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| Bap Kennedy |
“The Big Picture”
*Features contributions from Van Morrison, Shane MacGowan,
Carolyn Cassady (widow of Neal Cassady) and James
Walbourne.
*Recorded at Van Morrison's Somerset studios.
*Includes the track "Rock And Roll Heaven"
* "Album Of The Week" - Tom Morton Show
- BBC Radio Scotland
Back in 1988 Belfast born Energy Orchard front-man Bap
Kennedy met his first Texan at the Marquee club
in London. His name was Steve Earle and after
Bap had explained to him that the Irish had invented country
music, The Beatles and fighting and increasingly
unsteady Earle bought him a drink and promised
that "someday skinny you're coming to Nashville
to make a country rekkid. And I'm gonna produce it".
The night then passed into legendary oblivion and Bap
thought no more of the offer until a telegram turned up
some years later from Orange County Jail. It read as follows:
BREAKING OUT TONIGHT STOP. ME AND DUTCH AND
THE BOYS STOP. MEET ME IN NASHVILLE AT ROOM AND BOARD
STUDIOS 9AM STOP. BRING AN INTERPRETER STOP. STEVE E STOP.
His trip to Nashville saw Bap record his solo debut with Steve Earle at the production controls and featured
a host of Nashville's finest, including Earle, Jerry
Douglas and Nanci Griffith and the album Domestic Blues and his subsequent releases including Lonely Street and Hillbilly Shakespeare established
him as one of Ireland's most gifted songwriters.
He comes with form and yet The Big Picture is
without doubt his best to date - a seamless blend of Celtic
Soul and Southern Roots that features contributions from Van Morrison (at whose Somerset studios much of this
album was recorded), Shane MacGowan and Carolyn
Cassady, the widow of author Neal Cassady who
is heard on Moriarty's Blues reciting from her book Off
The Road. In addition Bap's also recruited a crop
of hugely talented players that include Tom Waits bass-man Rory Macfarlane, Kieran Kiely -
who has worked with Sinead O'Connor, Shane and The Corrs - as well as pedal steel maestro BJ
Cole and the ubiquitous guitar talents of James
Walbourne.
From the tongue-in-cheek opener "Rock And Roll
Heaven" - a dishonourable roll call of the fallen
- to his heartbreaking love-song to Ireland "The
Beautiful Country" it's clear that The
Big Picture is a heavyweight album that tells,
in many ways Bap's own story. He's a performer who since
his upbringing on the Falls Road in Belfast has seen more
than his fair share of the vagaries of life and for all
his ups there¹s been just as many downs, both personal
and professional - all perfectly summed up on The
Truth Is Painful, The Sweet Smell Of Success,
the Van Morrison co-write Milky Way and then
on On The Mighty Ocean Alcohol - a self-explanatory
tale that features a guest vocal from Shane MacGowan that was suitably recorded in a backroom of the
Boogaloo, one of London's most notorious drinking
dens.
Suffice the say that Bap has 'lived' and the resultant
self-depreciating humour and good natured cynicism has
been captured on The Big Picture to great
effect.
|
| Press
& PR |
Thirty-seven
minutes of pure bliss
"The music world is full of hard luck stories and
pear-shaped careers, but turning the half-empty glass
into a cup of aural nectar for the soul is a rare gift.
The Big Picture reveals Bap Kennedy to be blessed with
it. Four albums and half a lifetime in and this man from
Belfast - his birth name long supplanted by the local
vernacular for a bread roll - has distilled his love of
Hank Williams and Van Morrison, his self-preserving humour
and his endearingly stoic bar-room philosophies into a
set of stunningly beautiful songs full of simple truisms
and staggering depth. Presented on disc with such luxuriant
seeming effortlessness - horns, strings, vibes and a three-chord
trick in the hands of a master - one just knows the effort
must have been truly immense. Imagine the best possible
Van Morrison album with empathy replacing bitterness and
a sense of wonder revealed for all to share in. Fabulous."
- Colin Harper - Mojo
"Bap
Kennedy has the same bluesy groove as fellow Belfast man
Van Morrison, though with a stronger affinity with country
and folk. A former member of Energy Orchard with singer
brother Brian, Bap deserves wider attention for his majestic
records such as new solo album, The Big Picture".
- Spencer Bright - Daily Mail
"After writing about the lives of Elvis
and Hank Williams, this album should give Belfast hero
Kennedy the wider attention he warrants. While brother
Brian treads the middle of road, Bap's no-holds-barred
tales of lovelorn sorrow (Milky Way, a sullen beauty co-written
with Van Morrison) and hometown horror (the classic The
Truth Is Painful) are the real deal. Enjoy the view". - Gavin Martin - The Daily Mirror
"Since winding up Energy Orchard in the
early 90's, Belfast's Bap Kennedy has rummaged in the
roots of country and Celtic soul, unearthing 1998's Steve
Earle-produced Domestic Blues and 1999's Hank Williams
tribute Hillbilly Shakespeare. The Big Picture is his
smoothest yet - sometimes too smooth - but smart in execution,
be it "Rock And Roll Heaven"'s chugging roll
(worthy of classic Blasters), or BJ Cole threading steel
into versions of "Too Old For Fairytales". There's
a Van Morrison co-write ("Milky Way"), but it
pales beside Kennedy's beautiful "Moriarty's Blues"
and the duet with Shane MacGowan, "On The Mighty
Ocean Alcohol". - Rob Hughes - Uncut |
| Links |
Bap
Official Website
Bap Myspace |
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| PR Images |
Album Cover - The Big
Picture
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