The unknown couple whose Hogmanay clinch inspired a famous album cover and helped put the work of a Glasgow housing scheme’s residents on the international map.
Mystery Hogmanay kissers whose photo inspired Deacon Blue album art
The hunt is on to trace a mystery couple whose Hogmanay kiss featured on the cover of iconic Deacon Blue’s third album.
They are the unknown couple whose Hogmanay clinch inspired a famous album cover and helped put the work of a Glasgow housing scheme’s residents on the international map.
When photographer and artist Alistair McCallum snapped a man and a woman in a New Year embrace in George Square in 1990 he captured a moment that became the starting point of album art for one of Scotland’s most popular bands.
Streetworks Art exhibition by Alistair McCallum
The unwitting pair went on to feature on the front cover of Fellow Hoodlums, the third album by Deacon Blue.
Released in 1991, the LP reached No2 on the UK album charts and its distinctive wood-cut artwork was on billboards everywhere.
Now the photo is part of a 30,000-strong archive of snaps to be digitised to preserve the work of Cranhill Arts, set up in the 80s to create opportunities in the east end scheme and help stave off the impact of 50 per cent unemployment in Thatcher’s Britain.
The project, Glaswegians, ran from 1989 to 1993 and catalogued everyday life in Glasgow in the period around the 1990s European City of Culture, a time of deindustrialisation and before devolution.
Alistair was leader of Cranhill Arts and took the snap while photographing the beginning of Glasgow’s tenure as City of Culture.
He said: “We were taking photos in George Square on Hog-manay as part of the Glaswegian project that we did. We’d been in the City Chambers taking pics as Jacques Chirac was handing over the European city of culture from Paris to Glasgow, and went to George Square after the Bells.
“This couple were winchin’ and I took a photo. You’d probably get lifted for that now,” he said, laughing.
“I remember the guy was holding a half bottle of whisky which I would have caught in the picture if I’d taken half a step back, it would really have made it a classic Glasgow image.
“Ricky Ross from Deacon Blue got in touch with us to say he liked our work after he’d seen a poster we did for May Day, and we showed him the drawings Jane had done from the photograph, and he asked us to develop that as an idea for the album cover.
Jane worked quite intensely on the kiss that ended up on the front of the record, a sort of muscular romantic.”
The concept of everyday life in the city is one which flows through the record as much as the Cranhill Arts group.
The songs criss-cross the city like a compendium of stories playing out on Queen Street and Kelvin Way, with references to pubs like The Budgie and Sloan’s, as well as love stories about sailors working on the Clyde.
Ian Venart pictured at Street Level gallery in Trongate 103
Jane Carroll, Alistair’s artist wife, also worked on the designs for the record. She said: “We met the band and they were really keen on the woodcut style of our work.
“Ricky gave us the lyrics from the songs for the album before they were put to music, so we came up with our ideas based on the words, just like they were poems.
“I remember when the album came out there were a limited number released with dabbity transfers of the artwork, too.”
The Fellow Hoodlums art, including covers of the band’s singles like Your Swaying Arms and Twist & Shout, was the subject of an exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery off the back of the album’s success.
Alistair said: “It was a really Scottish and very Glaswegian vibe, sort of muscular romantic. A lot of the visual ideas came from the things we were doing for trade union events and so on, banners and scrolls.
“It was a time when the external reputation of Glasgow was changing, but the people here had always been proud of it.
“The photo that started the process for that record wouldn’t have existed if it hadn’t been for Cranhill Arts and what we were trying to do at the time with the photography project.
There’s a connection right through from the work we were doing with Cranhill arts and the artwork of the Fellow Hoodlums record and singles.”
The success of the collaboration saw Alistair and wife Jane create covers for other Scottish bands such as The Blue Nile and Hue & Cry.
“We did a lot of posters for gigs and festivals for things a lot of the bands around at the time were part of, like Medical Aid for Palestinians and anti-poll tax demos,” he said.
Ian Venart and Alistair McCallum pictured at Street Level gallery in Trongate 103
As well as the massive digitisation project, some of the Cranhill Arts photos are now on show at Glasgow’s Street Level Photoworks gallery in the Trongate.
The work done by Cranhill Arts – which still runs today – went beyond photography, with posters and banners also produced by the group, which Alistair led for 10 years.
He said: “It was hard to get a job in Cranhill at that time. People were desperate for things to do. Cranhill was the only housing scheme that got Arts Council funding for a visual project like that.
“I was initially supposed to be there as an artist in residence and come up with a response to life in Cranhill, but I thought it was better to use the funding to bring in facilities for people to do their own art, screen printing, photography, T-shirt making. I saw my role as an addition to what they were doing.”
Photographer Ian Venart hails from Cranhill. With no photography experience before becoming part of the project, within weeks he was teaching others how to shoot and develop.
His involvement in Cranhill Arts led to him establishing a decades-long career as a snapper.
Ian, now treasurer of Cranhill Arts, said: “We could all have gone in different directions in those days, especially in Cranhill.
“When I think back with a great deal of decades behind me its importance was immense. Alistair and Jane came in and we all found a common interest.
“Coming from a housing scheme in Glasgow we weren’t artists, but we were able to understand the ethos Alistair was trying to create. He helped us all immeasurably.”
●Cranhill Arts: Glaswegians is at Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow until October 5.