A magical tour of America heralds a new album from Michael Marra. This was the byline used by Sunday Times journalist Ian Black back on the 12 May 1996. The new album was Pax Vobiscum
Three weeks ago the fickle finger of fate reached out, tapped Dundee singer/songwriter Michael Marra on the shoulder and handed him a giant lollipop in the shape of an all-expenses-paid trip to America. It was his first visit and one he has fantasised about since he can remember. Marra's musical roots are intertwined with rock, country, jazz and accordion bands, as well as his own working-class background. His gritty voice and unforced delivery blend with his broad Dundee accent to create a blunt honesty, combined with colourful language - songs much beloved by American country fans and not a few Scottish folk fans. Marra is 44 and very much a cult figure on the verge of national fame. He's played a range of music for which the word eclectic isn't broad enough, from early Dundee rock legends Skeets Boliver to recently touring Europe with Deacon Blue. He acknowledges his American influences and hopes to get another album from the experience of his magical freebie. "Where I grew up, what you learned at your grandfather's knee was Elvis songs off the radio. It was an unusual thing to happen." Unusual but true. At school, the children collected pennies for "the black babies in Africa", says Marra. "It was called the Holy Family and when you had collected 2s 6d you got a picture of them and you got to give them a name. We called all of ours Elvis. I think of them sometimes, all these guys in Africa called Elvis..." Marra has a wealthy fan, a man whom he had never met, called Roderick Cameron. He's originally from Glasgow, but now lives and works in California. He served his time as a toolmaker at Rolls-Royce, studied engineering at Cambridge and then emigrated to America where he designs and builds things like the University of Mexico City. "He likes my songs for one reason or another," says Marra, "and he wanted to make a journey with me to show me what he calls 'the soft underbelly of the real America'. He paid for the ticket and I flew out to San Francisco where he collected me. Then we spent two weeks at a different motel every night rehearsing with these two other guys he'd brought along. We finished the trip back in San Francisco and I did a solo gig and one with the guys." Where did he go? "All over the place. I did a gig in Mendecino - one of the Byrds, Gene Parsons, was it. He played the drums for Randy Newman - one of my heroes. That was fabulous." Energy and excitement pour from Marra's mouth, his normally laidback crinkly eyes shining with remembered joy, as he relives the trip. "Unbelievable, eh? We went to the Grand Canyon, to a wee town called Lone Pine, and then up into the mountains to a ghost town called Bodie, a wee mining town. It was really wonderful. We learned a three-part harmony for a song called Grand Canyon Line, one of the few songs that Burl Ives wrote, and we sang it going down the Grand Canyon. And we sang Route 66 going down Route 66. It was just what every Scottish laddie wants." They took a day off on Cameron's 59th birthday when he took them to Las Vegas. "The Man from Kansas (one of his musician companions), he said, when he saw me watching the people pouring money into the machines, 'That's how the Mob likes it, a quarter at a time'." The Man from Kansas was a language learning experience for him. "He would say things like, 'I'm as jittery as a seven-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.' Maybe Roderick hired them to teach me American." He's going back to America as soon as he can. "I know I'll need to do a thousand wee gigs but I'm game for that." His new album, Pax Vobiscum, is out at the end of the month. Copyright The Sunday Times May 1996
