Skill and craft camouflaged

Sonny Condell has had a prolific if understated musical history, concerned more with his craft than career – but the re-release of his debut solo album and a continued involvement with Tír Na nÓg and Scullion are worth making noise about, writes TONY CLAYTON-LEA

SOMETIMES THE people who shout the loudest are the least heard; their bluster undermines their intent, their blather overshadows their patter. And sometimes, too, it’s the quiet ones you really and truly have to look out for, the people whose year-to-year work in their given disciplines is undertaken with a gentility of spirit, a hesitant sense of humility and a droll sense of humour.

Virtually written out of Irish music history because he doesn’t sing his praises boldly or emphatically enough, Sonny Condell nonetheless strikes a blow for the quiet types by still being around to tell a few tales and, more crucially, to create a well-crafted song.

Now in his early 60s (although looking nowhere close to pensionable age), Wicklow-born Condell’s first forays into music began in the late 1960s, when he and teenage Carlow musician Leo Kelly (who had already paid his dues in a variety of areas, including a few showbands and in Dónal Lunny’s Emmett Spiceland) left for London.

In a streets-paved-with-gold scenario, the pair simply walked into the studios of Chrysalis Records, sang a few songs for the assembled executives, hippy hangers-on and AR people, and were signed up in jig-time to a record deal. It sounds such an outlandish stunt that it’s bound to be a myth, yes? “It’s actually true,” says Condell.

“We had made a demo in a studio in London, afterhours, for nothing. We had recorded six or seven songs, and we went with them to Island Records, but they said it wasn’t for them. They suggested, however, going to Chrysalis, so we went there, and they listened, really liked what they heard, and said they wanted to sign us.”

Such an immediate reaction was the polar opposite to the kind of response the pair had received in Ireland, which at that time had little or no music industry infrastructure. With neither the ballad area nor the rock club scene willing to put up with such a curious-sounding folk-rock hybrid, the duo had little choice but to seek their fortunes elsewhere.

“There didn’t seem to be any future in Ireland for what we were doing,” Condell explains. “We hadn’t actually formed the band before we went over, we were in company with ourselves, so to speak. But Leo was, and still is, of a very optimistic nature, with great self-belief, which carried us. He wasn’t surprised that we were signed, but I was more doubtful. I think what we were doing was quite remarkable and different, and Leo believed in us as a band, which helped us to perform and impress people.”

Being signed to Chrysalis ensured that Condell and Kelly – by this stage operating under the moniker Tír Na nÓg – were arm-in-arm with the big guns of the British rock establishment. Two young Irish lads in cahoots with the likes of The Who, Emerson, Lake Palmer and Jethro Tull was, recalls Condell, nothing short of extraordinary.

“I often look back on those days in amazement. We had very memorable tours, one of which was all across north and central Europe with Jethro Tull. We did a lot of work with them, because our boss, Terry Ellis, was their boss and co-owner of the record company. It was quite extraordinary to wander around the cities we were playing in, waiting to get on the bus to the next city, the next venue. I was about 20, and coming from Wicklow, never having been outside the country before, it was a really eye-opening and privileged position to be in.”

Once the major act support slots were over, though, it was two Irish musicians and a Transit van driving up and down the motorways of England (“endlessly, it seemed”) as albums were released, reviewed, supported by radio play from the likes of John Peel, and then forgotten about.

"The first album [1971's Tír Na nÓg] and the first couple of years were really exciting, but of course, it got to a point where it started to slip into a pattern. When it came to doing the third album [1973's Strong in the Sun]we had recorded with it with one producer, but the record company didn't particularly like it, so we had to record it again. Things like that began to sow seeds of doubt. Also, they had us working more or less non-stop. It was all a bit mad, really, but because they were a one-stop shop – record company, management agency, publishing, recording – we had no leverage on them. The seeds in that, of course, were in the signing of the deal in the first place – which we were delighted to do, and which we jumped at without having any legal representation.

“Leo and I got on really well pretty much all the time, and the music was always very enjoyable and exciting to do. And the people, the fans, seemed to go for it. But then we found out that management was ignoring us, so at that point, I came back to Ireland, while Leo stayed in England and went subsequently to Holland.”

On his return to Ireland, Condell released his debut solo album, Camouflage, in 1977. This has now been re-issued through the American label, Compass, and although its creator wasn't informed about any aspect of its re-release ("It's like the present Government – nothing is ever said. It's very frustrating, but I'm kind of used to that"), he is nevertheless proud of it.

“It was an especially sparky album,” he says, “recorded at a certain time and with a certain feeling in the air, when improvisation was the thing. We all gathered in a room together in Dublin’s Lombard Studios; we had rough ideas, rough rehearsals, and played like a tight jam session, where the endings of the song were allowed to sprawl out into solos, without being consciously self-indulgent. It seemed to fall together beautifully as fresh music sometimes does.”

And then, of course, there is Scullion, the Irish band that has never been allowed to die, courtesy of Condell’s finely honed songwriting and the flagrant indefatigability of the band’s singer, Philip King. Condell has varying thoughts about this most long-standing of Irish groups which, like himself, is so durable it’s almost invisible – like putty around a window frame, it’s always there but not so much that you’d take notice of it. Correct? “Fractious, I would say, more than cohesive,” counters Condell. “There were big disagreements and rows; temperamental ups and downs. Typical, I suppose, of four or five lads in a band, really.

“Music was the real reason, the driving force, why we were all together, rather than being mates. After a while, the music became more rock-oriented, and became, I reckon, a bit bottom-heavy. That was to my excitement, as well as liking, I admit, but sometimes I feel with rock music it can very easily become clichéd, and that a bottom-end sound can tie it down.”

YET SCULLION CONTINUE ON, and with their own album re-issue programme lined up (for 1981's Balance Control, 1983's White Side of the Night, and 1985's Spin) and a new album for release later this year, once again we have not seen the last of them. The albums, says Condell, were well-regarded, but were never commercial hits.

What’s preferable – a commercial hit or a well regarded piece of work? “I’ve never had a hit but I’d love one. I could fix that leak! No, it’s great that the music is well-regarded.”

As is Condell himself. Regardless of commercial constraints, he carries on his work (which includes extremely deft graphic/collage art), he says, because the music, the creativity, has become ingrained. “And I absolutely adore it. I get more and more out of it, and I really enjoy coming up with new ideas, lyrics. It’s a constant study of the exercise of coming up with something new, different, exploring the guitar, which throws up new ideas.

“I’m mad for different tuning, which leads me into different melodic ideas, which in turn seem to throw up lyrical ideas.

“I try to be as free with my mind as possible – even rhyming schemes can drag songs away from their original purpose. I have a light rein on rhyming. In a way, I think of it in terms of the things I do with my graphic artwork, a combination of images that excites the eye. It’s that way with music – I start off with a complete blank canvas and a bit of guitar tuning will start things off. It’s a mix of experimentation and improvisation that gets solidified into something out of trial and error. It’s the same with my gardening.”

Camouflageis re-issued through Compass Records Group (see compassrecords.com). Sonny Condell performs at Crosshaven Folk Club, Co Cork, on April 21; Tír Na nÓg perform at Barry's of Grange, Sligo, May 21; as part of Eigse Carlow Festival on June 11; and at Whelan's, Dublin, June 23.

Scullion will be playing in Tramore on Saturday, June 5 and at Kilkenny Arts Festival on Sunday August 15. For further information see sonnycondell.com