Michael Marra's Visit to the Birnam Institute. It sounds like one of his own song titles but it was a rare live appearance in Highland Perthshire by this awesomely talented man.

His music has been pigeonholed under Folk, Pop, Big Band, Blues and Country. He's been called the Songwriter's Songwriter and likened to a Dundee Hoagy Carmichael, although I can't recall any HC songs involving goalkeepers, love letters from Perth Prison, perpetual motion in Broughty Ferry or the visit of an ex-President of the USA to Tayport. But that's Michael Marra for you, and he continued the success of his newest album Posted Sober by appearing at the Birnam Institute on the last day of January.

Shunning his normal keyboards for a real upright piano, he paraded older favourites such as Dr John's Visit to Blairgowrie, Like Another Rolling Stone and General Grant's Visit to Dundee plus songs from the current album, including the wonderful Frida Kahloe's Visit to the Taybridge Bar and the equally wonderful The Lonesome Death of Francis Clarke. There were also some as yet unrecorded songs destined to become the classics of the future. Classics of the present included Beefhearts and Bones - a childless couple splitting up but fighting over their record collection, bearing the marvellous line "We are as like as Gladys Knight and Doris Day" while Baps and Paste - a discussion at the berries on the pros and cons of three Dundee housing estates - reduced the near capacity audience to tears of laughter.

After revealing that this show was a very worrying one for him because he was "frightened of Beatrix Potter but my analyst said it would be good for me" he had the audience singing along to Niel Gow's Apprentice, written for Dougie MacLean and soon to be recorded by Fairport Convention, and a couple of songs where he demonstrated that he plays a mean guitar as well.

Two hours later we were on our way home through the snow, uplifted by being privileged to share an evening with a man whose seemingly local - or even parochial - songs reflect the biggest issues of all. Michael Marra (above) always reminds me of the words of the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh who, having lost faith with village politics, is visited by Homer's ghost, who tells him "I made the Iliad from such a local row. Gods make their own importance."

And the album Posted Sober is a treat from start to finish with a mix of songs which he's been featuring in his concert appearances over the past couple of years plus some brand new titles. Especially pleasing to these ears is the deceptively simple All to Please Macushla, with a virtuoso accordion solo from the late John Huband, but there isn't a weak track. Posted Sober can be bought over the Internet by setting the moose loose on www.innercitysound.com. Michael Marra is at work at the moment on a new album and when I asked him about some of the themes, he paused, chuckled mischievously and summed them up as, "unexpected human potential". Happy listening!

Martin Hadden
January 2003

The first is from someone who saw Michael open for Loudon Wainwright III at Salford Lowry in Oct 2003.
We saw him as support to Loudon Wainwright on Sunday. Absolutely phenomenal. I'd never even heard of him. What a talented guy. He went down a storm, and I'm now looking to buy some CD's. If you have a mailing list for tour dates, please put me on it. I would love to see him play again. He had us laughing and almost crying, and then crying with laughter. 10/10. No, 11/10.

The second is from a woman, obviously an ex-pat Scot, who saw Michael in his near sell-out solo show at the 300-seat Reid Hall during the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2003.
Just a brief, belated note to thank you for the wonderful gig at the Reid Hall. Goodness knows why - she should be in to S Club 7 or suchlike at her age - but my 10-year old daughter Ailsa has memorised the whole of the Posted Sober album and most of your other stuff too! She was thrilled that you did a lot of the songs from Posted Sober at the Reid Hall gig. Our eight hour journey back to the south of England was measured out in Marra songs.

I see that you are planning to tour in England next year and I've started a campaign to get the Tower Arts Centre in Winchester (about 120 seater and a nice little space) to book you. If you or your agency ever go in for promotion of the tour then John Tellett is the man to speak to...but we're on his case anyway! If we do manage to get you to Winchester, please sing 'Muggie Sha' - I'll make sure that there are enough Scots in the audience to laugh in the right places. Thanks again and very best wishes.

(And, lo! Michael did indeed play Winchester Tower in May 2004 on his tour)

Finally, a notice that appeared in an on-line Blues Mag after MM opened for Van Morrison on Stirling Castle Esplanade (audience 6 500) the same night he whizzed back to Edinburgh for the show above.

Two outdoor gigs on sequential days in Scotland and both glorious, hmmm something strange is going on. This show was purely an evening one and again it had a wonderful setting with the castle as a backdrop. This was also a very different crowd. Certainly many were older, however, whereas yesterday we had lots of t-shirts, pints and burgers this evening was jackets, special coffee and cucumber sandwiches. Strange, but, hey what the hell. There were more strange things to come. This figure drifted on to stage dressed like a roadie and sat at a piano with his back to the audience. He struck a few notes, just like a roadie and then said good evening and proceeded to play a song. As this was going on I said to my buddy that it sounded like Michael Marra and so it proved to be.

I must strongly state that I have never ever seen a support person so badly treated by a stage set up. Whoever the clown was that let an artist perform with his back totally to the audience should be roundly condemned and sacked. If it was Van Morrison or his keyboards' man then, "shame on you". It was disgraceful.

Right then! Now that I have got that off my chest, it was through his use of humour that Michael rose above the stage set and won over his audience. Hailing from Dundee Michael has long been known throughout Scotland as writer of songs taking a bite at the heels of society for many of the social problems that blight us. These songs though are always constructed from a weird angle and always humorous. Whether he is dealing with the subject of prostitution, the perils of drink or homelessness, he captures the imagination and attention of the audience.

Some of the songs and their spoken intros were just so funny, and partly very local that I am sure some tourists must have been left wondering what was going on. Others were very transparent. Who could fail to see the funny side of Bob Dylan's Visit To Edinburgh or the painful irony of a couple splitting up amicably until it came to the division of the music collection in Beefheart And Bones? One song even had the central character, the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo fleeing an abusive husband, dying and being unable to get in to heaven due to a lost key. She was then sent by St Peter to bide her time, until they found the key, to the Tayport Bar in Dundee. Then, Michael ended his set by singing a straight version of Robbie Burns', Green Grow The Rushes. Very moving indeed and he was given well-deserved recognition applause not only for his set but also for the way he handled an appalling stage set up.