Decade of Difference

Ottawa, Canada may seem an unlikely source for a Texas blues musician, but that is where Sue Foley grew up. At 13, she was turned on to the blues through the Rolling Stones and began performing at 16. After high school, she followed her musical interest to the Texas town of Austin, where she immersed herself in the Texas blues scene.

Before the internet brought all kinds of music everywhere, Foley took the best path to earn her stripes in the music community she loved. Foley admits that gaining exposure to music is easier now but it is not the same. For example, Foley continues: “I can talk about Albert Collins, but unless you stood in front of his amp and watched him, you can’t really get it. You can watch all the clips of him you like and say, ‘Well, yeah, he had a wicked tone,’ but when that tone hit your ears in person, I’m telling you, it split your hairs! I’m not sure if I was just starting out today if I’d even be a blues musician, because I wouldn’t have seen all of these people live. It was experiencing that face-to-face and walking away with my jaw dropped that changed my life and expanded my spirit and my soul, and I’m not sure I could do that watching a YouTube video.”

Sue Foley made her first move from Ottawa to Vancouver, where she formed the Sue Foley Band. The group toured Canada then the US and Europe in the late ’80s. Playing in Memphis with the band, she had the good fortune to sit in with Duke Robillard at a show. Watching the show was Clifford Antone, the founder of Antones – a club in Austin and a record label. This led to her signing with the label and moving to Texas.

Foley has just released her 16th record named after her late-’80s pink paisley Telecaster Pinky. Pinky’s Blues is a handpicked collection of favorites. Foley says that “These are all songs that, when we were coming up, you kind of had to know to get in the club, so to speak. Something like Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown’s ‘Okie Dokie Stomp’ was a rite of passage for any guitar player in Austin back then. Now, you never hear anyone doing it, but it was a regular song that everyone had to know.”

In the late ’80s, a band dressed in leather, brandishing heavy guitars, and displaying an affection for British invasion rock stood out in the college rock scene. Pat DiNizio with his beatnik era goatee led just this sort of band in the Smithereens.

DiNizio worked in a series of prog rock and metal bands before taking inspiration from Buddy Holly and deciding to form his own group. He placed a classified ad seeking musicians who loved Holly, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, and the Clash to form the band. He got a group deal when three high school friends replied. They had already been in a band together and the group was formed.

The Smithereens played around New Jersey in the early ’80s but had little success getting interest from record labels. Only in 1986 did they finally get a deal – from someone who had followed the band in Jersey.

The Smithereens had their biggest success in the late ’80s, recording two top 40 hits and getting lots of attention from college radio. By the ’90s, the rock world had moved on to grunge and beyond, leaving little room for their ’60s invasion pop-influenced music.

A sizable cult following kept the band in business despite a lack of radio airplay in the ’90s. A new album came in 1999 followed by a Christmas record. The band’s last record of original material came in 2011 and the band toured supporting Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. In 2015, DiNizio’s health became an issue. A series of falls had left him with nerve damage and unable to play regularly. Pat DiNizio died in 2017.

The remaining members still perform as the Smithereens with a rotating cast of lead vocalists. Most recently this has been Marshall Crenshaw.

With over 300 million albums sold, Sir Elton John reigns as one of the all time best selling recording artists. Starting out as a blues musician with his first band in 1962, his career would take a very positive turn when he met songwriting partner Bernie Taupin in 1967. They met when both responded to a classified ad seeking songwriters. While neither were hired, John was handed an envelope of poems written by Taupin when he told the interviewer that he could not write lyrics himself. It led to a collaboration that has spawned over 30 albums.

A 1991 documentary documents their writing style: Taupin creates the lyrics independently, then passes them to Elton John to compose the music and there is no further interaction. The pair were later hired by another publisher as a songwriting team, first penning songs for Roger Cook and Lulu. They were encouraged to write songs for John to record himself, and Elton John’s first solo record came in 1969. His second record generated his first top 10 hit in the UK and the US.

Elton John had his greatest success in the 1970s. In 1972, Honky Chateau was his first US number one album, starting a streak of seven consecutive number one albums. In 1973, he released the enormously successful double album set Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which topped the charts for two months and established John as a glam rock star.

