Tom Dunne: It's matrimony — me and Gilbert O'Sullivan had a fine time
Gilbert O'Sullivan has been rolling back the years in recent concerts.
The term 'supergroup' is often bandied about but….Paul Brady (genius) and Eleanor McEvoy (A Woman’s Heart) on main vocals, Paul Harrington (winner of Eurovision) and Tom Dunne (fan of Eurovision) on harmonies. What can I say: a supergroup, or just Row G at a Gilbert O’Sullivan concert?
Gilbert had been encouraging the audience to sing, but in one song it was the audience alone for the chorus. “I’m relying on you,” he said. I looked down our line. “Guys,” I said quietly, “we’ve got this!” Other rows, read ‘em and weep.
We sang heartily. “Nothing old, nothing new, nothing ventured.” “Clair, the moment I saw you, I swear.” “Very shortly now there’s going to be an answer from you, then one from me, that’s matrimony.” There were tears, there were smiles, there were laugh-out-loud moments. Onstage, Gilbert played as if he had just invited us into his front room. He was charming, engaging, funny. He almost offered us tea. Just a sing-song around the piano, except he’d written every timeless classic we heard.
There were new songs too, from his latest album, Driven. It was this album that had made me resolve not to miss his next show. It is startlingly good and puts him in that rare group of people who have done work in later life that can rival that of their first flush: Dylan, Bowie, Cohen, McCartney.
Like those artists, he also contemplates the elephant in the room: Time and the lack of it! But being Gilbert he does so in his usual poignant, laconic fashion. He is doing everything right, he laments, the gym and healthy eating, but nothing is working. He is still ageing. How can this be?
I’d been playing tracks from Driven on the radio and loving them, but one night I put it to the acid test: The Dunne Family Saturday Evening Listening Party. It’s the toughest audience I know. But seven songs in we’d paused the chats and turned it up. It’s a remarkable piece of work.
It’s very upbeat, has lots of radio-friendly singles and guest vocalists (Mick Hucknall and KT Tunstall) but most importantly it's got Gilbert. Those McCartney-esque melodies are still there, but so too that utterly unique and always spot-on turn of phrase.
Most songwriters agree that the lyrics are the hard part, but O’Sullivan has made them his life’s work. There is always eagle-eyed observation, rye commentary, self-deprecation and occasionally a turn of phrase as poignant as it is true. “Nothing still born or lost,” he will sing casually, stopping hearts and clocks alike.
He also told stories onstage and I for one hadn’t known that he’d been a drummer. He’d played drums in a band with a man called Rick Davis. “We could have made it,” he said, but two of the band didn’t want to give up their apprenticeships. So Gilbert went to London and Rick would later form Supertramp.
It was Rick that showed Gilbert how to play piano, in a Fats Domino-influenced style. In London, armed with his pudding basin haircut, cloth cap and short trousers, he eventually came to the attention of Tom Jones’ manager Gordon Mills. The rest, as they say, is history.
But it is worth repeating just how enormous he became. Alone Again (Naturally) was number one for six weeks in America. Only Roberta Flack’s The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face got more US airplay in 1971. Hit after hit followed. People would routinely list that year’s great songwriters as McCartney, Randy Newman and Gilbert.
This history seems to sit easy with him at his keyboard. He plays songs, old and new alike, faithfully and precisely. The work is all done in the writing. All it takes now is sincere performance and, it must be said, the stunning guitar accompaniment of our own Bill Shanley.
He set out to be a songwriter and has never wavered from that. He applies himself to his craft every day. Sometimes the songs catch the wind and fly, sometimes they don’t but he sticks at it either way.
At the end, he bounces off the stage like a 20-year-old. I can’t help but think, and I’m sure Row G thought likewise, in music, get past your twenties and you’re well placed for a long run! Go see him next time, I beg you.
