Leith musician Dean Owens has released two albums (including a double CD) in the last 18 months, which he recorded with desert noir band Calexico – and now a single is available.
This has boosted his profile especially in Europe, with sold out tours in the Netherlands, and festival appearances in UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal.
He also recently joined Calexico’s Joey Burns on stage in Utrecht. He is currently finishing the follow up to those albums (Spirit Ridge) in north Italy (with Sacri Cuori’s Antonio Gramentieri) following a successful £17,000 crowdfunding campaign, for release in late 2024.
Dean’s new album, Pictures – “melancholic and personal” (with a touch of Ronnie Lane), recorded with Nashville colleagues and Grammy nominees Will Kimbrough and Neilson Hubbard – has been picked up for a full release, including vinyl, for Record Store Day (20 April) by Continental Record Services (Netherlands).
These 11 new songs were written during the pandemic years. Mostly personal and reflective, some are Dean’s own stories, some from other people’s perspectives – laced with melancholy, haunted by ghosts and anchored by love! There is a loose, rootsy feel, and a hint of a Ronnie Lane (much admired by all 3 collaborators) vibe to the album. Pictures was recorded long distance, with Dean in East Lothian and Will and Neilson in East Nashville.
He has also released a new single, Boxing Shorts, from the album which Dean describes like this: ‘I grew up in Leith, the port neighbourhood in Edinburgh and when I was a little boy there in the 1980s Edinburgh was the heroin capital of Europe. If you’ve read my friend Irvine Welsh’s book Trainspotting then you’ll have some idea of what I’m talking about. it was grim. My playground was a housing scheme called Fort House, or The Fort as we called it and you had to be little streetwise when hanging about there.
“There was a guy called Graham who lived in The Fort who went to school with my big brother. Graham was a tough kid who also went to the Leith Victoria Boxing Club. My dad was a big boxing fan and I used to watch a lot of the big fights with him on the TV. I started to show some interest in taking up boxing myself, so my father approached Graham and asked if he would take me along to the boxing gym sometime. That’s how I got started in boxing.
“I became very dedicated and really loved boxing, but sadly Graham lost interest and finally quit. He eventually got involved in drugs and went on to lose his hard battle with addiction. So many good kids went down this same dark road.
“A few years ago while having a clear out at home I found a pair of my old boxing shorts. They were embroidered with my nickname – Deano. They got me thinking about my boxing days, going to see those early Rocky movies with my pals and of course Graham. That’s when I wrote this song – Boxing Shorts’.”
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
