Preservation, celebration, remuneration – recreating a fabulous lost legacy of music and rewarding the artist directly
This is a project of preservation, celebration and remuneration for Dick Gaughan, one of the folk music giants of the late 20th century: (1) to preserve, polish and present a remarkable body of work from 1969–83 (most of it previously unreleased); (2) to celebrate Dick’s incredible artistry once again, years after he and much of his recorded work have faded from view; and (3) to remunerate Dick fairly and squarely for that work.
The 7CD+DVD box set in preparation will include over 9 hours of music and around 90 minutes of film. It’s being created by a crack team of professionals: Colin Harper (audio/film research, compiling, project managing); Graeme Thomson (booklet author); Cormac O’Kane (audio mastering); Eroc (film restoration/mastering); Mark Case (design); and cheerleading from trad torchbearers Karine Polwart, Barbara Dickson, Steve Byrne and Robin Dransfield.
Does Dick approve? Yes. Will Dick get 100% of the revenue after costs? Yes.
Background:
Dick Gaughan was a towering figure in folk music – a singer of rare quality, a peerless guitar stylist, a charismatic performer and a champion of compassion and social justice. He was a light in the darkness for decades. His performances brought together music of blistering righteousness with sharp wit and implausible cheeriness in the introductions. He was a man of the people – a tsunami of positive energy and optimism. His career began in the late 60s folk clubs of Edinburgh and ended with a stroke in 2016.
This is all past tense – but Dick Gaughan is alive and well, up to a point. He can no longer play guitar and is legally blind, but his optimism remains. He lives totally ‘off the grid’ in terms of internet presence and together with very little activity around his back catalogue (explained below), there is a danger that the memory of Dick Gaughan – and the music of Dick Gaughan – is fading from view, his pre-90s career of 20 years boiled down to periodic reissues of one album, Handful of Earth (1981).
These were the thoughts that crossed Colin Harper’s mind one day in 2024. Colin had seen Gaughan many times in the 80s and 90s, until life got in the way and he lost track of Dick’s career after Outlaws and Dreamers (2001). He later heard, with sadness, of the stroke that ended Dick’s public performances. Fast forward to 2024, and Colin – by this point a very experienced ‘curator’ in the world of archival projects around vintage folk, jazz and rock – found himself taking a phone call from Robin Dransfield, veteran folk legend (retired) and Cornwall recluse, whose phone book more of less consists of two numbers: Dick Gaughan’s and Colin Harper’s. Robin happened to mention Dick, and a pebble started rolling down a mountain…
Colin found himself listening to Gaughan’s music for the first time in a while and thinking, ‘This man was a genius. Why have I neglected this music for so long? Why don’t we hear anything about Dick Gaughan these days?’ Indeed, to adapt some notorious graffiti on Slade back in the day, ‘Whatever happened to Dick Gaughan?’
Colin decided to use his skills and his contacts to do something about this – to create a product that would draw attention to Gaughan once again, to retrieve his artistry from Gaughan’s reissue ‘dead zone’ of the 70s, to allow old fans to engage anew with his artistry and to allow new people to maybe hear something about him – and hear something by him – for the first time. Crucially, it would also allow Dick – if he was willing to let the idea proceed – to make some money.
Colin created a 12-disc set on paper. Robin Dransfield phoned Dick. He was potentially interested. He spoke to Colin and he became enthusiastically interested. Unfortunately, Colin’s record industry contacts were not interested. Colin honed down the set to its essentials, phoned fellow Gaughanite Karine Polwart for moral support and started putting the costs together. We would do it ourselves.
FIND OUT MORE
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2121905920/dick-gaughan-r-evolution-1969-84-an-8-disc-box-set