Mark Corcoran introduces a unique event taking place in Dundalk this September celebrating the life and music of Australian singer, songwriter and Bad Seed Conway Savage.
It was in the Royal Festival Hall in 1999, as part of Nick Cave's Meltdown festival, where I first saw Conway Savage perform his wonderful songs. I’d seen him many times in the midst of astonishing and unforgettable performances by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the band he played piano and sang backing vocals with from 1990 until his untimely death in 2018.
That special night, accompanied by fellow Bad Seed Mick Harvey on guitar, on a dream bill featuring Harry Dean Stanton with his mariachi band and, as headliner, the legendary Lee Hazlewood with a Swedish band, Conway was mesmerising with his laid-back heartbreaking songs, bar-room piano style, and "golden voice, high and sweet and drenched in soul" as Nick Cave aptly described it.
A year later, with my friends Johnny Vivash and future RTÉ Culture editor Derek O'Connor, I was organising two concerts for him in Ireland, in Whelans and the recently opened Spirit Store in Dundalk. He was touring with Australian singer and songwriter Suzie Higgie, promoting their glorious album 'Soon Will Be Tomorrow’, described by writer Peter Murphy as "one of the most overlooked albums of the late 90s, a deft and delicate weaving of folk, country and pop."
Thus began Conway’s long and unique relationship with Ireland and with myself. Over the subsequent years, I organised numerous tours and released his back catalogue here on my own label. I was incredibly honoured and daunted when he agreed to produce my album Moonlight is X-raying the Earth in 2008. Singing the duet 'It Starts with a Bad Joke' with him is a cherished memory.
Watch: It Starts With a Bad Joke - Conway Savage & Mark Corcoran live at the Spirit Store, 2009
He loved Ireland, he felt the audiences here really listened, this wasn’t an empty platitude – that was not his style. I think he particularly liked playing venues off the beaten track, like The Stables in Mullingar or the Glens Centre in Manorhamilton, a show which was recorded and released in 2010, his only live album titled, naturally, Live in Ireland.
Inspired by a book entitled 1000 years of Irish Poetry, he had found in New York, Conway set music to poems by James Joyce and James Stephens. 'Strings of the Earth and Air', ‘Haunt the Lion’ and ‘Tanist’ appeared on his 2004 album Wrong Man’s Hands. The melodies of these songs, echoes of old Irish laments, sound like they are from the late 19th century, like they’ve always been in the air. This is the genius of Conway Savage, and this melodic lyrical music just flowed out of him.
In his words, "They’re not songs, they’re more kind of eternal truths if you like, through a lot of hard times they have something that carries on through generations, it’s really special stuff. I don’t care to write any other way. "
In Dundalk, this September Conway's Bad Seeds bandmate Mick Harvey and collaborator Suzie Higgie, amongst a stellar cast, will perform his songs in the venue and town where it all began, and where his last ever recording was completed: the EP Pussy’s Bow.
A special pamphlet of writing about Conway with contributions from his many writerly admirers including Nick Cave will be published.
I was so lucky to have known him. It is time for Conway to be heard again.
These Are the Waves: Celebrating the Music of Conway Savage takes place from 12–14 September at various Dundalk venues - find out more here
