Dick Gaughan- hugh
Last week I got to see one of my inspirations in a concert in Dublin. He's a singer from Scotland with an honest, left wing tongue, who cares and sings passionatly about just about everything that needs caring about. Though his Scottish accent is so hard at times to understand( sometimes I wonder is he speaking English, or his native Scots Gaelic, or even a sub-Scottish language from Leith, just outside of Edinburgh), he speaks and tells stories that come from his heart, and I can relate to that. Someone once told me that if you write songs that truly mean something to you, the song will find it's audience no matter what, sooner rather than later.
It's my second time seeing him in concert, the first being a few years ago upstairs in Whelans, Dublin. I went alone that time as nobody close to me really knew his music then. It was a great little gig that time, as Wally Page supported him and he is one of my favourite musicians too. In Whelans, he was full of stories and he told them with such passion and belief. I truly admired him. Since then I've been sifting through his many albums, and I'm still discovering songs that take me to a new place. This is what your favourite artist should do to you.I discovered him in the strangest fashion. I was at a gig in Portlaoise, in County Laois, in a small pub. It was a CD launch that a friend was playing at. He was a bodhrán player who had a new album with many guest singers and musicians playing on it so he could accompany with his beats. One of those musicians was a singer called Séamie O'Dowd. He is an amazing singer with a very unique singing voice, and he had his piece to play at this gig, which was to sing a song. He sang this song which sent shivers through my soul but to my pity I didn't catch the name of the song. His muttering Sligo accent was near impossible to hear when he talked, far different and harder to understand than when he actually sang. I did, however, get the gist of what the song title could be from the singing itself.....Western Winds? Whistling Wind?? West Wings??? It was something like that....
Months had passed, and throughout these months I had tried relentlessly to find the song but to no avail. Then one day, casually drinking a pint with Darren, my now Na Fianna manager, he had showed me a song on YouTube that he had kept forgetting to show me for the last few months. The song was called "Now Westlin Winds". I couldn't believe it! I had told him that this is the song I was trying to find and he had said that it was the song he thought that I would like. How strange is that? He was right, I did like it. I finally found that song, and singing it was this Scottish fella that since then I have been intrigued by. Years have passed and so much joy he has given me through bis music and then it brought me to his concert I have just seen. He has undoubtedly aged since I last seen him only a couple of years ago, and certainly when you are constantly looking at his YouTube videos from his younger days in the 70's and 80's, I thought it's quite strange to see him so much older, so much more relaxed and nearly defeated in his voice, although, I know "defeat" is not in his strange Scottish vocabulary. It's not that old saying, "Never meet your idol", it's rather, I just don't want to see my idol grow old because he's amazing, but such is life. However in saying all this, it may sound like I was disappointed, but that couldn't be further from the truth. I am no less of his fan, I'm probably more so. He can do wonders with his songs no matter what. He is always top class in my mind. His name is Dick Gaughan. Here is a shoutout to the Gods above to ask them to keep this man fresh, the world deserves him.
https://youtu.be/vZ7oYCx6tBw