In 1977 Elton John released Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, the first album to debut at number one in the US. Following the record, John reconfigured his band and with the new group released Rock of the Westies, which also debuted at number one. In 1977, the streak of number one records ended. John announced that he would retire from performing and that he and Taupin were no longer working together. Neither statement proved to be true, as John and Taupin resumed collaborating in 1979 and John became one of the first Western artists to tour the Soviet Union in the same year.

About a decade after starting Blur, Damon Albarn collaborated with artist Jamie Hewlett, co creator of the comic book Tank Girl, to form a virtual band called Gorillaz. The band includes four primary members, all animated. The band exists in a fictional universe, presented to listeners through music videos and short animations.

The band came about after the pair spent too much time watching MTV. They felt that the bands and music presented on the channel all seemed too manufactured, so why not form a band that is really manufactured, but has substance behind it?

Gorillaz recorded simultaneously with and during the Blur hiatus, using an ever changing cast of musicians selected to present different types of music. Successful from the start, the band has won numerous music awards worldwide and one Grammy.

While it might seem that working in two major bands, Blur and Gorillaz, would be enough for one person, it is not true for Damon Albarn. His interest in African music has led to the release of two albums; he has recorded three solo records and has contributed to at least eight additional collaborations.

His early interest in drama has resulted in his creation of an opera and his scoring for movies. He has also acted in a pair of films. His charitable work includes a number of projects in support of OxFam and in support of the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Damon Albarn celebrates his 54th birthday today. As a founding member of Blur and the virtual band Gorillaz, Albarn has found success in music from both groups and a solo career wrapped around the two. Albarn comes from an artistic family, the son of an artist and a theatrical set designer and with a sister who is also an artist. Growing up in a household he describes as bohemian and liberal, the lifestyle was countered somewhat by being raised in the Quaker religion.

Albarn describes his interest in music as coming at an early age, remembering attending a concert by the Osmonds as a six year old. In college, Albarn met Graham Coxon and were two of the founding members of Blur. Reaching the UK top 50 with their first single in 1990, it took the band some time to find a sound that would improve on that result.

After touring the US and feeling very homesick, the band began to write songs about British life, and it was this change that led them to Parklife, their hugely successful 1994 album.

Blur went on hiatus in 2004, three years after Graham Coxon had left the group. Albarn had already been exploring side and solo projects. His increasing interest in African music led him to visit the continent, where he recorded Mali Music with local musicians. Another trip in 2011 to Kinshasa led to the release of Kinshasa One Two, whose proceeds benefited Oxfam’s work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In 2013, Albarn announced his first solo album. Everyday Robots came in 2014 and Albarn toured playing material from the album along with songs from Blur and Gorillaz. The record peaked at number 2 in the UK and garnered a Mercury Prize nomination.

Having your music described as somber and melancholy may not sound like a formula for a successful musical career, but it has worked for Canadien Leif Vollebekk. As a teen in Ottawa, Vollebekk found the music of Dylan, Neil Young and Lou Reed while also developing an appreciation for the beat generation writers Allen Ginsburg and Charles Bukowski. His musical interest was focused on composition until Dylan’s Simple Twist of Fate turned him towards lyrics.

Vollebekk moved to Iceland for a while to pursue his Nordic roots and worked on his music in the unique environment Iceland’s culture provides. After getting a sound he liked, Vollebekk returned to Canada and settled in Montreal, where he produced his first record Inland. The album drew from Vollebekk’s Iceland experiences.

Leif Vollebekk toured for two years prior to starting work on a second record. North Americana. The record took two years to produce, involving recording sessions in Montreal, New York, and France. His recording technique drew critical praise for its dependence on recording live to tape.

A third album in 2016 received a nomination for Canada’s Polaris Prize. Vollebekk described the writing of the songs on Twin Solitude as driven by the lessons he learned from singing other people’s songs being that none of those other artists seemed worried about anything except laying down their own souls, flat out. “I used to think, ‘This will be kinda like a Neil Young song,’ ‘This will be kinda like a Bob Dylan song,’” he recalled. “I kinda ran out of people to imitate. And then there was just me.”

