Eileen Osborne – Singing Shores (1975)

From the shelves

If you’re wondering how long it took me to buy the first record of the new year, well, it took less than three days. On January 3 I went downtown because, among other things, I wanted to check out an exhibit of soccer memorabilia. At the door, I found an outrageous number of people in line. For a second I thought Pink Floyd reunited and was playing in the museum, but no, that wasn’t the case.

I gave up and, as it was starting to rain, I decided to stop at this small store for a little while. They mostly sell cheap tech stuff, but also have a selection of music. Mostly CDs (Top 40 stuff or bargain bin stuff, budget releases etc.), plus a couple of bins of vinyl. Either thrift store crap, terrible old Italian stuff, or Julio Iglesias albums, but can you think of a better way to shelter from the rain than browsing through bad records? That’s exactly how I found my first purchase of 2018: Eileen Osborne‘s ‘Singing Shores – Scottish Gaelic Songs’ (1975, Seagull Records). I didn’t know this album, but I have a soft spot for this kind of folk music and, checking the back cover, I recognized the name of Italian jazz/prog guitarist Giulio Camarca. That was enough for me to decide to bet a few bucks.

I had to carry the record while walking for half a day in the rain. I wrapped two plastic shopping bags around it and I had an umbrella, yet a few drops of water managed to leak inside, no big deal though. The record itself was very dirty, so when I got home I had to give it a good wet clean before playing it. It was totally worth the hassle. ‘Singing Shores’ is a pretty collection of folk songs and Eileen Osborne has one hell of a voice. Reading the liner notes  I found out she’s also a pianist and accordionist, and those are the only two other instruments used on the record besides Camarca’s guitar. Simple and poignant.

I tried to find out more about her, but Google hasn’t been my friend this time. I couldn’t find any useful piece of information, even trying to use the details I learned from the back cover, which says she’s from Edinburgh and had been working with Scottish folk music (especially from the Hebrides) on theater and TV. Wonder if she’s still out there and playing. She’s still killing it in my room, at least.

2019 UPDATE: A gentleman from London named John recently sent me a very informative message about this record, which I’m sharing here. He also added that he will try to track down Eileen Osborne, but I haven’t heard from him since. If any other info comes in, I’ll further update this post. Here’s what John told me:

You wanted some information on Eileen Osborne and her Singing Shores LP. I got it for Christmas. Wonderful, and yes what a voice! This is the info I have. Eileen Osborne was my art teacher at school, a (dreadful) boys prep school in a suburb of the coastal town of Worthing on the UK’s south coast. I was there 1979-1983. The school was Broadwater Manor House School, which is now closed. In the summer term of 1980 we found out that Mrs. Osborne (as we addressed her) was a ‘folk singer’. She revealed that she sung with ‘an accordinonette’. I persuaded her to sing to us in the art class, which I remember very well. She mentioned that she had appeared on Westward TV’s ‘Westward Diary’ programme a few years before, and had a recording of it on a Philips N1500 videocassette. Even in 1980 these cassettes were pretty much redundant, but I agreed to try to help her find a way of playing the tape. We never found a way of playing it, but I think her performance will have been kept by the South West Film and TV Archive, http://swfta.co.uk/, and I am going to try to order this up. I would love to see her again! Assuming she was about 45 in 1980 she would be in her early 80s by now. The address given on the record was her home address. She then moved to Durrington, another suburb of Worthing. I think I remember her talking about planning to live in Italy after that. I did see an obituary for an Eileen Osborne in Eastbourne, a town not far from Worthing, so I am hoping it is not ‘our’ Eileen. I will try to track her down.