Lost and found: Matt Deighton Overshadowed

As a onetime pop scribe, I’d like to think that I know my music. But - and I know it’s not a point of competition - all too often I discover just how inadequate my musical knowledge actually is. A work WhatsApp group, for example, regularly offers up listening recommendations to which I stare at blankly, despite containing things I probably should already be aware of. Friends frequently float suggestions hitherto missed that, when I dip in, turn out to be masterpieces. Even my 16-year-old stepdaughter - who should have her finger on the contemporary pulse - is familiar with stuff even older than me that I’ve escaped, to my shame. Reassuringly, I found resonance recently with the writer Andrew Collins, who posted an essay on how he was a very late convert to Bruce Springsteen. I felt vindicated (my Damascene moment only came in 2002 with The Rising in the emotional wake of 9/11). Even so, it’s quite galling to think that your so-called expansive record collection isn’t all that expansive, after all. 

I do, though, have a predilection towards the lost and under-recognised. My oldest friend, technically, is now a highly successful musician who sells out the Royal Albert Hall for several nights running, and yet when I mention his name, people go “Who?”. Likewise, I have long championed John Martyn, but it’s still such an effort to bring civilians up to speed on who he was, what he did and just why he remains arguably the most important part of my listening universe. There are others, like Peter Bruntnell, whom I was introduced to one Saturday night at a Kentish Town basement gig, only for him to a) turn out to be one of Britain’s finest singer-songwriters, b) his albums are now indispensable and c) he went to my junior and secondary schools, a few years ahead, his mum knows my mum, and that makes him cool. Which, indirectly, brings me to Matt Deighton.

© Simon Poulter

I could, lazily, dismiss having him absent in my life until relatively recently as a result of me living abroad for 17 years; but while that excuse might cut it when declaring ignorance of, say, not having seen I’m A Celebrity until I returned to these shores, I’m almost embarrassed at having had to get up to speed with Deighton. But, then, an invite to see him play at London’s 229 club in 2017, accompanied by Squeeze’s Chris Difford (and supported by the legend that is Dr. Robert), proved epiphanous. In the venue’s stripped back environment it was a demonstration of British songwriting at its finest. I say that, not out of misplaced patriotism, but as a statement of the compositional integrity with which Deighton had wowed people since emerging in the early 90s with funksters Mother Earth, even replacing Noel Gallagher in Oasis before veering into a masterful series of albums that tapped into the same roots as my hero Martyn. In the months after that 229 gig I hoovered up Deighton’s back catalogue, desperate to make up for lost time. Later that year I saw him again, fronting The Family Silver with drummer Steve White and bassist Damon Minchella, a power trio capturing the best of the soulful rock that had populated their respective band outlets (The Style Council and Paul Weller in White’s case, Ocean Colour Scene in Minchella’s). It was another one of those small venue shared experiences: intimate audience, buzzing on top musicianship and groove. And for me, another pillar in my understanding of what Deighton was all about.

That insight now goes a long way to explain why Overshadowed, a documentary about Deighton premiering tomorrow night on Sky Arts, features so many peers enthusing about him. Included in Kevin Lee Brown's film are Weller, White, Difford, Minchella, Marti Pellow, the acclaimed Kathryn Williams, vocalists Linda Lewis and Carleen Anderson, and legendary British folk-rocker Bill Fay, who was an important source of inspiration to Deighton in the wake of Mother Earth coming to an end. Brown’s emotional - and at times wroughtly so - film isn’t, however, just a parade of musos lining up to pay tribute, but an engrossing study of another one of those lost causes of mine, peeling back the layers to explain, almost forensically, why he's the deserved recipient of so much warm endorsement. 

It is clearly, unmistakenly, down to songcraft and musicianship. Pellow cites Deighton’s “gift for melody and structure”, while Weller himself highlights how Deighton can create orchestra out of an apparently simple guitar chord. Minchella goes further by calling out Deighton’s core strength: “He just has this way of writing songs which represent him as a human being.” Some songwriters are gifted in creating a vibe, some have a knack with melody while with others its technical ability. But there are so few who have the instinct to pull it all together. McCartney might be the obvious example, or perhaps Neil Finn (both are melodically blessed). Overshadowed, rightfully, puts Deighton in the same bracket, digging into his alt-folk solo albums, like Villager, You Are The Healer, The Common Good, Wake Up The Moths, Kids Steal Feelings and Doubtless Dauntless. They are being re-released progressively over the coming months, with a five-LP bundle going on sale in August, as well as in high-resolution digital formats. ‘Sumptuous’ doesn’t fully cover the musical experience of what awaits the uninitiated.

2003’s highly acclaimed Moths has just been re-released as a remastered package, marking in the process an unhappier element of Deighton’s story, which Overshadowed doesn’t shy away from, either. The album’s cover image, featuring Deighton curled up asleep, indicates - he admits now - the “black dog” of bipolarism that has shadowed him, and appeared to be behind a lengthy recording hiatus after Moths came out. In the film, he says of the album that he “wasn’t well” when he made it. Dark thoughts were entertained. Music became his saviour: “Some people bury their heads under a duvet,” he says. “Others get out a guitar and write about it.” This might go some way to explain Chris Difford’s comments in the film about his friend: “I think Matt can work with anyone, really. Whether people can work with Matt is a different thing. You’ve got to be very patient and you’ve got to be open and understanding as to where he’s coming from.”

Deighton wouldn’t be the first person to channel depression into his art (“Where would some of the greatest creativity be without it?” reflects Steve White). Music is both his saviour and his rail. For some, the depths of emotion can be all consuming (there’s no shortage of ‘divorce albums’ out there), reminding me of a comment Beverley Martyn - former wife of John - once made, that so much emotion left him via his songs that there was nothing left for her. Thankfully, though, Deighton refuses to be defined by his mental health, even if, as he reveals in Overshadowed, it can creep up on him when he least expects. 

It’s a brutally honest revelation, in an equally candid portrait of a musician who should not be regarded as enigmatic or cult-like. This is no Searching For Sugarman, a ‘fancy that’ study of a tragic figure, but quite the opposite. If anything, it’s a joyous celebration of music, musicianship, songcraft and talent deserving of a bigger audience beyond the cognoscenti. Now, where have I made that statement before?

Overshadowed premieres on Sky Arts at 9pm on Friday, 14 May