Billy Mackenzie

Track	Album / Single
The Rhythm Divine	Mercury MERXR 253
In Windows All	Outernational
Blue It Is	Beyond The Sun
And This She Knows	Beyond The Sun
3 Gypsies in A Restaurant	Beyond The Sun
Thunderstorm	Memory Palace
Give Me Time	Memory Palace
Wild Is The Wind	Eurocentric
The Mountains That You Climb	Satellite Life: Recordings 1994-1996
Tallahatchie Pass	Satellite Life: Recordings 1994-1996
Bonus Track
Mother Earth	Satellite Life: Recordings 1994-1996

Of the large number of excellent male singers who emerged from the independent music scene in Scotland in the 1980s, the two greatest, in my opinion, were Billy Mackenzie and Paul Quinn. Although very different in their styles, both brought an intense sense of drama to their work. They also had an ability to transform seemingly slight material into soaring and transcendental works of art.  They also could both sing in a wide range of styles and across a variety of genres. In a sense, this versatility meant that it proved very difficult for the music business to pigeonhole them in the way that it regularly did with lesser artists. One consequence of this was that neither ever really achieved the kind of level of commercial success that their abilities deserved. The flipside of this, however, was that both produced bodies of work which remain fresh, relevant and original today. In consequence, I have tried to highlight Billy’s versatility as a singer through these selections.

Billy Mackenzie first came to prominence with the band the Associates that he co-founded with his musical soulmate, the late great Alan Rankine, in 1979. During his time with the group, Mackenzie established himself as one of the very best singers of his generation, with a range and vocal technique that was second to none among his contemporaries. The assured quality of his technique also meant that he could take risks with his voice in a way that very few of his contemporaries could attempt to do. Along with this, Mackenzie’s singing also had the emotional depth which separates a truly great singer from a very good one. For those who wish to know more about his time with the Associates, I recommend Dave Ross’ superb Toppermost. One drawback of his time with the group, however, was that he developed a reputation for erratic behaviour and financial extravagance which made established record companies very wary to take the risk of investing in him.

As a result of this, Billy’s solo career developed in fits and starts. Indeed, he recorded much of his best work in these years in demo form, and much of that did not see release until after his death. Nevertheless, the best of his, admittedly, uneven recordings from these solo years are fit to stand alongside his finest work with the Associates. If he never quite found another collaborator who was as attuned to his musical vision as Alan Rankine, he nevertheless worked with artists of a very high calibre in this period. These included Boris Blank of Yello, Paul Haig, who is probably best known for his work with Josef K but is also an accomplished solo artist and Steve Aungle, a talented young keyboard player, who was probably Billy’s most regular collaborator in his later years. Because of the haphazard way in which Billy recorded in this period, it proved impossible to follow a strict chronology here, although I have attempted to follow a rough sequence in selecting the tracks.

The first selection, The Rhythm Divine, came about through the collaboration between Mackenzie and Yello. As Billy’s biographer, Tom Doyle, has put it, the song represents “the magnificent realization of the sophisticated European balladeering influences” that he drew on since the final years of the Associates. His long-standing interest (one he shared with Alan Rankine) in film music also influenced the song. The Rhythm Divine also had the air of almost operatic drama that had long characterised Mackenzie’s work. Unlike Shirley Bassey’s fabulous cover version, which plays up this aspect of the song, Billy’s own rendition begins with an air of restraint, before he unleashes the full power of his magnificent voice. Arguably, the song is Billy’s masterpiece and displays his skills as a crafter of brilliant pop songs at its peak. He later claimed that it was Shirley Bassey recording his song which made “everything [he did] valid with … [his] mum and aunties”.

Mackenzie’s 1992 album, Outernational, was one of his most coherent records, being largely made up of synth-pop electro dance music. My selection from it, In Windows All, is one of its few slower tracks. It is another collaboration with Yello and achieves that ‘glacial beauty’ that Billy had been aiming for on the record. It realises this ambition through its combination of the impersonality of the electronic backdrop – arranged by Boris Black – and the emotional charge conveyed by Billy’s voice. Although Outernational was an accomplished album, its lack of commercial success further weakened his position within the recording industry.

