A daily chronicle of creativity in film, TV, music, arts, and entertainment, produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from November 2014 – March 2020. Host John Horn leads the conversation, accompanied by the nation's most plugged-in cultural journalists.
It’s a common story in the music business: a talented artist records an album that goes nowhere — and neither does his or her career. That’s what happened to singer/songwriter Scott Fagan after he released “South Atlantic Blues” in 1968 on the Atco label — an imprint of Atlantic Records.
The album got little attention from the record label and radio programmers because they didn’t know what to do with music that crossed so many genres, and it was soon forgotten.
But after nearly five decades, “South Atlantic Blues” has been reissued by Saint Cecilia Knows and Light in the Attic records.
The Frame's James Kim spoke with Fagan about what was going on in his life when he wrote the album while living in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands:
“South Atlantic Blues," the song, is about the responsibility I felt to rescue my younger brothers who’d been put in foster care ... [and] to rescue my mother, who was a homeless alcoholic. I was living in a most beautiful environment, but subject to … the shameful experiences one has when their foot is sticking out from the bottom of their shoe.”
Part of Fagan's remarkable story was discovering he is the father of Stephin Merritt, frontman of the band The Magnetic Fields.
“South Atlantic Blues” is available now.