Out walking last week
Getting on with this and that last week I was shocked and upset to see a headline on a local paper in our corner shop that shouted out just three words: "Michael Marra dies". Some of you may not know Marra - he was a very local hero in some ways (born in Dundee, died in Dundee) - but he was an absolutely brilliant singer, songwriter, musician and entertainer. I have written about him on blogs before and even once wrote a poem celebrating his genius (that's here). I saw him perform live 3 or 4 times (even got to introduce him at a benefit gig in Dundee once) and he was really a cut above most performers (and songwriters). He was only 60 when he died and there are a host of tributes in online newspapers (a good one in Dundee's Courier here, for example).
Good-bye Michael Marra and thanks for sharing your talent with the rest of us. We really appreciated it.
4 comments:
"wheelbarrow off Kilimanjaro" - brilliant. Sad he wasn't more widely known.
Yes... but I think that was in some part his choice. He did go to London when he was younger and worked as a songwriter for a while but from what I got from a radio interview with him on Scottish BBC a while back he just didn't want to work like that - he wanted to do his own thing in his own way. And though he wasn't widely known outside this area he was hugely popular round here - very busy, always working (he was a visual artist too though I've not seen his work in that field). Also he had a family (his kids have a band called the Hazey Janes) and he was involved with all sorts of community arts and music projects. He chose his place in the world really I think.
And when you read what it takes to be more widely known... I was reading an epic profile of Bruce Springsteen the other day... here
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/07/30/120730fa_fact_remnick?currentPage=all
well, that just isn't for everybody.
x
Another Scottish secret too well kept. It's amazing just how much of the very best English music comes from Scotland!
I'm trying to think of an English musician/performer who might stand alongside Marra... who writes in that vein, performs in that way... no-one jumps to mind. He was often compared to American Randy Newman and certainly that rings fairly true. He made songwriting sound easy, did lovely things with a piano. I don't think Newman rests his keyboard on an ironing board though (a Marra signature move!).
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