As we have seen, this isolation from the mainstream recording industry meant that most of Billy’s subsequent recordings did not see the light until after his death in January 1997. Indeed, his very versatility in terms of genre meant that he was a very difficult artist to categorise. This made it difficult for record labels to find easy ways of ‘selling’ his music. These later tracks can be grouped into four broad musical areas. For example, 3 Gypsies In A Restaurant (recorded with Steve Aungle) and Thunderstorm and Give Me Time (made with Paul Haig) are experimental electronic tracks. Gypsies is a brilliant but disturbing song, which features some of Mackenzie’s most allusive and elusive lyrics. As Tom Doyle has argued, these have “a dark apocalyptic quality” which contrasts with “the Prodigy … [meets] the early Associates” nature of the musical backing.

Mackenzie’s friendship with Paul Haig was a long-standing one. They first met when they were the frontmen with the Associates and Josef K respectively. Both men shared a strongly held belief in the importance of musical independence. This also meant that they both regularly had problems with their record companies. As a result, when they began collaborating in 1993, they did so without any formal record label support. This gave them the freedom to experiment and to make the music they wished to do without being bound by commercial constraints.

Following Billy Mackenzie’s death in 1997, Haig put together the album Memory Palace from the demos which they had recorded together. From it, I have chosen two tracks which have Mackenzie as the lead vocalist. The first, Thunderstorm, is a brooding, atmospheric track with a typically brilliant vocal from Billy. The second, Give Me Time, features a dazzling duet between Haig’s fine guitar work and Billy’s sinuous and soulful vocal. It also gives another indication of how powerful Mackenzie’s voice could be once he unleashed its full force.

The ‘torch song’ is the second major genre into which these final selections fall. From his earliest years, his much-loved mother had introduced him to the music of great female jazz and blues singers like Dinah Washington, Bessie Smith, Lena Horne and Billie Holiday. In his later career, he found a way in which to channel their influence which went far beyond mere mimicry/copying.  As Marc Almond says in the Glamour Chase documentary, to sing that style of song well “you have to know pain”. Like those great earlier singers, Billy was able to use that pain in his private life to create beautiful works of art. Of the ‘torch songs’ I have selected, Wild Is The Wind is the best known. Johnny Mathis first recorded it for the film of the same name in 1957. Artists of the calibre of Nina Simone and David Bowie later recorded it. As good as their versions are, however, Billy’s rendition has an ethereal beauty which, for me at least, makes it the definitive one.

Blue It Is and And This She Knows also have a similar transcendental beauty, augmented by the sympathetic backing work by Steve Aungle on piano and Malcolm Ross (of Josef K and Orange Juice fame) on guitar.

My final two selections further demonstrate the eclectic quality of Billy’s musical taste. Both only appeared for the first time on the highly recommended 3CD compilation, Satellite Life: Recordings 1994-1996. Of these, The Mountains That You Climb demonstrates that Billy could have been one of the great blue-eyed soul artists if he had decided to go further in that direction. It has a 70s Philly-type quality and features a fine smooth and flowing vocal from Billy. By contrast, Tallahatchie Pass finds him in Glen Campbell-esque country-pop crossover territory, a new terrain which he handles with typical consummate ease.

Tragically, after a period struggling with mental health issues (especially after the death of his mother, Lily, in July 1996) Billy took his own life on 22nd January 1997. He left behind a superbly rich musical legacy (both through his solo work and his earlier work with the Associates) with which many musicians who have had far longer careers would find it difficult to compete. Throughout his career, he also retained a rare determination to follow his own musical path. He was also an incomparable singer with a voice that seemed to come from – as my fellow Toppermost writer, Dave Ross, put it – “some otherworldly place like nothing heard before or since”.

Bonus Track Billy was a long-term fan of the group Sparks and in particular of their lead singer, Russell Mael. His cover of their Mother Earth (aka Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth) is a fitting tribute from one superb singer to another.

‘Tom Doyle’s biography of Billy (The Glamour Chase: The Maverick Life of Billy Mackenzie) is highly recommended.

Billy Mackenzie Tribute Site

Wikipedia Page

Steve Aungle on his first meeting with Billy Mackenzie

“Satellite Life” box set stands as his Definitive Late Statement

Paul Haig on the music he made with Billy Mackenzie (1999)

Dave Ross interviews Steve Aungle (2022)

Billy Mackenzie: The Soul That Sighs by Dave Ross

Remembering Billy Mackenzie – the new Vinyl Villain blog

Toppermost #942: The Associates

Andrew Shields is a freelance historian, who grew up in the West of Ireland and currently lives in Sydney, Australia. Along with an interest in history, politics and literature, his other principal occupations are listening to and reading about the music of Bob Dylan and, in more recent years, immersing himself in the often brilliant and unduly neglected music of Phil Ochs.

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