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

Roxy Music: super, and deluxe

As Paul Sinclair's excellent Super Deluxe Edition website chronicles, there is a clear market for consumers of a certain age, a certain gender, a certain wealth bracket and to whom record companies command a certain tendency to peddle “luxuriant”, “extravagant” and “sumptuous” box set re-releases of classic albums.

Barely a back catalogue is immune to repackaging, but this does often afford a welcome opportunity to delve into vintage records loaded with extras, from previously unreleased material to replicas of the original publicity collateral. My friend Steven Wilson has been involved in many of these projects, applying his mastery of 5.1 Surround Sound to remix albums by the likes of King Crimson, Yes, Tears For Fears and XTC, carefully treading the delicate balance between not messing with the original form, and discovering new dimensions of it for curious ears.

Wilson's skills pop up on today's fulsome re-release of Roxy Music, the first of eight studio albums by a band which, long before it bowed out with the louche 80s gloss of Avalon, should rightfully be regarded as responsible for some of the most interesting art rock of the prior decade...arguably, up there with Bowie. Indeed, this album - originally released on June 16, 1972, the same day as The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars - can be compared with The Dame at his most musically extravagant. No wonder, then, that Peter Gabriel somewhat conflated the two when he left Genesis in 1975, vowing to either "Do a Bowie", "Do a Ferry" or "Put a Furry Boa around my neck and hang myself with it" - thus encapsulating the art rock era into one pithy, pre-punk quote (punk, incidentally, was often thought to set out to kill progressive rock: not so, claim many - it was to counter the outré bombast of bands like Roxy Music).

Roxy Music and Bowie certainly trod common ground in the early 1970s, and indeed If There Is Something on this album finds Bryan Ferry even sounding like his contemporary. But let's end that comparison lark right there. Because this was 1972, far enough into the 70s to be mainstream, but not so far out of the 60s to be whatever it wanted to be. Thus, Roxy Music is everything - art rock, space rock, prog rock, you-name-it-rock. The band themselves had little sense that the album would reach a mainstream audience. “We thought art students; people like us; limited interest; underground. Coming overground was … interesting,” Bryan Ferry recently told The Guardian. “Thinking about the songs, some of them are collage-like, with different sounds and moods within them – they will change abruptly into something else. For instance, Sea Breezes is a slow song, and suddenly moves into this angular, quite opposite mood. I found that interesting, and this band was perfect for that; they were game for anything. We were constantly fiddling around, changing things. I was still trying to find my voice. I [now] think sometimes I’m singing too high, or I should have had another go at that.”

Perhaps if there's one thing that makes the initial mixed reaction to Roxy Music understandable is that it is so varied. It is glam without the somewhat conventional rock and roll influences that glam acts like The Sweet and T-Rex brought to bear; there are the hints of prog rock, with Brian Eno's at times bonkers synth effects (later credited as 'Enossification' when he loaned himself to Genesis for a track on The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway). And yet there is the deliberately ragged, too, such as The Bob, a collage about World War 2 which echoes The Doors and The Velvet Underground, with mad changes of time signature and Andy Mackay's signature saxophone thrown into the soup. And there is romanticism, too, such as Chance Meeting, inspired by Brief Encounter and with Ferry at his Weimar lounge act best.

Some critics tried to cast Roxy Music as a pastiche act when their debut appeared. And while a track like Would You Believe goes down the well-trodden path of straight-forward rock-and-roll (and is a storming slice of boogie, to boot), and Bitters End delves into barbershop camp, this is an album which stands on its merits, almost 46 years since it was recorded. Even with sonic parallels to Bowie, in particular, but other contemporaries, Roxy Music is, today, a terrific record to listen to.

Which is why the super deluxe package released today generates intense curiosity. For example, Virginia Plain - the hit single of the summer of 1972 - is restored to the line-up of an album it was oddly absent from when the UK version came out in June that year. And, yet, if your only knowledge of Roxy Music is through such a rip-roaring glam single, it fits the album's entire canon perfectly. Perhaps this might explain the album's somewhat odd birth, in which Island Records boss Chris Blackwell and his A&R chief, Muff Winwood (brother of Steve) needed convincing by junior A&R man Tim Clark (who now manages Robbie Williams). Indeed, Blackwell and Winwood had grave misgivings about Roxy Music themselves, let alone an album with fronted by Ferry and his odd vibrato croon, Brian Eno's synth wigouts and Andy Mackay's saxophone darting about the place.

Eight years in the making, this isn't the cheapest super deluxe package (£129 on Amazon - somewhat ridiculous for three audio CDs, a DVD and a book), but the package is certainly "sumptuous", to use that superlative. Musically, it's a fascinating compendium of a band that would become one of the 70s' most influential, still finding their form, but doing so with such breathtaking confidence, plus a degree of swagger, that it makes for a compelling few hours of your listening life. The musical extras do, actually, add much: as with most other bands' BBC Sessions, the Roxy disc is superbly recorded, revealing details in live performances that the technology of the time rarely captured on bootlegs and the live albums of their day. And Steven Wilson's remixes - as always with his work - opens up aural dimensions to an album that was always so theatrical in its soundscape (the perfect medium, then, for him to work with). There is also DVD of Roxy Music at Le Bataclan in Paris in November 1972, providing a glimpse of a band which, I think, rarely gets a look in as one of the era's great live acts. Even the glossy, 136-page book put together by Ferry and former Melody Maker journalist Richard Williams (an enthusiastic champion of the band) is also included.

