‘It felt to me as if the world had forgotten about the Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley of folk, or a singular figure in the mould of Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash or Richard Thompson.” So says Colin Harper, curator of a slew of new releases celebrating the stunning music of Scottish musician Dick Gaughan. Harper had recently reconnected with his music after several decades, “and I couldn’t believe the quality of it. His singing and guitar playing were astonishing – he performed traditional songs and championed social justice so powerfully.”
But if you haven’t heard of the 77-year-old Gaughan, it’s not surprising: much of his work has been unavailable for years, the rights to it having been claimed by the label Celtic Music, who have not made it available digitally. Gaughan doesn’t recall receiving a royalty statement from the company in 40 years. He is battling for ownership and, in turn, hopes to help other veteran folk artists regain control of their catalogues. “To find that the music I made, that I put a lot of work into, is just not available – it’s like your life isn’t available,” he says.
Born in Glasgow in 1948, and raised in Leith in an impoverished musical family, Gaughan became a jobbing musician at 22, later recording 12 solo albums and multiple collaborations. Capable of both stunning delicacy and fiery spirit in his performances, he recorded nine sessions for John Peel (solo and in groups), who said during one of his 1977 shows: “He’s a singer so good that prolonged exposure to him could drive you daft.”
Gaughan became a much-loved regular at folk clubs up and down the country. Later in his career, he brilliantly led Emmylou Harris, Kate and Anna McGarrigle and Kate’s 21-year-old son Rufus Wainwright on folk ballad Wild Mountain Thyme, on a 1995 episode of Scottish TV show Transatlantic Sessions. “I was so lucky to work with Dick Gaughan at an impressionable age,” says Wainwright. “His ability affected my singing for the duration.”
Richard Hawley also saw him in the 2000s at Greystones folk club in Sheffield. “It was very quickly apparent to me that this man was a force to be reckoned with,” he says. “It was a night of powerful song that I’ll never forget.”
Gaughan’s most successful album, 1981’s Handful of Earth – a mixture of political songs and tender ballads recorded after he recovered from a breakdown – is still startling. Hawley calls it “another league away from most things in any genre of music I’ve ever heard”. It was a significant influence on Billy Bragg, who loved Gaughan’s version of The World Upside Down, which he re-recorded and still performs regularly live. On the cover, Gaughan stands dressed in black like a Gaelic Johnny Cash, knee-deep in golden wheat, with a hulking cement works brooding behind him.
Harper, an author, composer and box-set compiler, was shocked to discover that only a 2019 CD remaster of this album, an introductory CD on Topic Records (gleaned from only three albums Gaughan released for that label) and a live recording from 1982, had been reissued in the last 20 years. “This is someone with a similar cultural standing in Scotland as Bert Jansch or Christy Moore in Ireland,” he says. “I felt that the universe was telling me I had to do something about this.”
So he assembled a team (working for nothing, like him, or at “ultra mates’ rates”) to license, promote and create a lavish seven-CD and DVD package, complete with liner notes and archive interviews, after several reissue labels rejected his approaches. Crowdfunding had facilitated other folk projects, he noticed, such as the forthcoming film about folklorist Doc Rowe, and the publication of fRoots magazine editor Ian A Anderson’s memoir, Alien Water. When Harper’s crowdfunding campaign launched in March, “we hoped that we might be able to raise £28,000 from fans within a month”. He remains shocked at what happened next. “We got that amount in a day.”
He raised £91,985 in total. It prompted him to curate other collections including Live at the BBC: 1972-79, released this month. But the Dick Gaughan Legacy Project, as it is now called, has not been without hurdles. Harper tried and failed to license material from Celtic Music, the entity that acquired several legendary folk labels in the 1980s, including Trailer and Leader (which had gone bankrupt).
Today, Celtic Music claims ownership of eight albums featuring Gaughan’s work, from his 1972 debut album No More Forever to 1995’s Clan Alba, a LP by a folk supergroup, including Patsy Seddon and Brian McNeill, which Gaughan led and produced. None are available to stream. All have been unavailable on CD for decades, except Clan Alba, which can currently be bought from Celtic Music Distribution on Amazon Marketplace for £32.
Despite initial contact in which they referred to unspecified “inaccuracies” in points put to them by the Guardian, Celtic Music did not respond to a list of detailed questions.
Gaughan is now living a quiet life in Edinburgh, partially sighted, and having retired from performing in 2016 after suffering an earlier stroke. The renewed interest in his work has moved him. “At the time, I did the gigs and the records without worrying too much about how it was received, because that was never my primary intention,” he says. “It’s been wonderful to realise all that actually meant something to so many people.” But, he adds, the battles with Celtic Music over the years have been “frustrating and very depressing”, and he says it’s not about the money.
Celtic Music is not listed on Companies House. Nor is Northworks, the publishing entity affiliated with Celtic Music, which claims 100% mechanical royalties (payments made whenever a song is sold physically, downloaded or streamed) to 61 of Gaughan’s works, and from whom Gaughan says he has never received a royalty statement. In July, emboldened by the interest in his music, Gaughan formally registered challenges to the companies’ claims to his publishing with the Performing Right Society (PRS): the contested works were frozen in September, the royalties held until the dispute is resolved and the rightful owner can be established.
On behalf of Gaughan, Harper also launched a GoFundMe campaign to help him raise £45,000 to cover legal fees to test Celtic Music’s claims: to date, the total has reached 90%, and supporters include Woody Guthrie’s daughter, Nora Guthrie, and multimillionaire music industry investor Merck Mercuriadis, who has also “made himself available to give generous advice and contacts”, says Harper.
If successful, the effects of Gaughan’s actions will be far-reaching in the folk world. Other artists who have made albums claimed but not yet reissued by Celtic Music include Nic Jones (whose performing career was cut short after a car accident in 1982), Martin Simpson, Barbara Dickson and Barry and Robin Dransfield. Celtic Music also won a case against Domino Records in 2018, blocking sales of a 2017 reissue of Lal and Mike Waterson’s critically acclaimed 1972 album, Bright Phoebus, put together after the death of Celtic Music’s founder, Dave Bulmer. In a press release after the court hearing, Celtic Music promised a “programme of rereleases”, which remains eagerly awaited seven years on. Bright Phoebus is currently unavailable on Amazon. “I’m delighted that Dick Gaughan is testing the legal grounds around the continued Celtic Music claiming and hoarding of so much music from the past that people care about,” says Marry Waterson, daughter of the late Lal.
The enthusiasm with which people have received the Dick Gaughan Legacy Project, however, gives Harper hope. He has already been able to give Gaughan a substantial amount of money from the Kickstarter campaign; “his first real earnings from music for years”, he says. “We’ve shown there’s an audience for Dick’s music, and so many people want to correct what I call this legacy gap in folk.”
Gaughan expresses his feelings more simply, with his trademark, gentle power. “I never wanted to sing into a vacuum. I wanted to sing my songs to real human beings who are listening.”