Steven Clark - singer and songwriter
I don't know about influences, but here's some people whose songs and music I really like :Loudon Wainwright, Richard Thompson, Dick Gaughan, Michael Marra, Ry Cooder, Steve Earle, Robert Burns, J.Scott Skinner, Michael Marra, Randy Newman, amongst others. And, yes, I know Michael Marra is in the list twice and so should Randy Newman be, and if you ask me next week, I'll give you a different list.
My own songs range over many different subjects - all the way from the philosophical insights afforded by a pigeon, or the restorative properties of Our Other National Drink, to fury over the Iraq conflict and other lunacies of our time
My voice has been described, not unfairly, as being "able to bend the needle on a record player". (It was Ian Davison that said that). Guitar style? Hmm .. " a bit crap" describes it, I think. I play mandolin "a bit".
So, yeah, I have won the Girvan Folk Festival Songwriting Competition twice, but on the other hand, one of those years there was just me and a tone-deaf dog - and the dog's entry was called "My Pretty Budgie".
I've performed as a floor artist at the Star Folk Club, and at Stirling and Houston Folk Clubs (not as floor singer, because Houston don't have floor spots) , and I'm regularly to be heard at the Wednesday Singers Session (Unsaintly Singers) at Morrison's Bar on Clyde Street in Glasgow.
My song "Coming Home" has been recorded professionally by Ian Bruce as "Comin Hame", featuring on his album "Demon's Dance". You can listen to Ian's version at: Ian Bruce's Site. There's a review of Ian's CD "Demon's Dance" Here.... The review says (ahem) very nice things about my song (blush). It's also been arranged in a four-part version for Edinburgh choir Protest In Harmony, and is sung by the Eurydice choir.
I was born in 1957, but reserve the right to decline any more birthdays. I'm married and have two children who experience differing degrees of embarrassment about Dad's singing depending on whether I am in the supermarket when I do it. Born and brought up in Springburn in Glasgow, I have done more jobs than I can, or care to, remember. The song "Coming Home" is mentioned here Tom Shields' Column in the Sunday Herald, and also in "Weegies vs Edinbuggers 2" by Ian Black.
From Merr Weegies vs Edinbuggers
By
Ian Black
Black & White Publishing 2005
"At a concert supported by the Scottish Refugee Council in Partick Burgh Halls in Glasgow, there was a trio of Kurds from Iraq playing onstage, making joyful music, so joyful in fact that a few, and then a few more, and after a minute every Kurd in the hall, about twenty men, women and kids, were up dancing, giving it laldy big time. They were joined by some the Glasgow-born presentm, and they danced in a big circle in front of the stage. The guy in the seat next to me leaned over smiling and said "These f*ckers are going to fit right in, aren't they?"
His mate said "Whit's the Kurdish for 'Gaun yersel, big man?' and then just shouted it in Glaswegian anyway. For those unversed in Weegie-speak this is a form of very serious approbation and encouragement. One of the Glasgow-borns involved in the concert was Steven Clark, who allowed me to use his song "Home Again", with its deathless lines about the difference between Edinburgh and Glasgow: "One has a castle, the other a heart" in the first Weegies vs Edinbuggers.
He wrote a song to welcome our New Glaswqegians and it was sung as a finale for the concert by everyone, inlcuding our New Glaswegians. I could hardly sing it for the lump in my throat. The tune is Steven's own." |