If nothing else, the re-release of Roxy Music prompts a timely re-evaluation of the band itself. Bryan Ferry's departure into musical slickness in the 1980s and, latterly, political interests at odds with the mainstream music industry sentiment (his support of The Countryside Alliance, his apparent affliction with the Conservatives, and a personal reputation which, Chris Difford's autobiography Some Fantastic Place reveals is less than glowing - Difford worked as Ferry's driver during a lean period...) has somewhat airbrushed him from the pantheon of influential artists in the rich, creativity of the classic rock era. The components of this package place Ferry back into the mix, combining his undoubted persona with Eno's inventiveness, and a band generally driving together with full force. It ain't cheap, but this has been a thoroughly rewarding experience.

A slice of reality: Squeeze's The Knowledge

For reasons I can't explain, and would probably require a pyschology professional to help understand, I've always been fascinated by celebrity associations with the environs I occupy. Discovering that John Martyn was born in a house less than half mile from the dwelling where I entered this world was like hitting a rich seam of gold. That Eric Clapton walked the very streets I did growing up, or that Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck haled from districts no more than a bus ride from my front door provided sparkle to an otherwise not particularly thrilling suburban existence.

So now I'm living in Greenwich, I'm discovering an iconic part of London famed not only for its maritime history, but for being the epicentre of one of the great earthquakes - even if one with somewhat erratic aftershocks - of British pop music. For it was around here that Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook found a kindred musical interest that would become Squeeze and endure - more often off than on - for the last 44 years. Difford's superb memoir, Some Fantastic Place: My Life In And Out Of Squeeze charts extensively the ebb and flow of his relationship with Tilbrook, as well as the intrinsic part south-east London (and Greenwich, in particular) has played in their lives, and still does.

These two elements - their relationship and their origins - is an underlying background to The Knowledge, the 16th studio album under the Squeeze name and as musically and lyrically rich as anything they've produced since their recorded debut in 1979. Like all musical partnerships, Difford and Tilbrook's has always been strongly fraternal, a classic case of they only do what they do best when it's been the two of them working together - the former's lyrical wit (recognisably of its geographic origin) whether spoken, written or sung, the latter's melodic ease. Of course, that fraternity has been frequently stretched, often as Difford - as his memoir reveals - has gone off on his own path, encountering demons in the way. But it's a brotherly fabric that even when stretched seemingly beyond shape, it has a welcome habit of retracting back to the state that serves the relationship best.

While their last outing, 2015's Cradle To The Grave (a musical accompaniment to Difford's Deptford schoolfriend Danny Baker's sitcom based on his first memoir) was a first flexing of the Difford/Tilbrook writing muscle in a while, The Knowledge feels like a fully-fledged adventure. And a grand adventure it is, too. Opening track Innocence In Paradise delivers a cinematic Western-theme, while still rooted in London's southern hemisphere, evoking both the social commentary of Up The Junction as well as that perennial pub singalong favourite Cool For Cats. Patchouli sets itself in Difford's Greenwich hometown, referencing Maryon Wilson Park in a nostalgic nod back to some of the tales his book's early chapters covers in entertaining depth. London is a recurring muse in Difford's lyrics, with Rough Ride giving a less than glowing appraisal of the struggles facing Londoners today ("this city we love") while married to a Steely Dan-like funk.

If we were honest, there are few pop acts who can do social conscience without sounding insincere or, simply, corny. Bruce Springsteen can succeed in covering the blue collar human condition whereas Phil Collins singing about homeless people just sounds false. It's all about how you go about it. Thus, A&E, with its gentle jazz-soul, shouldn't deliver anything even remotely cutting about the state of the NHS. But it does. "It wouldn't hurt to give them more," Tilbrook sings about public sector wages. It is, even with a serious message, simply a lovely song.

When Squeeze emerged at the beginning of the post-punk New Wave, they could easily have been categorised as novelty pub rock merchants. But this dismisses Difford and Tilbrook's mastery as songwriters of exquisite, if too often unrecognised class. Final Score is a perfect example - a beautifully crafted, beautifully performed slice of soul - replete with a piano solo former member Jools Holland would be proud of - that lulls you into its arms...until you realise that its about a young boy with aspirations to become a professional footballer being abused by a predatory coach. It's here that you realise that Difford is taking no prisoners with his writing, whether tackling topics as diverse as erectile dysfunction on Please Be Upstanding, record collectors on Albatross, or his relationship with Tilbrook on Two Forks.

One of my frustrations with Squeeze over the years is that they have, too often, only been judged by their hit singles. And while the greatest hits packages that aggregate these songs have, it would appear, kept them solvent during the lean years, the real strength to this band can only be fully experienced in their albums. The Knowledge is a welcome reminder of just why Difford and Tilbrook have been rightfully compared to pop's greatest writing partnerships - yes, a certain pair of Scousers included. Tilbrook has called it their "best-ever record", and he may not be wrong. It's certainly one of the most consistent, soup-to-nuts good albums in their history, one that feels like its been written and recorded with comfort and ease, particularly Difford and Tilbrook being comfortable and at-ease with each other, and rooted in reality - the pain and joy of it.