365 Days #243 - Pat Campbell - Just A Quiet Conversation (mp3s)

MP3:
01 Silent Worship (3:43)
02 Giddy Up Go (3:43)
03 Mother Went A Walkin' (2:43)
04 Big Railroad Man (4:48)
05 Deck Of Cards (3:54)
06 The Last Goodbye (2:56)
07 It's You (2:47)
08 I Think I Can Sleep Tonight (3:01)
09 The Gun (3:12)
10 The Mission (3:30)
11 The Late Arrival (2:53)
12 The Deal (3:35)
13 The Upper Room (3:32)
14 Trouble in Amen Corner (2:48)

Aah Pat Campbell. I first encountered this gentle voice of Irish country when he was featured on Kenny Everett's World's Worst Record Show in 1977 with The Deal. Sadly not about drugs as you might think it's the mawkish story of how a father-to-be makes a 'deal' with the good Lord to take his life instead of that of his wife or his unborn child when he hears bad news in the delivery room at the city hospital. I love the way he says his wife and child mean the whole world and everything to him, and I also like the way he says of his unborn child "I caught myself a little chuckle and thought – hey, it might be an old girl." Surely he means a baby girl. If his wife gives birth to an old girl then that's some deal he made!

Amazingly this single just scraped short of the British Top 30 in 1969 and was popular enough to spawn this album the following year. Prepare yourself for more Steel pedal guitar-fuelled death rants and tear-jerkers.

Pat had been a member of Irish vocal group The Four Ramblers with Val Doonican but the group split up when Val went solo in the late 1950s. Pat later found found fame as a disc jockey on Radio Luxembourg and championed American C&W hits. These included Red Sovine's legendary trucker narrative Giddy Up Go and so impressed was Pat that, when he signed his own deal with Phil Soloman's short-lived Major Minor Records in 1968, he seems to turned himself into Ireland's answer to Red Sovine.

I love Pat's 'voices'. There the urgent, nervous one he adopts on the organ-driven It's You (probably my fave track) where he sounds like he's about to have a nervous breakdown. Then there's his 'little tyke's' voice he does on the truly nauseating (and confusing) Big Railroad Man. The Mission sees him potentially in spaghetti-western mode with tales of cowboys in San Antone, but you know as soon as he mentions "the smiling padre" that someone's gonna get a bullet in the bonce. But for me the worst track is The Last Goodbye where his wife dies in a car crash but comes back to see him one last time. This features what is possibly the worst lyric in song writing history "I didn't look up, I just nodded okay and asked her to pass me an ashtray."

The sleeve text reveals: "Pat Campbell was born in Ireland, but it might just as well have been Nashville. He's been there many times and he's welcomed as a friend by the biggest names in the world of country music. On each visit he brings a little piece of Nashville home with him, but also leaves a little of Pat Campbell there in return."

In 1968, before he made these recordings, Pat was invited to narrate a couple of the tracks on the album The Power and The Glory by label-mate keyboard player Mike Mercardo, who was better known as 'The Swinging Monk' (I kid you not!). These are more religious in tone and feature strings and gospel-pop vocals by the ubiquitous Mike Sammes Singers although strangely very little piano. I have included these two tracks here as a bonus.

- Contributed by: David Noades

Images: Just A Quiet Conversation (Cover)

Media: Album
Label: Major Minor
Catalogue: MCP5051
Credits: Produced by Tommy Scott, Musical direction by Nicky Welsh.
Date: 1970

Comments

[Paul Day]

Oh, my! Giddy Up Go AND Deck of Cards! Both are just stunning songs. There's a Minnie Pearl respsonse to Giddy Up Go. I don't remember why she left but it was completely trivial and could have easily left a note.

Deck of Cards gets better every time I hear it. I think I've found six or seven versions and every single narrator knew the soldier. What are the odds of that!!? ;-)

[Wyatt Earp]

re: The Gun

Jeez, he practically shoots these men in the back. Is that what Jesus would have done?

[Listener Kliph]

Val Doonican! There's a reference you don't see every day.

[Sammy Reed]

"re: The Gun

Jeez, he practically shoots these men in the back."

That song is actually "The Mission". There are other links that go to the wrong songs here. Here's hoping that gets fixed.

[Paul (UK)]

All wonderful stuff! but is "The Deal" actually one of those tracks? And what is the title of the one with the brother marrying his brother?
Thanks

[Pete]

Thanks David for posting this classic album.

Pat Campbell has long been a great favourite of mine. I have this album and very rare it is too. The unfortunate thing is that, as Sammy Reed says, most of the links are to different songs. Tracks 12 and 14 are the same song and The Deal is missing completely. It would be a shame to deprive everyone of the unique experience of hearing The Deal. Once heard, never forgotten.

[David Noades]

Don't worry folks, just a slight hitch caused by temporary insanity on my part (it was just one of those weeks!). I have asked Otis to amend the titles and to include The Deal. My apologies for any confusion...

[365]

files fixed. anyone who downloaded from 8/31 to now should grab the files again.

[Sammy Reed]

THANKS!

[Dawn]

My dad gave me this album when I was very young and it is a most precious item - I have now put him onto this web site so that he too can enjoy listening to this very lovely music.

[Bryan]

Pat Campbell's album the Deal is great.
Has he done anything else ?

[Richard]

"Deck of Cards" ... "I was that soldier ..." love it, love it love it!!!

Pat Campbell is one of the truly great Irish country singers who seems to have either gone largely un-noticed or forgotten about.

I have the album Just a quite conversation and it's been in my collection for many years after hearing pat on the UK's BBC Radio Humberside Country Music Time programme, as he was a favourite of Tex Milne the DJ of that programme.

Mmmm. Just wish there was more from this great Icon of Irish Country Music.

Andy Batty Hull UK

[Willie O'Kane]

I remember Pat Campbell presnting a country-music show on Radio 2 in the early 70s, where he featured Jim Reeves and Johnny Cash sections and also gunfighter ballads, including some of his own and that other great declaimer, Lorn Greene. Yes, it was mosrtly maudlin stuff, but there were nuggets too and he introduced us to the better class of US artist too.

I wonder if Pat is still around; he was a unique mix of Des O'Connor and Val Doonican.

Willie O'Kane