True & Bold: A Night For Dick Gaughan, Celtic Connections, Glasgow review: 'impressive'
This Dick Gaughan tribute show offered a fine precis of his career, capturing both his tender balladry and his eloquent oratory, writes Fiona Shepherd
True & Bold: A Night For Dick Gaughan, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall ★★★★
Celtic Connections gives good tribute. Barely a festival goes by without some delicious massed celebration of a folk titan. True & Bold: A Night For Dick Gaughan has the distinction, however, of hailing a musical giant still very much alive if not quite kicking as of old.
Following a stroke, the Glasgow-born firebrand has rarely been seen on a stage for the past decade but this show was shot through with curious anticipation - would Gaughan turn up to his own party? - as compere Mike Harding read multiple This Is Your Life-style tributes from the likes of Peggy Seeger and Ralph McTell and Siobhan Miller shepherded an impressive line-up of singers and players through a fine precis of his career, capturing both his tender balladry and his eloquent oratory.
The show opened with an ensemble rendition of one of his best known songs, A Handful of Earth, followed by an impressive parade of musicians from across the generations. Deacon Blue’s Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh seamlessly wove their own Wages Day into A Miner’s Life, Billy Bragg led on another Gaughan classic, The World Turned Upside Down, and the brilliant Lisa O’Neill channelled that protest spirit into her own The Wind Doesn’t Blow This Far Right.
Comedian Stewart Lee compered the second half with a deadpan humour of which Gaughan would surely approve, introducing a truly touching performance by a frail Martin Carthy and daughter Eliza before Gaughan himself appeared to a standing ovation and used his spot to pay tribute to another giant of Scottish folk, the late Archie Fisher.
READ MORE: TMSA: 60th Anniversary Celebration, Celtic Connections, Glasgow review: ‘a palpable sense of legacy'
“I’m not as sprightly as I used to be,” he said with a spirit which could not be extinguished, either in person or through the music. Both Sides the Tweed, his great song of unity, closed the main set and he returned to join the assembly for Freedom Come A Ye, counselling the audience to “take it with you where you go”.
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