Scott Fagan

Best known seeing that the maestro at the rear of the obscure 1967 psych-folk LP South Atlantic Blues as well as the 1971 Broadway rock and roll musical Soon, vocalist/songwriter Scott Fagan can be the daddy of Magnetic Areas mastermind Stephin Merritt. Given birth to in NY in 1945 to a saxophone-playing dad and a dancer mom, the innately musical Fagan spent his formative years along with his mom within an arts colony in the Virgin Islands. In the middle-’60s, after gigging around the united states and honing his chops (he actually landed several gigs with Jimi Hendrix), he auditioned for songwriting story Doc Pomus, with whom he’d go on to create “I’m Gonna Cry ‘Til My Tears Work Dry,” that was documented by Linda Ronstadt. Fagan’s pop acumen quickly led him to Columbia Information, where he caused another songwriting heavyweight, Burt Berns. After a short and finally unfruitful courtship by Apple Information (he dropped out to Wayne Taylor), Fagan inked a cope with Atco, which would launch his first studio room recording, South Atlantic Blues, in 1967. Like additional “obscuro” classics from your period, South Atlantic Blues by no means actually dipped a feet in to the mainstream. The LP quickly discovered itself in cutout bins, but famous painter and printmaker Jasper Johns was plenty of of a enthusiast that he developed three pieces known as Scott Fagan Record, which ultimately found their method into the choices from the Met, MOMA, as well as the Walker Artwork Center. Fagan’s initial post-SAB task was a rock and roll musical about the evils from the music sector called Shortly, which discovered its method to Broadway in 1971. Having a ensemble that included Nell Carter, Barry Bostwick, Richard Gere, and Peter Allen, the present received rave testimonials, but shut after just three performances. Another LP, Many Sunny Areas, implemented in 1975, but didn’t generate much curiosity. The ensuing years noticed Fagan time for the Virgin Islands to a far more settled life, however in 2000 it had been uncovered that he was the daddy of Stephin Merritt, who got just released the Magnetic Areas’ biggest discharge to time, 1999’s ambitious 69 Like Tracks. Merritt and Fagan didn’t in fact fulfill until 2013, of which period Fagan announced that he’d be documenting an LP of addresses of some his son’s tunes. The Kickstarter-funded task eventually failed its monetary goals, and was ultimately shelved. In 2015, shop reissue label Saint Cecilia Understands released a recently remastered edition of South Atlantic Blues on both Compact disc and vinyl.