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The Kirsty MacColl web site
This is a major career retrospective of Kirsty's work, which although trimmed from its intended 4 cd length to only 3 still manages to pack a punch with a thoroughly well selected batch of songs from all of Kirsty's albums, all the essential singles and some really good previously unissued material, with outtakes from the Real album, Electric Landlady and Tropical Brainstorm in addition to several priceless demo recordings.
In The Times, Nigel Williamson awards a maximum 5 stars. "We bemoan the lack of British women with distinctive pop voices to rival the likes of Joni Mitchell, Madonna and Emmylou Harris. But it took the death of Kirsty MacColl in 2000 to wake us up to the fact that we had one such talent in our midst all along."
by Declan Lynch "Sunday Independent" (Ireland) April 10, 2005
At the turn of the century, I was writing some stuff with Philip Chevron of The Pogues and the Radiators, who had somehow persuaded me that it might be a good idea if we wrote a musical. In these days of Improbable Frequency and I, Keano and The Ha'penny Bridge, that doesn't sound like quite such an insane proposition. But at the time, Philip was virtually on his own out there, making a case for the musical.
It became a mad Irish-American sort of thing called Jack Rooney In Person, still a work in progress, as they say. And by the end of 2000, Philip had finished a few songs which were ready to be recorded as demos by old friends and collaborators such as various other Pogues and Ronnie Drew. And Kirsty McColl, who had always been hugely supportive of the project.
Manhattan Moon, a coming-to-America song which the aficionados might call 'a big 11 o'clock number', was sung by Kirsty at her home studio in Ealing in early December. She did a terrific job, as we knew she would. A few days later she went on holiday to the island of Cozumel in Mexico with her sons Jamie and Louis and her partner James Knight.
On December 18, Philip spent a long night at a studio in Nottingham mixing the demo with co-producer Nick Robbins. He remembers: "I was at home, too shattered to sleep later that morning, and listening to the final mix of Manhattan Moon when the telephone rang. It was a choked-up Frank Murray, and I knew he was not about to give me good news . . . I heard of Kirsty's death while her wonderful voice rang out clear and warm and oh, so alive in the background."
That version of Manhattan Moon, which no-one in their darkest imaginings thought would be her last recording, is the last-but-one track on the just-released compilation From Croydon to Cuba: An Anthology. It's a superb collection, three CDs of Kirsty's finest, put together with due care and attention. But for all its retrospective aspects, the Kirsty McColl story is itself something of a work in progress.
The circumstances of her death remain unresolved. She was scuba-diving with her sons and their dive master about 300m offshore when she was killed by a powerboat owned by Guillermo Gonzalez Nova, chairman of the holding company Controladora Comercial Mexicana, the second-largest retail operator in Mexico. No-one has been made accountable to the satisfaction of Kirsty's family and friends. Her mother Jean Newlove runs the JFK (Justice for Kirsty) campaign.
The campaign is growing. The BBC recently broadcast a documentary, Who Killed Kirsty McColl? Fans are writing to their MPs and raising money. President Fox of Mexico has received about 10,000 postcards already. The campaign has the support of the Foreign Office.
And listening to her astonishing body of work, it seems there is also something
unresolved about the circumstances of Kirsty's life. It's impossible to
listen to any part of From Croydon To Cuba . . . without being mystified
that an artist of this stature could have received such relatively scant
recognition.
She is still probably best known for her part in Fairytale Of New York,
though it is not typical of her work, as she wasn't the main creative force
behind it. Old folkies would see her primarily as the pop-singer daughter
of the legendary Ewan McColl, and leave it at that.
Perhaps it is other musicians who value her the most. If you were to ask a Tom Waits or a Shane MacGowan how they rate Kirsty as a songwriter, they wouldn't hesitate to place her in the first rank. Bono reveres her. Most likely, her reputation will continue to grow, as a bigger audience is drawn to her music by the tragic twist that she died so young. And maybe it was as simple in commercial terms as her ex-husband, producer Steve Lillywhite, put it when he explained that Kirsty had a few hits over the years, but she never followed up a hit with another hit.
She never got on a roll. She had children; she had a life. But you also suspect there was something more old-fashioned in the inability of the music industry to make Kirsty a star. Frankly, she was just the wrong sort of woman. She was immensely clever, and devastatingly witty, and the industry, on the whole, prefers its women to be more the simple, 'soulful' type. Nor could she be improved much, as she could write her own words and music, produce her own records, and even had a weird gift for selecting the perfect running order of an album. This was all very impressive, but also strangely terrifying. So she remained a major league artist with a minor league following.
Justice is coming far too late for Kirsty. But it's coming.
Declan Lynch
(Source: PC)
Robert Sandall, 26 March 2005
"This three-CD box set offers a comprehensive reminder of just how
characterful a talent departed the planet when Kirsty MacColl was hit by a
marauding speedboat during her Mexican Christmas holiday in 2000. Not all of
the 65 tracks here are classics – like most box sets, this contains a
sprinkling of rare or unreleased what-nots which collectors love but others
skip. But the story they tell is riveting.
MacColl was blessed with a voice in both senses. The thing she sang with was strong, clear and sweet and retained a folky purity which her father, British folk pioneer Ewan MacColl, must have approved of. And the way this voice spoke was sardonic, witty and wickedly observant of masculine frailties. When she sang of a guy in a chip shop who thought he was Elvis, or warned another not to come the cowboy with her, sonny Jim, she sounded like a feminine Ian Dury.
Remarkably, some of MacColl’s most memorable pronouncements were made in
other people’s songs which effectively became her own: the immortal Pogues
collaboration Fairy Tale of New York, for instance, and New England, Billy
Bragg’s not-quite-love song which became her first big hit in 1985. Because
she was so well-liked and respected by other musicians, MacColl was never
short of interesting people to write or work with. Johnny Marr, Evan Dando
and the rockabilly band Matchbox are just three of the guests whose presence
is felt here.
Her restless intelligence kept her on the move musically; this collection
starts out rooted in the styles of the post-punk period – from guitar-heavy
power pop to spindly synthesized confections – and fetches up around the
turn of the century in the brassy Latin vein that spawned her sauciest tune,
In These Shoes? This tale of impromptu coupling, which was covered by
another uncompromisingly stroppy madame, Bette Midler, suggests that MacColl
was nowhere near finished when, tragically, her time ran out.”
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