The creators of rock n’ roll weren’t just the amplified musicians and preening singers. In From Manchester with Love, The Life and Times of Tony Wilson, Paul Morley penned a near-definitive account of one of the most important tastemakers in modern musical history. Closer to home, the Belfast-based writer Stuart Bailie now publishes an absorbing overview of the life and times of the inimitable Terri Hooley.
Stuart Bailie has already published 75 Van Songs: Into the Van Morrison Songbook, and Trouble Songs: Music and Conflict in Northern Ireland. His cover stories for NME about colourful iconoclasts such as Public Enemy and Manic Street Preachers opened up to me the possibilities of the world of music journalism as a teenager, while also introducing me to trailblazing artists who had something to say and fostering a new-found appreciation of the subversive power of music and the written word.
Derry actor Bronagh Gallagher testifies to the cultural and personal significance of Hooley’s Good Vibrations shop by recalling her regular six-hour round trips to get her hands on an album like Live at Mr Kelly’s by Muddy Waters. Gallagher reminds me of some of my own personal cross-Border odysseys to Great Victoria Road to pick up singles by PBR Streetgang and The Jesus and Mary Chain.
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In this elegant volume, tastefully designed by Stuart’s daughter, Betty Bailie, Hooley’s chaotic and wildly unpredictable life less ordinary is chronicled in loving detail with the addition of copious photographs and flyers to bring the era alive. Seventy-Five Revolutions fills in a lot of the gaps left by the heartwarming 2012 film adaptation of his life, Good Vibrations.
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Its title is a salute to Hooley on the landmark occasion of his 75th birthday, but also as a hat tip to his revolutionary convictions. He memorably declined a Facebook-originated people’s campaign calling on him to run for lord mayor, remarking: “There are enough fools in Belfast City Hall, they don’t need another one.” Terri Hooley has done enough to enrich the culture of this island to need to muddy himself in politics. As the lyric of the song he helped make famous and immortalised on John Peel’s tombstone goes: “Teenage dreams so hard to beat.”
