Big Jim McKenna

Fuck them afore they fuck you!

It's hard to criticise someone and make them feel good about themselves at the same time. Jim seemed to be able to do that naturally. He was at the first Back of the Moon gig in the Star Folk Club, Glasgow sometime in late 2000 early 2001. Quick to dispense praise and criticism each discourse was liberally punctuated with swearing... we all thought he was (fucking) great! I think we had immediate respect for him, he had a great voice and we loved his songs, he didn't seem to care that we were a bunch of upstart kids. We had already experienced a patronising attitude towards young bands so it was refreshing to be spoken to like what you had to say and your music was worth something; dues paid, welcome to the team.



He showed up at The Late Night Session at Celtic Connections last year. Security wouldn't let him in (no surprise there) and he was protesting loudly about their authority. I told them he was getting up to play which seemed to calm them down. "I'm not fuckin playing. They don't want tae listen tae an aul bastard like me. Fucks sake."


I did a short spot first, which garnered the usual appreciation and roasting... Go and show us how it's done then you grumpy old bastard... So he got up and played. The audience, who were getting a bit on the chatty side, went absolutely quiet. He played about four songs with no regard for genre; a bit of blues, a country tune, a folk song. When he finished the place went mental. One woman, moved to tears by one of his song pushed herself backstage desperate to talk to him. No act the whole year received that kind of reception. All the musicians hanging about backstage and in the room were coming up to me for the rest of the festival asking if he was going to go up on stage again.

Watch the video. It's funny, instructive and pretty much sums up the Big Jim McKenna we knew.

...And get some fucking backbone!