Ohh, I missed this thread (I really should look in this forum more often)...
The Waterboys, as Mike Scott is wont to say, is Mike Scott, and Mike Scott is The Waterboys. The rest of the band is whoever he feels like playing with at any given moment (and whoever feels like playing with him), more than thirty people to date. The strong Irish influence was largely the result of Irish fiddler Steve Wickham, who has been involved with the group as much as anyone besides Scott.
They actually started off in the early 80's as a post-punk New Wave band, playing what was then called “The Big Musicâ€, a sort of grandiose atmospheric rock sound exemplified by groups like Big Country and Simple Minds. Their third album,
This Is the Sea was the culmination of that sound and contained the single
The Whole of the Moon, their most commercially successful single, although it made very little impact here in the US. The music on those first three records bear very little resemblance to their later Irish influenced work, but
This Is the Sea is a great album that I enjoy very much.
It was while they were recording
This Is the Sea that Wickham joined the band. After that album the group started to break up - keyboardist Karl Wallinger left to form World Party (another personal favorite of mine, although relatively unknown today), and other members went their own way. Wickham returned to Ireland, joined by Scott who said he went for two weeks and ended up staying for two years. He spent those two years learning about traditional Irish music and playing and recording with anyone he could find to play with. At the end of that time, in 1988, he released
Fisherman’s Blues which, as Alatar said, went on to become a multi-platinum best seller.
For many people like myself this was the first exposure we ever had to Irish folk music, and it was a seminal point in the re-emergence of folk rock in America, influencing what became known as “Americana†and “World Musicâ€.
In America, however, the album was more of a critical success than a commercial success. It didn’t get much radio play, had no hit singles, and didn’t get much exposure. But, it was repeatedly mentioned by other musicians as being one of their favorite records, which is why I bought it, and I instantly fell in love with it.
The group put out another album two years later called
Room To Roam in the same style, but it didn’t do as well, either commercially or critically. Shortly after that they broke up completely. Scott moved to New York and released one more album under the Waterboys name using all studio musicians, and returning to his Big Music style. After that he pursued a solo career during most of the 90's.
He resurrected the Waterboys name in 2000 for an album called
A Rock In the Weary Land, a very strange hardcore rock album that beared no resemblance at all to anything else he had ever done. During that time, however, he joined a spiritual commune in Scotland called Findhorn, and in 2003 the Waterboys released
Universal Hall, named after the performance hall at Findhorn. It was a very meditative, acoustic album of spiritual songs, that would have been mostly unforgettable except for the fact that it saw the return of Steve Wickham to the fold. The group has toured extensively since then and they put out a live album in 2005. Last year they released
Book Of Lightning, a return of sorts to their previous work, including several songs that recall the Irish folk-rock of the
Fisherman’s Blues era.
That period during the late 80's remains their most prolific and best known. The
Fisherman’s Blues album had 13 songs, and
Room To Roam had 17, but Scott has said that they recorded over a hundred songs during that time. In 2001 he released a two album collection of unreleased tracks from the Fisherman’s Blues era called
Too Close To Heaven (released as
Fisherman’s Blues Part 2 in the U.S.), that contained an additional 15 songs. In 2006 he released a re-mastered version of
Fisherman’s Blues that included a bonus disc of 14 unreleased tracks, bringing the total of released tracks from the Ireland sessions to 59 songs, so they’ve got another 40 to go.
. They plan to release a re-mastered version of
Room To Roam with another bonus disc later this year. Needless to say, I’ll be buying it.
In addition to the music, I find that I really like Scott’s lyrics as well. Very poetic, very spiritual without being preachy, lots of literary references, and just plain good writing.
Vison, the discs that I sent you are compilations that I made from several of Waterboys CD’s. I tried to pick their best songs, but the truth is there really aren’t very many that I don’t like.
I’m keeping my eyes open to see if they tour the U.S. anytime soon. I’ll definitely be there if they do.