FEATURE:
Homesick
IN THIS PHOTO: Deacon Blue’s Graeme Kelling in Glasgow in 1999
Remembering Deacon Blue’s Graeme Kelling at Sixty-Five
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ON 10th June, 2004…
IN THIS PHOTO: Deacon Blue (Dougie Vipond, Ricky Ross, Lorraine McIntosh and Graeme Kelling) on Bells Bridge, Glasgow, reforming for BBC Music Week and charity gig in 1999
the world lost Deacon Blue’s Graeme Kelling. The Scottish band’s original guitarist, he was integral when it came to their success and sound. Written by Paul English and containing photos and interviews with the band and memories from fans, the 2021 book, To Be Here Someday, has an affectionate tribute/chapter to Kelling. The band and fans talk about him and what made him so warm, popular and special (I will end with a few quotes). Much-missed, I wanted to spend a bit of time discussing Graeme Kelling. 2001’s Homesick - recorded in 2000 - was the final album to feature him (he was battling cancer but didn’t feature on the bulk of it). I want to end with a playlist of some of my favourite Deacon Blue songs. Ones that showcase Graeme Kelling’s guitar work and, as I said, prove how essential he was to Deacon Blue and their brilliance. The Independent wrote about Kelling in June 2004:
“As guitarist and founding member of Deacon Blue, Graeme Kelling helped the Scottish band establish themselves in the British album charts at the tail-end of the Eighties and well into the Nineties. In April 1989, the six-piece group topped the listings with their second album, When the World Knows Your Name, while the following year their Four Bacharach and David Songs EP reached No 2 in the singles chart when the lead track, a cover of "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" - originally recorded by Dionne Warwick - received an incredible amount of airplay.
Graeme Kelling, guitarist and songwriter: born Paisley, Renfrewshire 4 April 1957; married (one son, one daughter); died Glasgow 10 June 2004.
As guitarist and founding member of Deacon Blue, Graeme Kelling helped the Scottish band establish themselves in the British album charts at the tail-end of the Eighties and well into the Nineties. In April 1989, the six-piece group topped the listings with their second album, When the World Knows Your Name, while the following year their Four Bacharach and David Songs EP reached No 2 in the singles chart when the lead track, a cover of "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" - originally recorded by Dionne Warwick - received an incredible amount of airplay.
Despite considerable investment from Sony Records, Deacon Blue never repeated their UK success overseas and broke up in April 1994 after releasing two Top Five albums, Fellow Hoodlums (1991) and Whatever You Say, Say Nothing (1993), and the No 1 collection Our Town: the greatest hits of Deacon Blue”.
Born in Paisley in 1957, Kelling was raised according to the beliefs of the Brethren sect but turned away from their strict teachings in his teens. In 1984, he joined Dr Love, the Glasgow band led by the singer and songwriter Ricky Ross, who had secured a publishing deal with ATV Music on the proviso he formed a group to perform his compositions.
For a while, the six-piece could do no wrong. In 1991, they masterminded The Tree and the Bird and the Fish and the Bell, a charity album featuring the likes of their fellow Scots Hue & Cry, Texas, Lloyd Cole and Eddi Reader. Deacon Blue also appeared in a William McIlvanney BBC TV play, Dreaming (1990), and, following the release of their third album, Fellow Hoodlums, toured Europe and ended the year with a triumphant gig at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall broadcast on Radio 1 on New Year's Eve 1991.
The swirling single "Your Town" produced by the Perfecto dance team of Steve Osborne and Paul Oakenfold signalled a change of direction for the 1993 album Whatever You Say, Say Nothing but, despite a big international push, its success remained confined to the British Isles and Deacon Blue split the following year. Graeme Kelling subsequently ran his own recording studio and wrote soundtrack and incidental music for film and television.
In May 1999, he rejoined the original line-up of the group, ostensibly for an event benefiting the Braendam Family House at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow which sold out in 90 minutes flat. Renewed interest led to Deacon Blue's touring and recording again”.
Deacon Blue are touring this year. I hope to go and see them soon enough. I know that the band (Ricky Ross, James Prime, Lorraine McIntosh and Dougie Vipond (together with Gregor Philp and Lewis Gordon) miss Graeme Kelling very much!
I was eager to find an interview with Graeme Kelling. In 1999 (that year, Deacon Blue brought out Walking Back Home: their first album together since they disbanded in 1994). Guitarist spoke with Kelling before the release of a much-anticipated L.P. (that contained some older tracks together with some new compositions). It is archived on the Glasgow Skyline website, and it was conducted by Paul English:
“He may have co-written some of the songs that helped make Deacon Blue a household name in the 80s and 90s, but Graeme Kelling couldn't have penned a spookier script for the moment his son, Alexander Joseph, popped into the world.
