How The Poet Became A Country singer By Gareth Owen

On The Table Read Magazine, “the best arts and entertainment magazine UK“, at 80, prize-winning poet and BBC presenter Gareth Owen has bid farewell to the silent rejection slips of literary London and reinvented himself as Virg Clenthills, the wry Tennessee troubadour whose third self-penned Americana album, In Virgil Country – brimming with heartbreak, humour, and songs like the haunting “Ashes and Diamonds” – is about to prove that it’s never too late to trade dusty manuscripts under the bed for a fresh chorus of dusty roads and second chances.

Good for the youthful Anorak Patch and their musical break-through. Good luck to them.

But what about us 80 year olds? Locked down and shielded?

You can’t change where you are but on the other hand you can change who you are.

Farewell then me -soi disant prize-winning poet, novelist playwright and sometime BBC presenter. Hello Country singer song-writer, Virg Clenthills .

A new album, the third, of Americana self-penned songs is on its way:

 In Virgil Country.

            I made a million singing love songs

            I got two wives chasing me

            They live in Hope and Bitterness

            I live in Tennessee.

Isn’t that a bit of a come down?

 Not really. To misquote Larkin, the writing didn’t give upon on me, I gave up on the writing. God know how you get published these days. In older ,better days, you’d at least get a polite refusal. Now even a rejection would be something. I remember when Penguin published my first collection, Salford Road, the editor invited me down to London and took me out to lunch. Some years ago I sent a collection of short stories to a publisher who had already issued five or so of my collections. So I must have been doing something right. Silence. After some three years or so I asked if anything was happening; had they actually received the manuscript? All I got a was a brief , ‘I’ve just been very busy’

So like many others, I went down the self-publishing route. This is satisfactory in many ways but the great drawback of course is one doesn’t get reviewed. Well my ex college tutor wrote some kind remarks as did two of his academic acquaintances.

            Wonderful book….Now that I have read every story “impressed” is quite the wrong word.

            I have been gripped, at story-telling skill and range; my attention has never flagged from   start to finish….A masterpiece.

            Martial Rose Deputy principal Winchester University.

                                                                        ***

            Are five stars sufficient for this consummate work of art? Here are twelve short stories, some bright and bouncy, others of a darker shade, but all gripping in their power

            to hold the reader, at times through an exquisite sense of humour while at other times  leading to the edge of horror. The freshness of the material and the unself-consconciousness    with which it is informed argue a narrative skill of the highest order. My great pleasure in reading this book was a little allayed by there not being a second volume at hand to open.

Jenny Rose. Professor of Religion, Claremont University, California. Visiting Prof. at Stanford University

                                                                        *********

I was much impressed throughout by the masterly way in which Gareth Owen handles the stories and the imaginative reach which enables him to enter and capture so many different situations.  Looking back to those two first stories I recall that I was immediately impressed by his technical skill in taking the reader into a situation deftly, economically and credibly, and in giving a meaningful shape to the narrative, realised. Brian Tippett  – Emeritus Pro-Vice Chancellor University of  Winchester University.

But unless your lucky the sales are meagre. In my case a total of about twenty. Hence the piles of unsold copies under the bed.

But how come I got reborn as Country star, Virg. Clenthills?

Years back now, it came into my head to write a mock opera vaguely based on Rupert the Bear stories; a jovially satirical piece for the most part. I can’t play an instrument of any kind. Never sung. Nor, up to that point, had I ever composed anything in my life. Sitting in the bath one morning I sang snatches of odd bits of tunes into a cassette recorder; soap opera, as someone remarked. A chum recorded the chords on a guitar and put a little band together.

Then one night I went to a local amateur theatre in Birmingham that I belonged to. It was some kind of Christmas sing along. A sixteen ear old black girl got up and sang. I was knocked out. It was like listening to Ella Fitzgerald. Her name was, Ruby Turner. I asked her if she’d like to sing in my daft little opera. She agreed and ended playing Lilly Duckwing.

To our surprise the show was quite a success at the Edinburgh Festival and was featured on a BBC Arena programme. As a consequence I ended up managing her for a number of years. As part of my attempts of my rather stumbling attempts to advance her career I would read organs of the musical press. One day I came across an article about a Country singer called Tom T. Hall.

I have to say that until that point I had considered Country music as some kind of joke. But something about the article intrigued me and I bought one of the man’s albums. And somewhat to my surprise , I liked it. There were lines that were risible but at the same time genuinely beguiling.

            Back when gas was thirty cents a gallon

            And love was only fifteen cents away.

I suggested to an actor friend, who could actually sing in tune and play the guitar that we put on a show of Tom T’s songs one night in an after-play party. Then the thought came presumptuously into my head, Why didn’t I write my own Country songs.

And that’s how Virg Clenthills was born.

I downloaded a piece of software that enabled even someone as unmusical as myself me to record passable versions of the songs. I ended up with some thirty or so. To begin with they were satirical and I linked them with daft stories from Virg’s chequered life. I even wrote his biography.

Things like:

            I lived through a lot of pain in my life. A lot of pain. And what we aim to do tonight is to shae some of that with y’all.

But then something about the music and the stories they told crept into my blood. These songs could say serious things. Hadn’t Bob Dylan recorded a Country album!

Inhabiting another imaginary being entirely different from myself was strangely liberating. In this borrowed foreign attire I could say things that were at the same time strange yet true and lyrically beguiling.

The albums came about in this way. I was part of a Shakespeare miscellany

and the musical director, Ed Begley, happened to give an ear to my naïve recordings. He asked me if I’d ever thought of going into a studio with a band. I explained that I had no idea how this could be done. Ed found a studio in Wales put together a band and in two days we recorded ten songs.

The album Rolling by, somewhat to my surprise but not astonishment, received some glowing reviews.  So I recorded another I’m out of this place some six months later.

And now the third album, my lock down album: In Virgil Country  is in the process of being mixed.

So here I am ,reborn as a Country singer. Country music may be largely described as songs about sad men who’s lovers have walked out on them.

                                 Ashes and Diamonds

C She sang in a café

Em On the poor side of town

F She painted the years out

G Had wine stains on her gown

C Sang for hearts that were broken

Em She sang songs of regret

F She remembered a past life

G She’d sooner forget.

She sang

C Ashes and Am diamonds

C Jewels in the F dust

C When you give all your Am love babe

To a F man you just can’t C (G?) trust.

Ashes and Diamonds etc…(Repeat)

Had a boy down in Parchmen

Serving time on the Farm

And a daughter in Venice

Put needles in her arm.

Saw husbands and lovers

Drifting back down the years

Drank the past from a bottle

That tasted like her tears

She sang etc….

Looked in the mirror

Saw a girl just eighteen

Smile like a promise

Bluest eyes you’ve ever seen.

She saw herself running

Through fields bright and green

To a place in her heart called

What might have been.

What might have been

But she kept on singing….

Ashes and Diamonds etc…

And Ruby? Well she performs all over the world and sings as part of the Jools Holland show.