BILL FAY knows only too well how a rabbit feels when it’s caught in the headlights. Here he is, re-emerging into the music world after three decades in the wilderness, and the light of admiration and acclaim that’s greeted his return is almost blinding.
“Sort of a bit flabbered with everything,” is how he describes his current state. “There’s a lot happening – not used to it, Kevin. It’s a bit of a shock, all of this . . .”
It seems to be the year of discovering lost treasures. We’ve already seen the resurrection of forgotten 1970s soulman Sixto Rodriquez, as documented in the film Searching for Sugarman. Now a long-buried giant of British songwriting has been uncovered, and rock archaeologists are hailing it as a significant musical find.
Fay’s new album, Life Is People, his first studio recording since the 1970s, has had a five-star reception from critics. Suddenly, everyone’s talking about this unassuming singer-songwriter from north London; having been used to almost complete media silence for four decades, Fay is feeling just a little discombobulated by the chorus of printed praise.
It’s hard to stay hidden from the world these days, but somehow Fay managed to stay off the grid for nigh on 30 years, although he’s never ceased to do what he does best – write plaintive, passionate songs about the human condition and the triumph of the spirit.
Now in his 60s, his life of anonymity is coming to an end. He’s been championed by the likes of Nick Cave, Jim O’Rourke and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, who he joined onstage, in 2007, for a rendition of his song Be Not So Fearful (he returned the favour by covering a Wilco song, Jesus Etc, on Life Is People).
Offers to tour and play festivals are now coming thick and fast, but Fay is a shy and reclusive type, and he’s not planning to go out on the road with his songs anytime soon.
“I told them in the beginning, that’s a no-no. I’m not an arena sort of person. They know that I’m fundamentally a songwriter, and I don’t play live. There’s just too much work involved.”
The late 1960s and early 1970s was a golden age for English singer-songwriters – Ray Davies, Gary Brooker, Donovan, Nick Drake to name but a few. Conspicuously absent from the roll-call was Bill Fay, whose first two albums, Bill Fay and Time of the Last Persecution, disappeared almost without trace.
Though Fay was musically active during one of the most fertile periods in British rock, and recorded for the Decca label, home to The Rolling Stones and The Moody Blues, among others, he never met any of his more famous contemporaries, spending much of the British psychedelic and prog boom at home writing songs.
“I was still learning the piano, and I was still finding songs on the piano, and it wasn’t till I got the recording contract that I started playing with others. Fundamentally I was outside of the music thing. I did a couple of charity gigs, and I think Jack Bruce was at one of them, but I don’t think I even met him.”
Unable to make a living from making music, Fay worked as a labourer, factory worker, fruit-picker, gardener and fishmonger; one press release had Fay living rough, but he insists this is an exaggeration.
He simply lived a boring, ordinary life, he says, but made sure not to let a single day go by without trying to extract something extraordinary from his piano keyboard. He recorded a third album in the late 1970s, but couldn’t find a label to release it. It finally came out in 2005 under the title Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow.
Then, a couple of years ago, a young producer from Nevada, Joshua Henry, called Fay and asked him if he’d like to record a new album.
Henry had grown up listening to Fay’s music, which he came across in his dad’s vinyl collection, and made it his mission to get the singer back into the studio.
“There was something about what he was saying, particularly to do with his dad, that it felt wrong not to go with this, and it just took on a life of its own. I’m just astonished with the result.”
Henry, determined not to dilute Fay’s essential Englishness, recruited guitarist Matt Deighton of Mother Earth and The Bench Connection, who brought in drummer Tim Weller and keyboardist Mikey Rowe, both of whom have played with Noel Gallagher (Deighton once replaced Gallagher for Oasis tour dates after one of Gallagher’s many walkouts).
Fay’s old bandmates, guitarist Ray Russell and drummer Alan Rushton, also joined in on some of the tracks.
“I kind of knew before we started the album that it could be a strong album. But the players have brought so much to it, and so has Joshua. His main contribution was extending Cosmic Concerto (Life Is People), which was about four minutes or so, into this tremendous epic that it is. That was totally down to Joshua, and phenomenal work by Guy Massey, the engineer.
“But the players were just incredible and all nice people. Musically, what they pulled out . . . I listen to one or two of the tracks on a daily basis, but I don’t listen because it’s, like, my album or something. I listen because it’s those players.”
Fay’s name might finally be added to the annals of English rock, but he remains a man of mystery. He may be a people person, and the album celebrates the collective power of humanity, but he comes across as a solitary soul. The lyrics of the songs on Life Is People, however convey Fay’s strong Christian ethos and his empathy with others. What also comes across in songs such as The Never Ending Happening and Big Painter is a sense of wonder at the world, but also a tinge of despair at the way things are.
“I think I feel that it’s gotta change. I need to know the world one day, with all its horrors, will change. But it’s not just gonna come from revolution, or us. I have to believe it will come spiritually, from above.”
Until divine intervention comes, Fay offers solace through his calming voice and salving words. Play Be At Peace with Yourself or The Healing Day to anyone feeling the weight of the world, and by the end of the song that weight will have considerably lightened. “Because music’s comforted me a lot, I suppose that you always wanna try and write something that is comforting as well as addressing some of the things . . . and I guess it comforts me to write a song like that.
“There’s so much good going on in the world, too. There’s so many people doing beyond marvellous things.” Add one more to that list.
Life is People is out on Dead Oceans
Bill Fay On ...
Guitarist Matt Deighton
“He pulled everyone together, he got them in, but if you take Be At Peace With Yourself, we did a couple of run-throughs, but I couldn’t properly catch what Matt was playing because I was concentrating on what I was doing. But then I listened back, it was like one elongated guitar solo – what Matt’s playing on that track, it’s astonishing.”
Irish Roots
“My grandfather was Irish. My brother tried to track down the family tree, and we figured that around age 14 he decided to join the English Army. I don’t know whether that kind of thing was going on a lot. Maybe he got the boat over. We can’t trace exactly where in Ireland [he came from], but he ended up a policeman in a small town in Hertfordshire, and then moved over to north London to get work. It’s a bit of a mystery – even my dad didn’t know too much.”
A sense of wonder
“When I was pretty young, I felt that we were kind of locked in our heads, we weren’t really awake to the wonder of different things. I used to keep looking at trees . . . I looked at natural things a lot. Because I did feel the natural world in a deep way, even before I came to believe that it was created as well. I wanted to feel things a bit more real, kind of wake up, almost, and I did come to feel the wonder. You can’t always be on that level, but you can revisit it.”
His next album
“I’ve got this pile of songs in progress, I’ve always got them and I always had them. I just need to get back to the pile of songs and get back to the keyboard and carry on doing what I’ve always been doing. So there’s no definite plan, but just to finish a song in itself is good enough for me.”
