King Tut’s John-Paul Mason takes us through his second favourite Glasgow album, Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Night Owls’

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Part 2 in JP Mason’s five favourite Glasgow albums - Gerry Rafferty’s Night Owl.

Transcript

00:00 Again, I have a friend to thank for this. And weirdly, and I never really thought about

00:09 this, it was also in an Iceland that I was handed this, or not quite handed. Well, yeah,

00:15 no, he had two copies of it and this is a spare copy. So when I moved to Edinburgh in

00:22 2001, I got a transfer from my store in Bathgate to the Iceland in Morningside, which is now

00:30 Martin Spencers. And I moved into a flat up in Morningside Road. And I obviously didn't

00:39 know anybody in the store. It was just a case of, right, I'm going to do my final year at

00:44 uni. It made sense to get a transfer to an Iceland and they needed somebody and that

00:49 was that. And I had maybe met one of the managers at a stock take or something like that, so

00:55 he knew me. So that was my end. And then I started and the guy that showed me around,

01:00 Michael Lyons, he took me to the biscuit aisle and introduced me to a guy called Chris Howard.

01:06 And he just said, "Chris, you like music. JP, he likes music. Chris, JP, JP, Chris."

01:13 And straight away, off the bat, me and him just hit the ground running and became really,

01:17 really good pals. And to the point that we would hang out all the time, we would go to

01:22 gigs together. He was in a band, one of the first people that I ever met that was in a

01:26 band and played bass and was really good. And we would hang out and we'd go back to

01:31 his flat after being out on Nights Out and he would play me albums. One of which was

01:39 Talk Talk. He got me into Talk Talk. And Talk Talk are on some days of the week, my favorite

01:44 band of all time. So that's how much I hold this guy's musical knowledge. And he asked

01:54 me about Gerry Rafferty and I said, "Oh, that's Baker Street, right?" And he went,

01:58 "Yeah, but there's more to Gerry Rafferty than Baker Street." And I think that's amazing

02:02 when your knowledge of an artist is one track and then someone just kicks open a door and

02:08 goes, "Here's an album. And here's an album that doesn't even have Baker Street on it.

02:12 Here's an album that you've never heard any of the songs on it." And we listened to it

02:16 in his flat and I just remember, I think it got to Family Tree and I just thought, "Wow,

02:23 how is this guy Scottish? And how is this guy not way more well-known than this?" I

02:29 just thought, this is like Dylan of Scotland, really. That's how I thought of him.

02:34 Definitely. I mean, there's a really special, I don't know if you've ever seen it, but

02:37 he had a really special version of that after he passed away.

02:40 With his family?

02:41 His daughter's singing it. It's absolutely phenomenal.

02:43 Full-body chills thinking about it. Because they also did a gig for him at the concert

02:48 hall, which was mega, mega sold out. And it was just before I had the contacts that I

02:55 had to be able to ask for a ticket by or a guest stay or something like that. So there

03:00 was no way I was getting in. And I know that they had a bunch of people playing his songs

03:05 at the concert hall. It was part of Celtic Connections, I think. And maybe they did something

03:10 in Paisley as well, at the Spree. Because he was Paisley, right?

03:14 Paisley.

03:14 Yeah. And I didn't see that. So again, this is another artist who I really regret not

03:21 being able to see live, because like Alex Harvey, he stopped touring. There was no resurgence

03:28 or encouragement to play live by anybody, really. And I think that's really sad that

03:35 he never got... I mean, he obviously wasn't bothered. He genuinely probably didn't care.

03:40 I don't think he... From the little I've seen and heard of him, he didn't really enjoy it,

03:45 I don't think. It wasn't something that... I mean, you see that footage of him accepting

03:51 the award. It's like an American Music Awards, big fancy awards. And he walks up, gets this

03:56 big intro, and gets this prestigious award. And then he just goes to the mic and goes,

04:01 "Oh, cheers." And just walks off and everybody goes, "Is that all we're getting?" And it's

04:06 like, well, he was quite a guy that kept to himself. And he let the music do the talking.

04:13 And you see the way Billy Connolly talks about him. Billy Connolly, I don't think would offer

04:20 that sort of praise to somebody unless it was somebody really special. And obviously,

04:26 they work together. And Billy went down his path with comedy, and then he went down his path

04:32 with his solo material and left a body of work, including this, which I just think is an

04:39 incredible album. I mean, 10 tracks. There is no filler on this record. It's unbelievable. And then

04:47 most people, when you talk about geography, go city to city. That's their one. And I love city

04:54 to city as well. Don't get me wrong, but I just think this one is the one. And as you ask in top

05:02 five Glasgow albums, this is in my top, probably my top 20 albums of all time by anyone. So how

05:09 could it not be in this? It's a hard thing to choose five albums, by the way. I mean, I heard

05:14 Billy say that. And there's a list the length of my arm that didn't make it. And it could make it

05:22 on another day. It's just the way you're feeling in your head. I could maybe choose another,

05:27 choose differently. There was a different one before Alex Harvey this morning. So

05:33 that's just the curse of loving a lot of music, I suppose.

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