Record Collection #39
-Irish Albums #1-
In this collection of Irish albums, Brendan Locke’s record cover is my favourite. Cheerfully holding up the bar dressed in a beautiful, flamboyant polyester glitter shirt, Brendan looks like a Christmas bauble with an oversized collar. The album title of “Cream Of The Irish” is presented as a copy of a Bailey’s Irish Cream label. This is reinforced by a large glass of Bailey’s in Brendan’s hand… two bottles of Bailey’s next to him, another small glass of Bailey’s, and behind him another bottle of Bailey’s, a display box of Bailey’s and a poster of Bailey’s. My first thought was that this was a Bailey’s sponsored album with none too subtle product placement, but closer inspection reveals that it’s just a record of “great Irish songs performed by Australia’s favourite Irish singer, Brendan Locke, the Bard of Bunratty Castle”. Yes, that’s right, he’s not even Irish!! (But he really likes Baileys.)
The cover of “Ireland A’Gogo” is a chilling image of a distinctly out of focus, dancing woman bravely posing with one of the creepiest marionette puppets ever made. This woman needs some sort of national award for surviving the photo shoot without flinching. Meanwhile, Dermot Hegarty looks wistfully out across the beach on a warm summers day… dressed in perfect beach attire: black shoes, long trousers and a cable knit jumper. At Mark’s Bar, the sing along sure seems to be hotting up. Perhaps if someone told the pub goers that they were to be featured on an album cover declaring that it is a “Souvenir Of Ireland” more than two of them would have smiled. The real oddity here however, is Johnny MacLeod’s Scottish Country Dance Band. It seems quite strange that such a group dressed in Scottish clan tartan would choose to do an Irish album. Perhaps they had exhausted all the Scottish “jigs, reels and country dances”. To be sure (to be sure).
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