THE MAN BEHIND THE LEGEND

Nick Garrie’s arrival to Belgrade and Novi Sad was expectedly advertised through underground media channels, with unavoidable narrative elements of the myth of a lost masterpiece from the 1960s and its creator who had finally returned to music. All components of an urban legend were there. There was a factual foundation in the history of the birth and disappearance of the album about J. B. Stanislas; there was an emotional superstructure in added biographical details; and there was a moment of revelation in its full light when the lost genius of Garrie’s first record reintroduced itself to the world. The story contained elements of tragedy: Lucien Morisse’s suicide crushed the dream of a young man who could have become a universally acclaimed asset of the world’s pop music. It had elements of heroism because the same young man, despite his betrayed ideals, had always returned to music like a boxer ready to take hard blows and lose, only to get into the ring again on the first occasion. Finally, there were elements of partial redemption of the music establishment since the world had recently begun to pay greater attention to what was once a young man who had, in the meantime, reached the late autumn of his life. 

Still, the Wheel of Fortune began spinning and turning in Garrie’s favor too late. One often makes certain basic dreams come true, but at the time when this does not mean a lot to them or in such an unexpected way that they could not even have imagined. The increased interest for Stanislas and his maker did not happen at the time when Nick Garrie had the opportunity to win the glory which had evaded him in his youth. The whole world had changed by then, and the music industry with it, supply and demand as well. Maybe Eddie Vartan really saw a new Bob Dylan in Nick Garrie in 1968, but producers and heads of record companies used to see a new Bob Dylan quite often in those exciting times although no one was him. Today it is clear that they were searching within the wrong genre and that it was probably possible to discover a new artist who had Dylan’s synthetic powers and prophetic might (he is a man who has sublimated the best of the generations before him) but in a totally different musical form. In rap or hip-hop, for instance. Nick Garrie did not gain a lot materially from this new surge of attention that is still being spread and transferred by the Internet, but he got something that was essential for him. He regained confidence in himself and his songs. And with this confidence, he stumbled upon this part of the Balkans for the first time, accompanied by my friend from the beginning of this story who had sent me Garrie’s tracks and was making sure that Garrie felt at home in Serbia and its neighboring countries. Needless to say, the legend about him had arrived before the man himself and went on, to the next city, to the next country before the hero of the legend would set out after it. Garrie spontaneously accepted the elements of this legend, incorporated them into his biographical narrative at performances and finally started to travel around the world as a first-rate storyteller and musical lyricist, as a dignifiedly aged minstrel, a charming chansonnier whose every concert was a musical reinterpretation of his unusual destiny and whose every performed song was an equally important point on his life journey. Compared to the setlist from Doune, Scotland 2011, Nick Garrie performed an almost equal number of songs in Novi Sad 2019, but this time they were all his. Which meant that he had made a good deal with himself and that his personal faith in the value of his own work was now beyond question. 

Not so long ago, Bob Dylan wrote that he had played in front of fifty, five hundred, five thousand and fifty thousand souls, but that it had always been the hardest to play for those fifty because he had felt each of them alone. When there are more people in the crowd, they usually breathe like an organism and it is easier for the performer on the stage. This is the truth that Garrie faces from one concert to another, it is a law that is familiar to everyone who can see all the eyes in the audience during their performance. On the other hand, concerts for crowds that can fit into a classroom are totally natural for the man who worked as a teacher for a long time and then mostly performed in retirement homes. His performance in Novi Sad in front of twelve sincerely interested people was a completely natural thing as well. Sometimes, great creative minds do not find a large community, which does not make them lesser, but the historical moment in which they dwell that does not recognize their value.

During his concert in Novi Sad, Nick Garrie talked happily. He mentioned the people who meant the world to him; he shared the anecdotes which had become commonplaces in his musical biography; he referred to his mother several times, dedicating the song Wine and Roses to her. He painted the image of his step-father with a single word with much less sympathy. He talked about Stanislas with respect but made many jokes about him too. He said he was once asked by his audience to play the title song from the album at a London concert and he had only two and a half minutes left. He kindly answered that the song was five minutes long and that he had only two and a half minutes at his disposal. A Polish woman then shouted back: “Well, play half of it then!” Obviously, he did not play half the song then, but in Novi Sad, he played it whole. It was part of a sequence of other classics from The Nightmare of J. B. Stanislas, including the performance of the indescribably beautiful Deeper Tones of Blue, the song which alone, in the Lucien Morisse’s office in 1968, fought out the recording of the legendary record. 

“Even all the years after Stanislas, I knew in my back pocket that I had Deeper Tones Of Blue. I used to say to myself: ‘Listen Nick. You’ve got that song. That song will be listened to after your dead.’ In life that’s all we care for, to do something worthwhile and you’ve made a little mark on the universe,” said Nick Garrie. The same man, in the same interview, said that everything he had ever made in music had been a disaster. Simply, it never went anywhere. The only thing that did do well was the album in Spain, but there was no money in it. So he did not have any expectations from anything he recorded.

Today Garrie’s persona is full of obvious and less obvious antinomies. They naturally resonate with irony, an ancient mode of bearing unfavorable life circumstances which has become necessary for Garrie’s modus vivendi. This century’s rebirth of J. B. Stanislas did not bring much for Nick Garrie, but it did for the people who discovered it. It led to the recording of his two later works, those exceptional albums 49 Arlington Gardens and The Moon and the Village, which now again make reality better, more beautiful and more meaningful for the fans of Garrie’s art. That is what life had in store for this unusual Briton of Russian origin and Romanic soul. He gave more to the world than the world was able to give him back. However, at least a decent urban legend managed to develop from it all. 

I met the man behind the legend after his concert in Novi Sad. We talked a little about parenting. I did not need to ask him anything about music. His children had grown up and, as it happened, he did not live near them. His deep eyes revealed a huge capacity for sorrow and a glimpse of loneliness. Then, Milan Korać and I left him with the girls who came to his performance. He joyfully chatted with them. Before we parted, we exchanged gifts. He gave me the concert setlist, on which he wrote: “Miloš, good times ahead.”

Months later, and a little bit before I wrote the final sentences of this little story, I read Garrie’s old interview with Jason Barnard. One question hinted at a fabricated biography of our story’s hero.

“Oh really. I didn’t know. You couldn’t make up the things I’ve done between the skiing, the sun, the water, the hot air ballooning, teaching and the swimming school. Now I’m singing in old people’s homes. Who’s going to write a book about me even close to the truth?!”

Excerpt taken from Legend of a Grounded Dreamer (a story about Nick Garrie, a forgotten genius of pop music)

Translated by Igor Cvijanović

Nick Garrie