“I had a great chat recently with Paul McDermott from the excellent podcast To Here Knows When about Power of Dreams debut album ‘Immigrants, Emigrants and Me’”
Craig Walker

Episode Notes

Episode twelve of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited focuses on Immigrants, Emigrants and Me by Power of Dreams.

A Little Piece of God EP, the band’s debut single, was released on 9 October 1989. It was the third release on Setanta Records following two incredible records: Beethoven’s - Finbarr Donnelly and and Ricky Dineen’s post-Five Go Down to the Sea? band - Him Goolie Goolie Man, Dem EP and Into Paradise’s Blue Light EP. Unlike Into Paradise, Power of Dreams didn’t stay long on Setanta. Within weeks of their debut single’s release Craig and Keith Walker’s mother was taking telephone calls from industry figures such as Rough Trade’s Geoff Travis and Creation’s Alan McGee - the band’s contact address printed on the back of the EP was the address of the family home and as Craig explains, “obviously it was easy to find a Walker in Walkinstown in the phone book.”

Within months the band had agreed to sign with Polydor Records and were off to London accompanied by their parents. Things got so ridiculous in the rush to sign the band that while they were making their way through Heathrow they were paged and asked to pick up a telephone - a rival A&R man was on the other end of the call offering the band more money to reconsider the Polydor offer.

I mention that the band was accompanied by their parents on the way to London, because of course Power of Dreams were young - very young, two of the trio were still underage, so their parents needed to sign the deal. Craig the singer/guitarist and songwriter had only just turned 18, his brother Keith on drums was only 16 and their friend Mick Lennox on bass guitar was 17.

They were young and the music press loved them: the NME declared that the band, “have the power to uplift, the power to inspire, the power to provoke and the power to dream.”

In this episode we discuss the band’s early days, their links to Cork, recording Ausländer, the recent passing of PoD sound engineer Dennis Herlihy and early second guitarist Robbie Callan. Craig talks about learning classical guitar from the age of 11, the influence of an English teacher in school, buying his first electric guitar at 14, rehearsing in the bedroom he shared with Keith, recording a demo with Stano and releasing their first EP on Setanta. We chat about recording Immigrants, Emigrants and Me in London with Ray Shulman and touring with The Mission and other bands. We also chat about Bill Doyle the master photographer who took the photograph on the cover of Immigrants, Emigrants and Me and I share some information I uncovered about the photograph with Craig.

The singles ‘100 Ways to Kill a Love’ and ‘Never Been to Texas’ preceded the release of Immigrants, Emigrants and Me. ‘100 Ways to Kill a Love’ was released in April 1990 and on 02 May breached the UK Top 100 Singles Chart to rest at No. 94. ‘Never Been to Texas’ was the follow up single and by 28 July it had entered the UK Singles Chart seven places higher at No. 87. The album garnered huge praise from all the UK weeklies and Dave Cavanagh in Select magazine correctly observed that, “when Craig Walker peaks as a songwriter, Immigrants, Emigrants and Me will inevitably be outclassed by his own future efforts.”

“What the hell,” he continued. “Who’s hurrying? Play loud and enjoy.”

Immigrants, Emigrants and Me was released on 23 July, 1990. I can pinpoint the date exactly because on the day I bought it on tape I visited Cobh with my parents. The QE2 was in Cork Harbour as part of Cunard’s 150 anniversary celebrations. My parents went on a boat trip out in the harbour to visit the liner as I stayed in the car and listened to the album - the significance of its title was not lost on me.

For Further Reading/Listening/Viewing:

Bill Doyle

The iconic photograph of the child on the cover of Immigrants, Emigrants and Me was taken by the master photographer Bill Doyle. It was used as part of an advertising campaign by the ISPCC in the 1980s and as Craig explains in the episode Power of Dreams’ managers had an office in the same building as the ISPCC and that’s where he saw the photograph. Doyle was one of Ireland's most highly regarded photographers. Known for his documentary style and his evocative portraits. He was known as Ireland’s Cartier-Bresson. He was a huge music fan and spent many years attending the Cork Jazz Festival photographing musicians. He dies in 2010 at the age of 85.

For further Reading:

For the Irish Examiner’s Ireland in 50 Albums series I’ve written about Immigrants, Emigrants and Me…