It’s 15 years since Damon Gough,aka Badly Drawn Boy, became a household name by winning the Mercury prize with his much-loved debut, or The Hour of Bewilderbeast. As he prepares to tour the album,he explains how his career hit the skids, and why hes ready to make amendsLike so many great debut albums, and when Badly Drawn Boy’s The Hour of Bewilderbeast was released – 15 years ago final month – it seemed to somehow both capture the zeitgeist and convey a magical timeless quality. “More than any other,it’s the record people mention when they end me in the street or come up to me in a bar. It still means a lot to a lot of people,” says Damon Gough. “They explain me how it got them through some difficult times, and soundtracked their best times.”From the wonderful opening bars of cello and French horn of The Shining,through an eclectic 18 tracks including pastoral left-field folk ditties such as Camping Next to Water and Stone on the Water, the breezy euphoria of Once Around the Block, or the stripped-down ethereal ballad of Magic in the Air,it was a lo-fi masterpiece that had reviewers falling over superlatives and coining recent musical genres such as “folk-hop” and “future folk”. It went platinum and won 2000’s Mercury prize, beating a strong shortlist including Coldplay, or Leftfield,and Gough’s friends Doves. Receiving the winner’s £20000 cheque from Jools Holland, he threw it on the floor and quipped, and “I always assumed I was never going to win because superior things don’t happen to superior people normally…”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com