Kirwan single

[Tom]

I just won a 45 (remember them) on ebay. It's "Let It Be" (the Beatles song) by Danny Kirwan. This is THE DK right? Anyone familiar with this single? Being also a huge Beatles fan I'm looking forward to hearing it.

[wondergirl9847]

Yep, that's Danny. I don't like the Beatles or that song, but he puts a neat reggae spin on it. I wub Danny.

[sharksfan2000]

Yes, that's the Danny Kirwan. The single was taken from Danny's second solo album Midnight In San Juan (and just titled Danny Kirwan for its US release). It's probably the best of his solo albums, but sadly it does not feature much of his guitar work. As wondergirl noted, his version of "Let It Be" is done in sort of a reggae-lite style.

Here's a link to the album page on the Penguin discography: Midnight In San Juan (http://discog.fleetwoodmac.net/discog.php?pid=79)

[bretonbanquet]

I agree with all that - I actually prefer Danny's version to The Beatles' version, it's just perkier and doesn't drag on... The B-side to the single was 'I Can Tell' which is also from the 'Midnight In San Juan' / 'Danny Kirwan' album. There's also a promo 45 with 'Let It Be' on both sides. It was only a single in the US, perhaps the label thought that the Brits wouldn't appreciate anyone playing around with Beatles classics...

It was the first cover version he'd done during his solo career, but he later recorded quite a few for his last album, 'Hello There Big Boy', perhaps because he wasn't up to writing many songs by that time.

Regarding sharksfan2000's comment about the lack of guitar, that was a sad fact of Danny's solo career - the fantastic guitar work of his Mac days was noticeably absent from his solo work. There were a few of those cleverly crafted layered guitar things a bit like what he did on 'Future Games', but very little in the way of soloing :( Maybe that's partly why his solo career didn't succeed - people expected something similar to his Fleetwood Mac stuff.

[Tom]

Thanks for the replies. I thought it seemed like an odd song to put out as a single for Danny. Maybe he was trying to expand from the bluesy image a bit.
I had wondered if he did some nice guitar work on this song. George Harrison played some great lead on the original album version of L.I.B.
Now I want to hear it even more tough with this reggae spin.

[chiliD]

Sadly, it seems that annoying Moog synthesiser :cool: that pervades throughout Midnight In San Juan took up the space that Danny's guitar would've fit nicely.

"I Can Tell" should've been the A-side...to me, that was the best tune he did over the course of his 3 solo albums.

Christy, you just can't help but keep rubbing in the fact that you don't like the Beatles, can you? ;) And, you KNOW how I feel about "Beatle-haters". :laugh:

[wondergirl9847]

I only mentioned that because it's so automatic for 99.99999% of the population, so if even *I* like the spin he put on it, then, most people should like it. :)

[sharksfan2000]

Sadly, it seems that annoying Moog synthesiser :cool: that pervades throughout Midnight In San Juan took up the space that Danny's guitar would've fit nicely.Yes, it is sad that the synth is so pervasive on this album and Danny's guitar couldn't have been highlighted more. But hard to know what kind of playing he was capable of at that point. Perhaps his guitar work was minimized by necessity rather than choice - I don't know.

"I Can Tell" should've been the A-side...to me, that was the best tune he did over the course of his 3 solo albums.Couldn't agree more. This one could have been a hit single.

[bretonbanquet]

Yes, it is sad that the synth is so pervasive on this album and Danny's guitar couldn't have been highlighted more. But hard to know what kind of playing he was capable of at that point. Perhaps his guitar work was minimized by necessity rather than choice - I don't know.


I've heard that his playing on 'MISJ' was patchy and also that he wasn't on the title track because his playing couldn't be used, but I've never actually heard or seen proper evidence of that, like a session musician's word on it or anything like that. Personally my hunch is that he was still relatively together at this point and his playing was still pretty good, and it was only after the failure of this second album that he went seriously downhill. What is clear is that by the time 'Hello There Big Boy' was finally recorded, he could barely play at all, according to Bob Weston for instance. It sounds like we were lucky they got vocals out of him :( I assume this was the reason for the long-ish gap between 'MISJ' and 'HTBB' - maybe they were hoping Danny could recover a bit before doing 'HTBB'.

'I Can Tell' would have made a great single - I've always been a bit confused by the choice and timing of singles during Danny's solo career. For instance 'Ram Jam City' was released twice as a single in the UK, and in the US they followed up the second album with a single from the first album, before releasing 'Let It Be' :confused: There were also two releases in the UK (and one in the US) of Danny's songs as B-sides to Mac's 'Man of the World'. Also his work never saw release in Europe which might have been his best chance, given how popular Peter Green still was in Germany etc.

Having said all that, it must have been rather difficult to promote an artist who didn't play live... that has to be the main reason why his solo career didn't take off.