The vogue for unearthing and re-releasing ‘long-lost gems’ looks set to be a feature of 2024, and why not when they are as accomplished as South Atlantic Blues, the 1968 debut album on Atco from Scott Fagan?
Fagan’s backstory is worthy of exploration; that’s not only my view but also that of documentary makers (see below). Born in the United States, he relocated at a very early age to Saint Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands. The idyllic setting and artists’ colony, where painters, musicians, sculptors and dancers informed the environment in which he found himself, was rudely tempered by the abject poverty in which his family lived, at times in a mountainside cardboard shack. His mother’s relationship and alcohol issues contributed to a chaotic existence. For a short time, when he was 9, he lived as a street child in a slum in Puerto Rico, and his own brushes with the law on Saint Thoms led to the inevitable consequences. Music, however, proved somewhat of a lifeline.
The one radio station on Saint Thomas, WSTA, certainly made a great impact. Exposed to rock and roll, country, rhythm and blues, classical, military brass, mambo, charanga, jibaro and the ubiquitous West Indian calypso, these sounds heavily influenced his musical education.
An escape, of sorts, was effected when he was 19. In 1964 he got a job as a deckhand on a boat to Florida, where he played local bars and, thanks to fans, raised money to pay for a bus ticket to New York. Here, he so impressed the legendary Doc Pomus, that he was immediately signed up and began writing with both Pomus and the equally iconic Mort Shuman. He also found time to play a residency at the Café Au Go Go, performing on the same bill as Jimmy James and The Blue Flames (Jimi Hendrix); his firmament was such that he was even slated to be the debut non-Beatle signing to Apple Records, an honour eventually going to James Taylor.
By this time, his alcoholic mother was homeless, and his younger brothers had been taken into foster care, “And my job was to make hit records and rescue them.” Concurrently, the tracks that would become his debut album were begun in 1964 and written over the following three years, mostly on 49th Street and 10th Avenue, in the notorious Hell’s Kitchen area.
On its initial 1968 release, the album failed to create an impact and was largely overlooked. Despite the mentoring and tuition received from Pomus and Shulman, further ventures, such as co-writing the first rock musical on Broadway, Soon, bombed, he was blacklisted, and this, together with his strong feelings about racial and social justice, meant that Fagan was forced to resort to busking and, legitimate, hustling.
However, 1969 saw the album achieve some notoriety by way of it being the inspiration for works by the artist Jasper John, and 2015 saw a limited-edition reissue from Saint Cecilia Knows in association with Fagan’s label lil’fish records, complete with John’s lithograph as the cover.
This Earth Recordings release, however, sees South Atlantic Blues being reissued for the first time in its original artwork, with its iconic portrait of Fagan by celebrated rock photographer, Joel Brodsky, who was also responsible for other iconic covers for the likes of The Doors and Van Morrison.
Unsurprisingly, his early experiences permeate the record in a variety of ways, giving context to the album, not only in terms of the musical sounds present but also in the subject matter, “…even then I remember thinking: ‘Man, you’re going to remember this, you’re going to write about this, you’ve got to tell the world about these things that you’re seeing.”
In what could be seen as a ‘song-cycle’, the connotative lyrics in South Atlantic Blues conjure a love story based on themes such as desperation, isolation, the vacuity of hedonism, fading, failing love, the delights, devastations and disappointments of island life and a hankering for better, indeed as he himself states in his blog entry from 2010, “I loved my beautiful Island girl childhood sweetheart Patricia and a number of songs on “South Atlantic Blues” or “Scott Fagan Record” are very much about her and our times together” and all are enhanced by the production of Elmer Jared Gordon (Pearls Before Swine), and the lush arrangements of Horace Ott (Nina Simone, Sam Cooke, The Shirelles).
Soul, R & B, jazz, pop, a hint of ‘Donovan-mould’ psychedelic folk, all occasionally underscored with calypso and steel drums, are readily discernible musical features. A remarkable aspect of the album is its originality, remembering, of course, that it was issued in 1968. Two of the album’s other overriding strengths are its transparent honesty and authenticity, in tandem with Scott’s incredible vocal delivery, although it is appreciated that it is a voice that may divide opinion sharply.
