Emerging From The Cave

By Joe Kavanagh

Of all the curious trends in music, one of the strangest must be the tendency of countries to occasionally 'adopt' artists from overseas, long before they are accepted in their own native land.

From as far back as the time of the ancients, artists have been compelled to travel across seas and continents in search of a living in music in a tradition that has continued to this day.

Incredible as it sounds, despite his brilliance, Jimi Hendrix might forever have remained little more than an anonymous footnote in the music industry, were it not for his decision to accept an invite to the UK from The Animals.

Within a few short years his star was the brightest on the British music scene; shining with sufficient intensity to be seen all the way on the other side of the Atlantic.

In recent times, acts like The Killers and Kings Of Leon have all followed the same circuitous route to stardom, using the momentum gained from glory in the European music market to reinvigorate their careers back at home.

Ireland has an extensive history of taking on musical strays as their own and either nurturing them until their careers take off elsewhere, or offering them a working home long after their gravy train has run out of track anywhere else.

With the rest of the world all but indifferent to his music, David Gray found a welcome home in Ireland, with baying crowds packing his gigs to such an extent that he based himself there and even invited interested record labels to travel across the Irish Sea to catch him live, so confident was he in the ability of Irish crowds to impress.

It was a plan that worked to perfection when Gray finally achieved global superstardom almost a decade into a career that might never have been were it not for the support he received on terra firma Hibernia.

Another name can now be officially added to the Irish music adoption registrar, this one from virtually the furthest point away from the country that one can find on a map.

While somewhat different in the fact that the latest member is a long-serving member of one of Australia's most acclaimed acts, even he would confess that his own solo career has been lived far from the bright lights of concert halls and festival stages.

While he is undoubtedly a celebrity of some note in his home country, it is the Irish that have truly taken him into their hearts, a gesture that he has reciprocated with the release of his latest album, a retrospective of his solo career, recorded live in the less than glamorous surrounds of Manorhamilton, County Leitrim.

Conway Savage may or may not have Irish roots, given that he has never felt the need to examine his ethnic background. Instead, he is wholly content with his natural identity as a man whose early life was forged in the rugged rural areas of Victoria, in south-eastern Australia.

True to the almost gunslinger look he would later adopt, his early history was created among towns with names like Fish Creek, Kyabram and Marlo, as his parents moved around running a series of bars and hotels during his youth.

It was this life that drew him to music at an early age, but in contrast to his older brothers who all played guitar, he was immediately drawn to the ivories and spent many hours whiling away the time punching out tunes on the dusty piano that sat in the corner of his parents' pub, offering an escape from the real world, a feeling of liberation that he still feels today every time he sits in front of the black and white keys.

His other major pursuits as a child were cricket and Australian Rules Football, but when his dream of chasing down a career as a professional athlete was dashed against the rocks of reality during his teens, he began to invest more time in his first love.

Upon finishing school, he moved to the more urbane surrounds of Melbourne, where his skills as an organ and piano player soon made him a face on the thriving local music scene.

In the late-80s, he shared stage time with some of the city's most acclaimed musicians, playing with acts like the country-rock, Dust On The Bible and The Feral Dinosaurs, a band whose inspiration was drawn from the manic piano-driven rock of Jerry Lee Lewis.

Despite gaining attention with both bands, possibly the most important moment in his early career happened by chance, when he took to the stage at a friend's wedding, where he was joined by Nick Cave, as the duo belted out a couple of Elvis Presley numbers.

Originally a member of highly regarded Australian act, The Birthday Club, Cave had since gone on to make a name with backing band, the Bad Seeds.

Cave remembered this brief collaboration when he sought to shake things up in the Bad Seeds and, upon seeking a second opinion from several band mates, extended Savage an offer to join his backing band in 1990, in time for The Good Son tour.

Together with Mick Harvey, Martyn Casey and Warren Ellis, he became a fixture among the dark-suited, somewhat menacing-looking backing group that played the aloof straight-men to Cave's often furious preacher-like, stage persona, traveling the world for the next two decades, as they churned out acclaimed albums like Murder Ballads, The Boatman's Call and Abattoir Blues.

He even managed to piggyback his way into a top ten hit, when he sung b-side, The Willow Garden, on Cave's global smash hit duet with Kylie Minogue, Where The Wild Roses Grow.

Such achievements were eventually enough to secure himself and the rest of the Bad Seeds a place in Australia's equivalent to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, while Savage also kept his rhythmic fingers in many other pies, collaborating with a veritable who's who of Australian musical royalty, as he contributed keys to the likes of Dave Graney, Jim White and Robert Forster of the Go Betweens.

Running analogous to this rather manic schedule, he also kicked off his own, more modest solo career, with the rather low-key release of an eponymous mini-album in 1993.

Even then, it would be another five years before he managed another effort, putting out Soon Will Be Tomorrow, an album written and performed with fellow Australian, Suzie Higgie.

His true solo debut did not in fact appear until 2000, when he released the moody, ethereal Nothing Broken, which received broad critical acclaim from those who actually heard it.

Fiercely independent, and burned from being ripped off on past projects, he released the album on his own label, following it up with 2004's Wrong Man's Hands, a record that began his requited love affair with Ireland, when he incorporated lyrics from James Joyce and Irish poet James Stephens because they fit so perfectly with the tone and intent of his music.

His music also came to the attention of Dundalk-based Irish songwriter Mark Corcoran, who was so enamored with what he heard that he offered to release Savage's work in Ireland on his own independent label.

Thus a love affair was born, and as word of his work filtered around the island, he began coming over to the country for regular touring duties, initially as a solo artist and eventually with his own three-piece band.

Two more albums followed, one offering a complete retrospective to his work back in the 1980s and another original in the form of Quickie For Ducky, which once again hit home with critics.

This week, he made a triumphant return to Ireland, for a series of live dates to promote his latest work, which was recorded in the Glens Centre in Manorhamilton, about as far into the country as one could get.

It is a mark of the man that he would include such often forgotten places on his touring schedule, and a mark of his talent that the gritty, moving album already looks like the work that will lift him out from the immense shadow of the man who gave him a career in music.

If critics are correct in their predictions, then this latest release from Conway Savage is set to make him a name in his own right, and make two races of people on opposites ends of the earth immensely proud in the process.