The strangest thing about Monday night’s tribute to Michael Marra, All Will Be Well, at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall, was hearing Mick’ songs sung by other people.
Having been reared on that gravelly-voiced storyteller’s unique delivery, it took a few minutes into the sellout Celtic Connections show before the true magnificence of his songs shone through and helped brush aside those thoughts.
How well those songs hold up in the hands of other, admittedly highly-esteemed vocalists like Rab Noakes, Dougie MacLean, Kris Drever, Rod Patterson, Pat Kane and Eddi Reader.
In some ways too, it provided some form of closure for the large Dundonian presence: proof, if it was needed, that while his unique voice is no longer with us, the spirit of Michael Marra lives on brilliantly in the hands of his own hugely talented family and friends.
Hauntingly, that unpolished gem of a voice was heard at the beginning of the night through Michael’s poignant rendition of Martyn Bennett’s Liberation.
That was the prelude to another awakening for those lucky enough to be present: the amazing performance by Michael’s daughter Alice, her solo voice filling the beautiful auditorium fantastically on Take Me Out Drinking Tonight.
Alice was at the heart of the action throughout, providing backing to many if not most of the assembled guest artists and again performing a sublime version of Monkey Hair, fittingly supplemented by another hugely poignant moment, a reading of a new poem about Michael by his friend Liz Lochhead.
As concert producer and MC Rab Noakes pointed out, there was also fitting symmetry in Alice performing a song from his first solo album The Midas Touch while she and her fellow Hazey Janes played songs from his last recording with them, Houseroom.
The quality of the performances was maintained throughout the aforementioned Patterson sounding eerily like a more velvet-voiced Mick, while Drever marvellously brought some memorable vocal moments.
More raucous renditions were provided by the fabulous John Spillane on Chaining Up The Swings and The Homeless Do Not Seem To Drink Here Anymore, while the clenched-fist, air-punching Eddi Reader lent Here Come The Weak a power-ballad vibe.
Dundee musicians were there in their droves too, with Mick’s brother Christopher on guitar and pedal steel, Mick’s son Matthew on bass along with Hazey Janes teammates Liam Brennan (drums) and singer guitarist Andrew Mitchell, his good friend Kevin Murray on guitars and mandolin, guitarist Gregor Philp and a host of pals joining in from the audience.
Dougie MacLean told how Mick branded him Neil Gow’s apprentice, Rab spoke of Frida Kahlo’s trip to the Taybridge Bar, superbly sung by Tom Mitchell, also on keyboards.
Other great musicians among the 29-strong band/orchestra were fiddler Duncan Chisholm (Wolfstone), McKenzie, Riley Briggs (Aberfeldy), Jimmy McGregor and jazz singer Sylvia Rae Tracey. The evening was finished off, of course, with a mass but understated singalong of Hermless, quite properly at the request of Rab Noakes who of course recognised its true worth as a celebration of the meek rather than a bombastic, full-blooded outpouring of a chorus.
Fitting too, that Alice sang the final line, “naebody would notice, if I wisnae there, if I didnae come doon fur ma tea.”
The two standing ovations said it all.
Tears were shed, hearts swelled with emotion, friends hugged as they poured out into the foyer. And we all left with the same feeling.
As Dundee musician Donny Coutts so eloquently put it: “…a final realisation and acceptance that we won’t hear Michael, in person, ever again.”
We were proud to know him, proud to have shared his music and, finally, proud to be there.