EUGENE BROSNAN
celebrating the 30year anniversary of his debut album ‘Well he said he’d be Here!’
Well he said he’d be here!
In 1995, having lived in Clonakilty for a few years prior, I decided that I would record a CD! No real experience but with enthusiasm and a whole bunch of friends, family and the odd unsuspecting, visiting musician! 10 songs were recorded in 8 days and two days were put aside to mix, not a lot of time to mix 10 songs but needs must…eight of the songs were my compositions and it also included a beautiful song, by Jeremiah O’Keeffe, about watching his nephew grow up, perhaps a little too fast and a catchy folksy ballad, penned by Colm O’Sullivan, local educator, musician and visual artist.
After spinning my dream to some friends and family, all were supportive in their various ways, none more so than 16 year old prodigy, John Fitzgerald, now a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and engineer. He helped arrange the songs and suggested the musicians to choose for certain pieces, propelling the project along nicely.
Nick Harper was over a few times to record with his dad and to work on his first two solo records. We became buddies quickly and his boundless energy and his off-the -scale talent, was so welcomed, from the first notes he played on Miles & Miles, one of my favourites on the album.
Clonakilty is always in bloom in my eyes, but it never shone brighter than it did in those days in the mid 90s, when Hothouse Flowers were regular visitors and I had the pleasure to jam and play with their amazing drummer Jerry Fehily and I felt blessed when he came to the Dublin sessions and played drums on 5 of the rockier tracks. Les Sampson did the drums on 3 of the other acoustic songs, including the aforementioned Miles & Miles, listening to it now, 30 years later, you can hear what he was the chosen kit man for the likes of Steve Marriot and Noel Redding It blew my mind. Inspired by the solo work of the Alarm’s Dave Sharp, I decided to split the album, 5 up tempo, Rock/Pop songs and 5 folksy, acoustic songs. It made sense to me in more ways than one. As luck would have it, the great virtuoso guitarist and Clon man, Bill Shanley, was laying down guitars on Paul Harrington’s album at another studio in Temple Bar, so he jumped in for some of the sessions there and elevated things somewhat with his driving, colourful and melodic sound.
Kieran Kiely (Sinead O’Connor, Shane McGowan) heard about the session from one of the lads. No mobile phone in those days to announce our impending arrivals, so, Kieran just showed up and set up his keyboards, with a very confused engineer who had heard nothing about a keyboards player. Kieran assured him, “twill be grand”! It was much better than grand. Thank you Kieran.
The writer of the second song on Well he said he’d be here !, Colm O’Sullivan, also played piano and arranged string parts for the Rossmore sessions, adding depth to the acoustic songs with their sparse arrangements. My bestie at the time was bassist supreme, Noel Barrett. He and I had worked at my home set up in Ardfield, on the demos, a few weeks prior to the recording dates and shared the bass duties with John Fitzgerald. At both sessions, Neil Amor (The Christians, Chris Rea, Nick Harper) was at the helm, keeping everyone and everything calm and relaxed and moving despite the sometimes chaotic happenings. At the time Neil was co-credited with the production, but looking back now, Well he said he’d be here! was produced by a group of musicians, family and a bighearted community spirit, somehow all gathered together during during a very special time for music in Clonakilty.
Nowadays, artwork may not mean what it did back then, when the booklet and front and back covers of your CD, were a very important part of the music, having it in your hands, reading the lyrics, finding out who played the drums, staring at the photos or artwork, while the music played was always special to me and I remember being delighted when I saw the proofs, prepared by Liz Twomey, for the photos, artwork and layout. Happy Days indeed.