Hot on the heels of last year’s critically-acclaimed reissue of South Atlantic Blues, his brilliant, lost 1968 debut album, Scott Fagan will embark on his very first tour of Europe in October.

He will be backed on the 21-date jaunt around the UK and European cities by core members of acclaimed Scottish folk group Trembling Bells - drummer Alex Neilson and guitarist Michael Hastings - who have also toured with Bonnie Prince Billy and Incredible String Band’s Mike Heron. 

An epic song cycle about Fagan’s hard-scrabble life in the Virgin Islands (where he was raised and lived until 19, before returning to his birthplace, New York City), wrapped around an impassioned love story, South Atlantic Blues is driven by Fagan’s dense, allusive lyrics and experimental production that infuses his folk song stylings with R&B, jazz and Caribbean island rhythms.

Front and centre on the record though is Fagan’s remarkable voice, rich with emotion and longing, which has been described as “somewhere between Scott Walker, Tim Hardin, early Bowie and Donovan”.

Fagan’s story is easily as compelling as his music. Discovered, managed and mentored by famed Brill Building songwriter Doc Pomus in 1965, at age 19, just off the bus to New York with eleven cents in his pocket, Fagan recorded early sides for Columbia, Big Top and Bang, played as the house act at the Café–A-Go-Go alongside Jimi Hendrix, and almost became the first artist other than the Beatles to be released by Apple Records, before landing a deal at Atco for South Atlantic Blues with folk rock manager Herb Gart.

He later co-wrote Soon, the first rock musical produced on Broadway, which starred a young Richard Gere in his first acting role.

Catch Fagan live in action at The Hug and Pint in Glasgow on Thursday, October 6.

For more info and tickets, go to thehugandpint.com/events/5745d687062a9600030006ff/