Description
Nick Garrie was discovered in the late 60s while busking in the South of France as a backpacker. His legendary album "The Nightmare Of J.B. Stanislas" was to be released in 1969 on the no less legendary French label Disc'Az. However, due to the suicide of the label's founder Lucien Morisse, only about 100 copies of this psych pop/soft rock masterpiece came into circulation. A cult album in the truest sense of the word which has been re-released several times, and rightly so. After that Garrie finished his studies and worked as a teacher, ski instructor and owned a hot air ballon company as well. Gradually, a new generation of music fans and musicians came to appreciate Garrie's work, he was collaborating with the likes of Duglas T. Stewart (BMX Bandits), Norman Blake, Francis McDonald (both Teenage Fanclub) and Gary Olson (The Ladybug Transistor) and releasing critically acclaimed albums in recent years. The latest find from the Nick Garrie cosmos is a session he recorded in Portugal at the beginning of the millennium: "Summer Nights - The Lost Portuguese Session". Here is what Nick has to say about these recordings: "Love in my eyes" turned out to be our wedding song followed by three beautiful children. Of course the music stopped. I was too busy with kids and working at my own balloon business. And then one summer we went to a lovely village in North Portugal where we picked tomatoes from the field. One night I went out to a 60s type bodega run by a fierce 80 year old with a big stick. He was watching me watch a guitarist and asked me if I played "a little". He pulled out a guitar from under the counter and I sang "Deeper Tones of Blue" and I was home for the first time since I recorded Stanislas all those years ago. Sure enough someone asked me if I'd like to make a record and I said yes provided we have the Portuguese guitar which I'd fallen in love with. We recorded on the top floor of a block of flats with the local bus rattling round the corner. I slept on a bench and when we finished I took everybody out for dinner. When I got back to my bench in the wee hours of the morning the young Portuguese guitarist was sitting there with a bonnet pulled over his eyes. "What are you doing"? "I stay till the morning comes" (which is one of the songs we recorded) Well the album went nowhere and lay on my shelf for 20 years until someone wrote in asking for it. I listened and loved that Portuguese guitar all over again. Many stories to tell but in the meantime my heartfelt thanks to Jose Cid who often invited me to sing at his gigs and Antonio Freitas who is the kindest person in Music.
