Interactions / Japan
• BLUES Magazine (France)
• Boomkat
• BraAgas
• Bright Midnight Archives - The Doors Music
• Brit Awards
• Budoár staré dámy
• Camino Records
• CD Baby
• CD Roots
• Championship Music
• Chapeau Rouge Club Prague
• Cherry Red Records
• Circusworld Productions
• Concord Music Group
• Consequence of Sound
• Cooking Vinyl UK
• Cowboy Lyrics
• Crammed Discs and Associated Labels
• Daily Music Guide
• Darla Records
• Daytrotter Sessions
• The Deli NYC / LA / SF Music Magazine
• Dine Alone Records
• Django Station
• DGM Live
• Dog My Cat Records
• Domino Records
• Drag City Records
• Dusted Magazine
• Dust Songs
• East Village Radio
• EasyCapsa.cz - Poslat zásilku
• EMI Label Services & Caroline Distribution
• Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Enja Yellow Birds / Jazz Records
• Essay Recordings
• Exclaim! Canada´s Music Authority
• Facebook
• FAME Magazine
• Fat Cat Records
• Fat Possum Records
• Filter Magazine
• Fina-Music
• Fire Records
• Fly Fi
• Fretbase songs
• Full Time Hobby
• GIBSON
• GIZEH Records
• Good Day Records
• Guerilla Records
• Hellthy Entertainment
• HMV.com
• Hudba.sk
• Iceland Airwaves Festival
• Ice Cream Man
• IFPI
• The Independent
• Indies Scope Records
• Insound
• INTAKT RECORDS
• iREPORT
• Israeli & Jewish Music
• Iva Marešová & 999
• Jagjaguwar Records
• Jambands
• Jana Šteflíčková
• JANGO Tais Awards Songs
• Jaryn Janek bass web
• Jazz FM - Listen Live
• The Jazz Loft
• Jazz Meets World
• JazzPort.cz
• JAZZ REPUBLIC / CLUB PRAGUE
• Joe Wakeford
• Justin Lavash
• Just Music
• Just Plain Folks
• Kate Kilbane
• K Records
• Kemado Records
• Killrockstars
• Kranky
• Kurzy měn
• Kutya - jewellery / shop / Midi Lidi
• Kyle Gann
• Kytary.cz
• Label Home Table (Dva)
• Lambchop
• Landmine Alert [cze label]
• Laurie Anderson
• Le Chant du Monde
• Live from Austin
• Locust Music Records
• Longital
• LoveMusic
• Lowcut
• Lucerna Music Bar
• Luckyhorse Industries
• Luft Kinoklub Lysá n. Labem
• Manuel Rodriguez and Sons
• Marta Topferova
• Matador Records
• MAUNET
• Maxumi Dance Music Magazine
• Mercury Records
• Merge Records
• Miami Science Museum
• Michael´s Uncle
• Midi Lidi
• MISELAGO - Australia & New Zealand
• Mix.cz
• Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
• MOJO
• Mondomix
• Moon June Records
• Musis Is Amazing
• Musicserver.cz
• Music Report / Slovakia
• Muzikus
• MySpace
• Naïve Records
• Native American/Indian Tribes
• Nejnejnej.cz (rock-jazz.cz/cs/eshop)
• Nettwerk Records
• Nonesuch Records
• Noripcord - Music & Film
• NorthernBlues Music
• Ocean Music
• Odessa Records
• One Little Indian Records
• Open Mic Potrvá
• Ottmar Liebert
• Palác Akropolis
• Parasol Records
• PARIS ON THE MOVE - blues/jazz/rock
• Paste Magazine
• Patrick Fraser photography
• Petr Dorůžka - World Music
• Philzone.com
• PICCADILLY RECORDS
• Piper Records
• Pitchfork Media
• Poetry Foundation
• Polyvinyl Record Co.
• Prague Jazz Clubs
• Pretty Good Music - New, unknown, and up-and-coming artists
• Progboard.com / Slovakia
• Putumayo World Music
• Q The Music
• Radio SOTOKOTO
• Radio Wave
• Recommended Records
• Red Grape Records
• Red House Records
• Relix - The Magazine For Music
• Respekt.cz
• Respect Music - Rachot
• The Reykjavík Grapevine / Music
• Rhino Records
• Robert Christgau
• Robin Parmar
• Rockwood Music Hall, NYC
• Rolling Stone
• Rollo & Grady
• Root Down Records
• Rough Trade Records
• Rune Grammofon
• Ryuichi Sakamoto
• Sanity Muffin
• The Santa Fe Desert Style as Defined by SSRI
• Sarah Cahill
• Secretly Canadian
• Sentimentalist Magazine
• Seu Jorge and Almaz
• Shangri-La Records
• Shout! Factory - Music, Movies & Video
• Silber Records
• Six Degrees Records
• The Skinny
• Skoda Jazz Festival
• Slnko Records
• Smells Like Records
• Smooch Records
• The Social Registry
• S.O.I.L.
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
• Song Lyrics
• Song Meanings, Lyrics and Trivia.
• Sounds Familyre Records
• Sound On Sound
• Southern Records
• Spin Magazine
• Spruce & Maple Music
• Stereo & Video
• Stick
• Stony Plain Records
• Studio Najbrt
• Sub Pop Records
• Sue & Sanyland
• Sugar Hill Records
• SUPERMUSIC.SK
• Tea Art Workshop
• Telarc
• Three Ring Records
• Thrill Jockey Records
• Touch and Go / Quarterstick Records
• Trina Shoemaker [mixer/producer/engineer]
• Triple J Unearthed
• Turkmen Music & Multimedia Homepage
• Tzadik
• UbuWeb
• UCCA
• Uncut
• Unijazz
• Úschovna.cz
• U Kaštanu
• U Zavěšenýho kafe - kavárna a hospoda
• Vagon Club
• Vagrant Records
• ValMez 2009
• Vladivojna La Chia
• Wagram Music
• Warm Electronic Recordings
• Waterloo Records
• Webradio Welle303.de
• WERS 88.9 FM
• Western Vinyl
• Wikipedia
• Winter & Winter
• Womad Shop
• WOMEX
• Wrasse Records
• XL Recordings
• X Production s.r.o.
• Yamaha
• Yep Roc Records
• Yer Bird Records
• Young God Records
• You Tube
• Zazzle Store Tais Awards
• Zunior.com
• ZVA 12-28 Band
• Živé kvety
• 11 Records
• 3bees - Recording
• 4AD Records
• 500 Records
• 7digital