Sonny side up

After 30 years in the music industry during which he has scored many notable successes as a solo artist and songwriter, a guitarist with a distinctive style and a key component of both Tir na nOg and Scullion, Sonny Condell seems simultaneously wearied yet still fired up with it all.

“Yes, it definitely seems harder for me at this point. I love the whole idea of producing and looking after the making and recording of my own records on my own label, but it’s my only source of income so there’s a lot of instability about it too,” he confesses.

Condell has just released his fourth solo album amid rumours that a reunion of Tir na nOg might be in the stars, and he’s busying himself promoting the album and gigging wherever the fancy takes him.

The new album Backwater Awhile is a stimulating mix of old favourites re-recorded, including ‘Camouflage’, ‘Evil’, ‘Backwater Awhile’ and ‘Yellow Train’ as well as superb new songs of the calibre of ‘Kings’ and ‘Big Tree’.

Sonny explains: “I started off by thinking that I might do an album of songs I’d previously recorded which aren’t available now. But I also had some new songs to hand so in the end I couldn’t resist doing them too. So there was no grand scheme, that’s just the way things turned out.”

That organic approach to life seems to be reflected in Condell’s attitude to songwriting. I put it to him that his lyrics often seem like a sketch which isn’t completely filled in and he doesn’t disagree: “My songs usually arise from doodling around in a particular mood or with a short piece of melody and words, and bits get added until I have what makes sense as a complete song. It’s great fun hearing different people tell you what they think a song or a line means to them, even if it isn’t what I might have had in mind at the time.”

Of course a couple of worldwide hit songs would ease the financial pressure in the Condell household. “Yes,” he muses, “it often occurs to me that I should try to write a few hits, but I don’t think I’d know how to go about it. I think it would have to happen more or less naturally.”

Some might argue that such Condell classics as ‘Down In The City’ and ‘Carol’ are classy hit material already.

Meanwhile, if you can catch him live you’ll be all the better for it. After all, the first thirty years are the hardest.