The Waterboys – The Magnificent Seven: Album Review

By Howard King on 9th December 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

Whichever is your favourite period from the mercurial Waterboys this personally approved and collated assembly of gems by the enigmatic Mike Scott is a must for true Waterboys followers.

Release date: 3rd December 2021

Label: Chrysalis

Format: Digital / Vinyl

Super Deluxe Edition

5x CD and 1x DVD in Hard Back Folder
1x 240pp Hardback Book (approx. A4 sized)
1x Rigid Slipcase to hold above two books.

Clamshell Box

5x CD and 1x DVD in card sleeves
1x 54-page booklet with band commentary on the tracks

The Waterboys, emerged initially as a rock band. In a recent radio interview Mike Scott explained his reasons for the new Celtic sound for the Fisherman’s Blues/Room To Roam album era. Quite simply he wanted a change.

Apart from knowing the single – The Whole Of The Moon – it was music from this period that somewhat belatedly introduced me to The Waterboys and consequently I ventured into their more rocky material pre and post the 15 month period of The Magnificent Seven.

What sets this compilation apart from others is that rather than focus on a specific classic album it tells the story of a much loved and revered era by the musicians Mike Scott assembled for a special project that he looks back on lovingly and respectfully.

Building on the nucleus of Steve Wickham (fiddle/mandolin/organ), Anto Thistlethwaite (saxophone/mandolin), Colin Blakey (organ/piano/whistle) and Trevor Hutchinson (bass) he discovered and recruited new and unknown talent of Sharon Shannon (accordion), Colin Blakey (uilleann pipes/flute) and Noel Bridgeman (drums/percussion) who were named by the latter as The Magnificent Seven.

The first 4 CDs adopt a seasonal theme. Disc one, Celtic Summer, is a mixture of live recordings, demos, radio sessions and the band joyously recasting traditional Scottish and Irish music, as well as covers. Disc two, The Rambles Of Autumn, is made up of live recordings from concerts from Paris and various North American cities and some spontaneous recordings as they toured. Disc three, Winter’s Work, includes live recordings and demos of material, some of which ended upon Room To Roam. Disc four, Atlantic Spring has jams and rough mixes of what would become Room To Roam, mostly recorded at Spiddal House in the spring of 1990 giving us an excellent insight into how an artists material develops into the final studio produced album Disc five is the Room To Roam album.

For the Super Deluxe Edition an extra DVD is added – A Band For All Seasons (Home Movies). Unofficial recordings of performances at 1989 Glastonbury Festival and in Milan, Mike Scott’s home movies of the 1990 Spiddal House recordings, a short 2010 documentary extract telling the history of Spiddal House and a 2012 Spiddal Reunion documentary of a concert where Mike, Steve and Anto performed for a local charity.

To accompany this mouth watering collection Chrysalis Records will publish a 240-page book. In it Mike Scott gives a personal account of how he assembled ‘The Magnificent 7’ and a plethora of Waterboys memorabilia.

The outstanding feature to me is that it is irrelevant that there are noticeable omissions of recordings and demos etc from Fisherman’s Blues. There may be rough edges and unexpected inclusions but what is included is more than relevant because this is the story of seven fabulous musicians discovering themselves, playing out of their comfort zones, acquiring new skills and adapting their talent to produce something that is not only memorable to followers of The Waterboys but also has the affection of the group artistically at a time of creativity and when they had fun too!!

Fans may have been astounded and confused in equal measure when The Waterboys began and ended this period in their history but quality music never dies. This compilation is proof that there is life and breath in the Celtic sound period. I wish I had Mike Scott’s linguistic writing talent to give full justice to this anthology of the period.