Glen Hansard has a long musical career, beginning with the Dublin band The Frames. Formed in 1990, Hansard was leading this band when he was selected as a cast member for the Ireland-based cult classic The Commitments. The Frames are a rowdy Irish rock band that in 1995 released what could be one of the best songs ever for late night playing in an Irish pub, Revelate from the Fitzcarraldo album.

Glen Hansard continues to perform with The Frames, while also forming the duo The Swell Season and recording numerous solo albums. As if he is not busy enough, he also tours occasionally in backing bands, including with Eddie Vedder on the tour supporting Vedder’s Ukelele Songs album, and won a Grammy for Best Musical Theatre album in 2013.

When asked about his musical influences, Hansard says that “In my house, when I was a kid, there was the holy trinity, which was Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison, and Bob Dylan, with Bob sitting center.” This made it even more special when Hansard and The Frames toured as the support act for Bob Dylan in Australia and New Zealand in August 2007.

Hansard released his latest album in 2019, but since then has worked with Eddie Vedder on his new music. Hansard and Marketa Irglova have been touring recently in a reunion of their Swell Season, a group made popular through their Oscar-winning work on the music for the movie Once.

U2 originated in Dublin in 1976, and although they are most often recognized as a post punk-era band, they started before the punk movement had even arrived in Ireland. Drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. posted a notice on his high school bulletin board seeking musicians to form a band. Initially a Beatles and Stones cover band called the Feedback, they changed their name to U2.

The first break came during their last year in high school, when they won a talent contest and attracted the attention of the manager of the Stranglers, who offered to manage them. They did well in Ireland but had trouble connecting elsewhere. Slowly, they expanded their reach, and with producer Steve Lillywhite they found a sound that could break through elsewhere. 1983’s War proved to be the first big album for the band, reaching number one in the U.K. and number twelve in the U.S. From this point on, U2 has been a headliner.

It is hard to imagine anyone listening to the radio in the ’80s and ’90s could have missed hearing about U2. One of the best selling artists in the world, the band has sold more than 150 million albums, won 22 Grammys and made the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on their first ballot appearance.

In addition to their music and elaborate tours, the band is newsworthy for their activism. Amongst the causes Bono and his bandmates have are Band Aid, supporting famine relief, Greenpeace’s efforts to limit nuclear power, and Jubilee 2000, an effort to reduce third-world debt. Bono’s work has earned him a knighthood and the French Legion of Honor. Most recently, the band donated millions for the purchase of protective equipment for Irish healthcare workers during the COVID pandemic.

The Undertones formed in Derry in 1974, a punk band that drew heavily from rock, new wave, glam rock, and even Motown. One of the most successful bands of their day to come out of Northern Ireland, the Undertones managed to mostly avoid playing politically charged music despite “the Troubles” dominating Northern Ireland at the time.

Legendary BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel claimed the Undertones’ debut single Teenage Kicks as one of his all time favorite songs and was a strong supporter of the band. The group’s John O’Neill said that at the time of the song’s conception, he and the band only had about six original songs. The band set a goal of learning a new cover or writing a new song before each show.

Drawing on the Ronettes and MC5, O’Neill admits that the song is not terribly original. At the time of its recording, the band was playing weekly at the only club in Derry that would allow punk bands to perform, and the desire was to capture in the record as much of a live feel as they could, and O’Neill feels like they did a pretty good job with that.

In 1983, the Undertones released their fourth album and began a UK tour, when the pressure from their record label and internally between the bandmates became too much. Lead singer Feargal Sharkey announced his intention to leave the group during the tour, but contractual obligations required the band to remain whole for another two months.

Sharkey moved on to a brief but successful solo career in the late 1980s, while John and Damian O’Neill moved on to form That Petrol Emotion, which produced six albums by 1994.

The inevitable reunions began in 1999, although Sharkey declined to participate. He was replaced with a new vocalist, and the Undertones recorded a new album in 2007. The band has been the subject of two documentary films, one focused on that first record Teenage Kicks.