In My Head is a revelatory opening track, surely as powerful now in 2024 as it was when it was first released. Strident brass, tasteful guitar licks and flourishes of strings mesh wonderfully together in a soulful groove on a song which possibly reflects upon the author’s coming of age as his anguished voice cries
“Somebody amen is watching the hangman walk down the line
And his reflection and his shadow do seem to be mine
Is it something, something, something I’ve said?
Oh, no! It’s something, something in my head”
Close your eyes and you could be forgiven for thinking that you were enjoying the vocal talents of David Bowie and the lyrical acuity of Nick Cave.
Nickels And Dimes, with its trippy, jazzy, folk-soul, again suggests a confused writer trying to come to terms with himself and life, with another nod to Patricia:
“If she hadn’t come calling my name I’d still be asleep in the corner, It was a growing affair, I had to be there you know”
thoughts assuaged by the final realisation
“But the night’s too long to spend it all crying bout too many nickels and dimes too many nickels and dimes…”
The next track is one of the standouts. The dark, melancholic Crying is a sparse offering with its plinky opening keys leading to gentle guitar notes and cool brass, whilst Fagan’s soulful vocals reflect a song written at a particularly low ebb during his time in New York
“Look at me
I’m crying
After all these years of trying
Soft and slowly go the tears
Chase away
All my fears
All the broken glass in me”
By contrast, musically, The Carnival Is Ended is an upbeat, light-hearted affair. Written when a youngster in Saint Thomas, the Caribbean/tropical sensibility is emphasised by the steel drums as the horns once again breeze through the piece very much in a mariachi style, those early radio influences outlined above are clearly reflected here.
The album’s title track also presents as a sparse, lilting, laidback, tropical-tinged offering, no brass or elaborate arrangements here, just acoustic and Spanish-sounding guitars and the merest hint of Caribbean percussion and lyrics, which paint a somewhat paradoxical picture of island life on Saint Vincent, the paradisal
“You know the Islands are the perfect place for going away
Life’s so easy there you live from day to day to day to day”
contrasted with the reality
“She lives in the alley, the hope gone from her eyes
Her dress is torn and dirty, loving lips are cracked and dried
She sits and cries, my life’s a lie
Her children think she’s died, her children think she’s died”
South Atlantic Blues, indeed, writ large.
Nothing But Loveand Crystal Ball both sound like show-tunes, with the former containing an instrumental section which, again, Fagan’s blog tells us “was a take off on “Shuffle Along” which was the theme for Addie Ottley’s afternoon Rock And Roll show on WSTA radio in the Virgin Islands very early sixties. I put it in to honor him and home.”
Tenement Hall and In Your Hands are two other key songs. The former, all sultry, brassy, jazz-blues, with touches of New Orleans-style piano, kick off into chaotic discordance, in perfect keeping with the social commentary which informs the subject matter and Fagan’s desperate “insane…Insane” wailing. In Your Hands is another song evincing Fagan’s social conscience. His 21st song, written on his 21st birthday, here he expresses his frustration with the on-going war in Vietnam, specifically President Johnson’s ‘day of prayer’. This he does without rancour or anger, displaying a maturity beyond his years. The basic accompaniment, leaving the focus firmly on the lyrics and vocal delivery, renders the song even more powerful.
The closing track, Madame Moiselle, is sonically very similar to the album’s opener, with cool brass arrangements with Bowie-esque vocals very much to the fore, bringing things neatly full circle.
Often dark and heartachingly sad, South Atlantic Blues is, nevertheless, an engrossing and rewarding listen. Scott Fagan will hopefully be rewarded in 2024 with the acclaim that both he and the album warranted in 1968.
As a footnote, this reissue also sees a renewal of activity and interest in Scott Fagan. Also lined up are a new album, the previously unrecorded soundtrack to the Soon rock musical, together with a documentary Soon: the Story of Scott Fagan, from Scissor Kick Films.