Terry St. Clair: Live at Covent Garden
Singer has spent nearly three decades playing to outdoor crowds
Apr 1, 2009
LONDON -- Serving as his own roadie and sound crew, British singer-songwriter Terry St. Clair pulls his guitar, an amplifier, speakers and microphone stand from a hand truck, sets them up on the cobblestones at Covent Garden Market and begins to play.
It's a routine he has followed for 28 years.
About 15 people gather around; some standing, others sitting on benches that face the 58-year-old singer. A few listen intently; one man finishes a slice of pizza, then walks off while St. Clair is in the middle of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right."
St. Clair takes in the scene. People eating, smoking, juggling bags from shops in the area. But he never strays from his set, which includes the work of such writers as Dylan, Paul Simon and Tom Paxton with his own compositions.
A copy of his most recent CD is propped in his guitar case. Listeners can buy it for £10, they can toss a few coins into the case or just listen for a while and walk away.
St. Clair has released four CDs. One of his songs was used in a 2005 Kevin Costner film, "The Upside of Anger." He also has his own Web site.
Singer unhappy with competition from jugglers, mimes
St. Clair has the aura of a headliner who should be playing in the Royal Albert Hall, rather than competing for attention with the jugglers, mimes and magicians who perform nearby, frequently to larger audiences than he attracts.
That is a state of affairs that troubles him. "Visual acts, including magicians, will always attract larger audiences these days," he said recently in a telephone interview which followed an earlier interview at Covent Garden.
. "When I started out, you could just get a guitar out on the street or in a pub and people would gather around. I see people walk past me listening to MP3 players and they don't even stop to hear live music or even know what I'm playing."
St. Clair establishes rapport with his audience, pointing out while introducing Simon's "Homeward Bound" that the American legend spent several months in England in 1965 after his first album with Art Garfunkel failed.
He estimates he has played in Covent Garden "several thousand times." If he is frustrated by playing for tourists and shoppers, he doesn't show it.
He rejects the premise that folk music is out of style, suggesting that the problem is that there is more variety today.
"There's never been a time when musical tastes have been so varied," he said in the same telephone interview. "My audience range in age from teenagers to the very old. There is a lot of great music around today. I can enjoy Radiohead as much as listening to Seth Lakeman or Bela Fleck." He admits, however, that he "still (has) ambitions to perform bigger venues. There is still a large audience out there for acoustic music."
St. Clair is proud that, even though he has performed more concerts on the street than on the stage, he has been able to support himself and his family without having to work elsewhere. "I've put two daughters through college," he said, "and that pleases me."
Influenced by Bob Dylan, James Taylor
St. Clair began taking piano lessons at 9 and started singing in a church choir shortly afterward. He said his early influences included Scottish guitarist Bert Jansch and British folk figures Ralph McTell and Martin Carthy, along with Dylan, Paxton and James Taylor.
A folk club operator and agent found St. Clair gigs throughout the Birmingham area. He juggled school, work and local appearances for five years before heading to London in 1974.
He stayed in London for three years, then moved back north, got married and began working for a record distributor.
His first CD was released in 1985 and has sold more than 60,000 copies. Its success led to several television and radio appearances, including a few on the BBC. His second CD followed in 1991. His first completely acoustic CD came three years later.
Song was chosen for film
His most recent CD, "Black White," was released in 1999. It was from it that director Mike Binder chose "If I Fall in Love With You" for his film. He's been recognized by journalists, as well. John Tobler, in "Folk Roots," a British magazine now called "fRoots," wrote of the "Black White" album: "It is very heartening...to discover that a singer/songwriter of the caliber of Terry St. Clair can still be found in a musical world which seems to value loud, tuneless junk and amateurism above melodic tunes and the long established art of the seasoned troubadour."
Fans now post clips from St. Clair's performances at Covent Garden on YouTube. Depending on the season, he wears a short-sleeved shirt in one clip, a heavy coat and fingerless gloves in another.
A comment left beneath one clip, posted by a fan named Bob Cooper, summed up seeing St. Clair by writing on a YouTube site: "For me, hearing Terry at Covent Gardens is one of the experiences I look forward to when I'm in London. I don't think I've heard a better version of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" than Terry's.
"I first heard him singing one cold December night and I stayed until he had sung his last song, long after I had promised to return home."
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