I always love studying the pictures of album covers advertised on old record sleeves:  the 1960’s Atlantics with soul albums by Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding and Arthur Conley; the 1970’s A&M’s with more questionable acts like Pablo Cruise, Peter Frampton and Jean-Luc Ponty.  Usually the artists are familiar, but there are always a few oddballs, people you’ve never heard of, some of whom sound made up.


 Who or what exactly is Bent Fabric’s “The Drunken Penguin?”

The Atco Record sleeves of the 1960’s have their share of the hits: open up a copy of an old Bee Gees album, and you’ll be likely to find Iron Butterfly, Cream and Sonny and Cher.  But who in the world is Scott Fagan, his sad, thoughtful, slightly Rolling Stoned-face posed under his name in big capital letters above the title “South Atlantic Blues?” Well, now we know, thanks to a re-release of South Atlantic Blues on lil’ fish Records of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.

As it turns out, Fagan is what they used to call a folk rock artist. He actually comes from St. Thomas according to the limited info on the reprinted back cover notes, and most of his songs evoke life there: the beach, the ships, the tourists, carnival, but as the album title implies, the atmosphere is mostly melancholy rather than sunny.  

South Atlantic Blues, first released in 1968, makes for a pleasant listen.  One of the best songs, the opening track, “In My Head,” starts off very nicely with what sounds like the chords of “Angel in the Morning,” and then the voice comes on like Donovan, complete with quavering vocals.

The title track has a suitable Caribbean lilt to go with its lyrics about island life.  At first I thought he was singing about leaving Charlotte Emily, perhaps a vindictive former girlfriend, but upon further listening I realized he’s singing about fleeing Charlotte Amalie, the capital city of the Virgin Islands, like Springsteen gunning the engine to get the hell out of New Jersey or that guy in “Hair” who prefers “Manchester, England England” to Flushing, Queens.  “Crying” is a pretty ballad.  “Nothing But Love” is a sprightly British Invasion tune with horns.  “Tenement Hall,” a slow tune with a New Orleans vibe, has some tasty guitar fills and ends with a psychedelic flourish.  Fagan takes on religion and superstition in “In Your Hands,” and then looks into a gypsy girl’s “Crystal Ball” in the very next track.  Co-written with the legendary Mort Shuman, the song has a comic spoken interlude straight out of Leonard Cohen’s “Death Of A Ladies Man.”

 I would certainly recommend South Atlantic Blues to Donovan fans and lovers of 1960’s obscurities.  It is a very enjoyable album but alas, no lost classic.  Fagan's no “Sugar Man” Rodriguez, also once an unknown face on the album sleeves of yore.  I don’t think we’re going to discover that some country in the Southern Hemisphere has been secretly worshipping at the altar of Scott Fagan or see an Academy Award-winning documentary about him. And yet.  According to reliable sources, Scott Fagan turns out to be the father of the great sad-sack songwriter Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields, and they only met for the first time in 2013.  Fagan started a Kickstarter campaign to fund a covers album called “Scott Fagan Sings Stephin Merritt.”  I don’t know what ever came of it, but that’s a record I’d like to hear!