South Atlantic Blues

South Atlantic Blues was first released in 1968, at the same time as Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. While Morrison’s album went on to achieve ‘classic’ status, Fagan’s disappeared without trace. Fagan was unlucky; his chaotic childhood took him from New York to the Puerto Rican slum. He eventually made it back to New York in time to catch the 1960s Greenwich Village scene but lost out to James Taylor when The Beatles’ Apple Records were looking to sign a new singer-songwriter. Neither South Atlantic Blues nor his subsequent Broadway rock-opera attracted success. Even on its 2015 reissue, the album went under the radar.

The opening tracks are magnificent, with lavish brass and strings arrangements. ‘In My Head’ with its Righteous Brothers vibe, the shuffling ‘Nickels and Dimes’ and ‘Crying’, with its baritone guitar dripping with tremolo, could have been written for Dusty Springfield. Fagan’s impassioned vocal sounds uncannily like David Bowie and his lyrics are strikingly original (‘the poor man’s got no gods at all, not counting alcohol’).

Reissued now for a second time, South Atlantic Blues, remains an enjoyable, bittersweet encapsulation of 1968.