"My wife was just reaching the final stages of delivery," says Kelling, picking up the story. " For some reason or other they had the radio on in the corner, and just as things were nearing their conclusion, Real Gone Kid came on. It was utterly unbelievable. My wife was lying there screaming - 'Get that thing off'. It has to be one of the most uncanny things that has ever happened to me."
After the band unplugged for the last time in summer 1994, its driving force, Ricky Ross, went solo, Lorraine McIntosh took a part in the films My Name Is Joe and Psychos, and formed a new band called Cub, while drummer Dougie Vipond became a TV presenter and occasionally plays for The Swiss Family Orbison.
Guitarist was lucky enough to meet their ex-guitar weilder and proud father, Graeme Kelling...
There must have been a few times at the height of the band's success when you had those 'I really can't believe this is happening to me' vibes.
Totally. My full time occupation when I was with the band, was making nonsense of it, because it's a totally unreal situation to be in. I spent eight years living out a fantasy, selling millions of records and touring the world with six other people. I played along with legends like Chris Rea (on 'Raintown') and Little Richard at a tribute to Woody Guthrie in the States. But it had its down sides too - we went busking once on Buchanan Street once and only made £4.20!
After Deacon Blue split up, Ricky Ross claimed that the band had run its course. Did you agree?
There was a period after it had been announced when we were on our 'Greatest Hits' tour when some of us said 'Why are we splitting up?' But we felt that we'd achieved all we were going to achieve musically. After a time, you get really familiar with the way that everything's played and you get really used to doing things in a certain way. We worked with Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osbourne on our last album to break that up. But in retrospect we were trying to force ourselves in to another jacket - a terrible looking spangly one - and didn't realise that what we had was actually quite special.
On the last studio album, 'Whatever You Say, Say Nothing', guitars became the major focus. Were you happier to see things going in that direction?
Yeah, I suppose a lot of songs before that were keyboard orientated, but Ricky wrote that album on guitar, and the songs were a lot more direct. Woody Guthrie had Guitar Kills Fashion written on his guitar, and that to me is what guitar playing is all about. I think people have lost a bit of the attitude that guitarists have. They can give you the directness to go straight for the jugular with a song.
What's your favorite Deacon Blue riff?
I love the intro to The Day That Jackie Jumped The Jail which is a bugger to play on my own. There's this bottleneck guitar part and I have to quickly scramble right down to the bottom of the neck. I think it was always crap when we did it live, but Mick does it now. That song also has a bottleneck wolf-whistle and I regret not having done more in the way of musical effects. A lot of what Frank Zappa did musically fitted the lyrical idea perfectly. So many of his tracks are amalgamations of musical ideas fitting lyrical ideas, and that's immensely entertaining”.
On 4th April, it would have been Graeme Kelling’s sixty-fifth birthday. I’d like to think he’d be in the band still, happily and loyally playing the hits! I can imagine that Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh will raise a glass to him. Maybe James Prime and Dougie Vipond will share memories or think of him. I love the albums Deacon Blue released after Kelling died, but I think that their very best and most interesting work was with him in the fold. So connected and cemented into the band, he brought something that no other musician could provide. Many of the songs in the playlist below show the sadly-departed and phenomenal Graeme Kelling at his very best. Ahead of his sixty-fifth birthday, I was thinking about a Deacon Blue song or album that would act as an appropriate title for this piece. Maybe When the World Knows Your Name (the band’s second album), or Your Constant Heart (from When the World Knows Your Name). I thought that Homesick was the right choice. It was the final album to feature Graeme Kelling. Like one pines for home and misses that stability and sanctuary when they are far away, so many people miss Kelling and what he gave to the world.
I want to end by quoting some lines from Paul English’s excellent recent book about Deacon Blue, To Be Here Someday. There is a fantastic chapter and section of the book that pays tribute to Kelling. We get these memories from the band, in addition to amazing words and insights from his wife, Julie. Drummer Dougie Vipond remarks: “Graeme brought such coolness…There were times when he just knew what I was going to do, and he would sit in these wee bits in between. He sat in a song’s groove, he gave us a grooviness that without him wouldn’t have been there. He was an amazing player”. Jim Prime (keyboards and pianos) says: “Graeme brought a dimension of cool to the band. He knew the right things, the right places, the right clothes”. Lorraine McIntosh (their amazing singer and soul of the group) stated: “When we listened to Fellow Hoodlums for #TimsTwitterListeningParty earlier this year (2021), I really appreciated how imaginative his guitar parts on that album were…He always made me laugh, Graeme”. Lead songwriter Ricky Ross had this to say: “We had an understanding of each other’s background, because we’d both been raised in the Brethren. Graeme came out of all that as Mr Rock’n’Roll, but we both knew that world. So he was the guy I wanted to take to the NME interviews, because I thought they would make mincemeat of me. But not Graeme”. There is still a lot of love for Graeme Kelling among the band members, From some bigger guitar parts to some great lines and notes where he was not necessarily at the front, below are some Deacon Blue songs…
IN tribute to the Paisley-born great.