A familiar name in the Canterbury scene, Dave Stewart’s career reached unexpected highs in the 1980s when he teamed up with Spirogyra’s Barbara Gaskin for an unlikely cover. In 2023, as the couple continued making “intelligent pop,” they discussed the unexpected spark that led to their longstanding musical and romantic relationship.
Prog readers would have been forgiven for raising an eyebrow in 1981 upon seeing Dave Stewart – previously keyboardist with Egg, Hatfield And The North and National Health – sharing a stage on Top Of The Pops with The Zombies’ Colin Blunstone.
They were there promoting Stewart’s delightfully skewed reworking of Jimmy Ruffin’s What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted as it hovered just outside the UK’s Top 10.
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But that surprise would be as nothing compared to the shock of seeing Stewart back on the show a few months later, this time with Barbara Gaskin, singing an equally idiosyncratic arrangement of Lesley Gore’s 1963 teen-angst hit It’s My Party. When the song achieved a four-week stint at No.1 nobody was more astonished than the duo themselves.
“It was just completely bizarre,” says Gaskin, reflecting on the strange and unexpected turn in their careers that ultimately changed their lives. “We’d both been in bands prior to that and we were 30 when we had that hit, so we were kind of mature. But of course, we were very surprised when it shot up the charts.”
“It was insane,” recalls Stewart. “It was like a kind of crazy film made by a lunatic director of what could happen to serious musicians if they take a step to the left into a new dimension. It was like a fantasy film.”
His previous forays into TV had been with National Health on The Old Grey Whistle Test and as a member of Bill Bruford’s band on BBC Two series Rock Goes To College at the end of the 1970s. While both could be seen the kind of show where you’d encounter Dave Stewart, fronting a single that become a best-seller in places as far afield as Germany and Australia was most definitely not.
Recording the song was nothing more than a laugh at the time, says Stewart. “Just the idea of having a single out on a label was amusing, as a side issue to the kind of music I’d done hitherto. You know – ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if you got played on Radio 1?’ Oh, that’s never gonna happen. ‘But it’d be funny, wouldn’t it?’”
The success of It’s My Party changed their lives. Gaskin, – previously vocalist with Canterbury-based folk-rock group Spirogyra, as well as recording and performing with the Hatfields as one-third of The Northettes when occasion demanded – says the shine quickly wore off. “The negative side was the kind of reaction of the tabloid press, the aggression of being photographed. I didn’t enjoy that.”
Happily, some of the changes were far more agreeable. Firstly, having been friends since 1969, their relationship deepened from platonic to romantic during a hectic promotional tour in the USA. Secondly, there was the money. Were they tempted to blow it all on big houses, fast cars and copious amounts of cocaine?
“Well, maybe the odd beer,” smiles Gaskin. “Because we were that bit older we didn’t spend the money on whatever people usually do in that situation.” Instead, they sensibly invested in studio time. “It meant we could carry on working.
“We were incredibly fortunate that we could do that, and do it on our own. We didn’t need record company support. We didn’t go on holiday for a couple of years but spent all our time in the studio because we loved what we were doing. It’s been like that ever since. We’ve been very lucky.”
I wasn’t going to The Best Of Dave The Progressive Organ Player. I didn’t want that any more
Dave Stewart
Some of the imaginative cover versions that have peppered their eight albums include The Blue Nile’s Heatwave, Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues, The Byrds’ 8 Miles High and The Lovin’ Spoonful’s Summer In The City. However, they represent only a tiny fraction of Stewart & Gaskin’s output.
Their original material bears the traits that have endeared Stewart and his writing to so many in the progressive rock community – songs such as New Jerusalem from 1990’s The Big Idea, with its 25-piece choir, pipe organ and Gavin Harrison’s thunderous drumming, extend into long-form areas.
Jupiter Rising and Walnut Tree Walk from 2009’s Green And Blue, with their stirring themes and dextrous fuzz organ, are instantly recognisable examples of Stewart’s gift for melody; while the title track and The Sweetwater Sea extend into a mini-suite with a fantasy sequence and Peter Blegvad’s narration – Stewart had worked with him on National Health’s Of Queues And Cures.
Stewart himself cites several tracks that have a deep personal resonance for him. As Far As Dreams Can Go is a ballad with an arrangement that includes cello from ex-Henry Cow member Georgie Born. Simple and transparent, Stewart says the words are directed toward his partner. “It’s quintessential; it’s got the Stewart-Gaskin thing, whatever that is. It’s there in that song.”
Heavy Heart, from their last album Star Clocks in 2018, deals with being held back by depression or negative feelings tempered with moments of hope and redemption. But it’s also a showcase of Stewart’s ability to get under the hood and create something new within a particular framework. “It’s kind of jazzy – the chords are just drifting off and there’s no tonal centre and they are quite complex,” he says.
That’s an interesting thing about our profession – you’re actually recording moments of your own life
Barbara Gaskin
“They draw upon all the harmonic exploration I’ve done since I started writing for keyboards. I get a real buzz from devising stuff like that; an emotional spark just from that. It’s a kind of intellectual process, but it also has an emotional quotient which allows me to incorporate it in the song.”
He acknowledges that by following a different direction and producing what he calls “intelligent pop” after his work with Egg, the Hatfields and National Health, he’s been seen by some fans as selling out. “Some people want me to just be playing jazz-rock in a pub somewhere.
“I wasn’t going to do a Dave Stewart Band National Health Mark II, you know – The Best Of Dave The Progressive Organ Player. I didn’t want that any more. There was a kind of personal journey that led me to want to express myself differently, which led to the catalyst of recording a demo of What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted.”
In a sense, all the albums Stewart and Gaskin have made to date represent snapshots in time, she observes. “That’s an interesting thing about being in our profession – you’re actually recording moments of your own life.” Initially the pair work in separate parts of the house. “Dave starts off with kind of unfinished things; bits of songs, such as choruses and verses, and I’ll go upstairs and record them. He then finishes them, usually over quite a long period of time.”
“I’ve always been working on a Stewart & Gaskin album since 1982,” laughs Stewart.