Deacon Blue’s Lorraine McIntosh, from Glasgow slums to stardom | Music | Entertainment | EUROtoday

It has been forty years since Ricky Ross shaped Deacon Blue. “Sometimes it feels like it, too,” his spouse and co-vocalist Lorraine McIntosh says, her blue eyes glowing. “But everything’s very good. Our new album is out, our tour is about to start…” The album, The Great Western Road, celebrates the times when the soulful Scottish pop band lit up the charts with unforgettable hits like Real Gone Kid, Wages Day and Fergus Sings The Blues. Their newest single, Late ’88 – an exhilarating slice of heartfelt nostalgia – captures the push of these early days. “The energy, the positivity, the sheer thrill of it all,” enthuses Lorraine, 60, from the Glasgow dwelling she shares with Ricky, her husband of 35 years. “Like most bands we were playing to tiny audiences in venues with no dressing rooms. It felt lucky to get a record deal. Life changed; it was a such fantastic experience.”

If you might have solely seen Lorraine in gritty TV crime dramas like Shetland and Taggart, you is likely to be shocked at how simply she laughs. And how energetically she strikes on stage – she says their tour rider now features a kilo of Epsom Salts to alleviate drained muscle tissue after a two-hour set. Deacon Blue’s present theatre tour is offered out; their longer enviornment run kicks off in September.

Lorraine charges Late ’88 as one in every of their best songs together with Dignity, their 1987 debut single, which was a few council road-sweeper dreaming of escaping his day-job by saving as much as purchase a dinghy and crusing away. Its life-affirming message of thrifty aspiration is completely timeless. It’s additionally Dundee United’s unofficial anthem. Music was McIntosh’s ‘dinghy’. Born the youngest of three in “the slums of Glasgow’s east end”, she was three when her shipyard engineer father David landed a job in Killoch Colliery, and the household relocated to Cumnock, Ayrshire. Her County-Donegal-born manufacturing unit employee mom, Sarah, died tragically from leukaemia aged 46 when Lorraine was eleven. “It’s really tough losing your mother growing up,” she says. Tougher nonetheless, as a result of her father was overwhelmed with grief. Lorraine, an envoy for Glasgow’s Simon Community, has spoken about him dropping his job and them getting evicted days after her 18^th birthday, recalling her belongings and, heartbreakingly, her mom’s keepsakes, have been “flung out on street” and misplaced.

Moving again to Glasgow, she flat-shared with musicians together with Ewen Vernal who turned Deacon Blue’s bassist. Her future husband, Dundee-born Ricky secured a publishing deal on the energy of his early demo tape. Keyboardist Jim Prime (ex-Altered Images) heard the tape and tracked him down. With Graeme Kelling on guitar and drummer Douglas Vipond – now an everyday face on TV – Deacon Blue emerged.

Growing up, Lorraine had sung harmonies together with her father at household events in Scotland and northwest Ireland. Singing on stage and on the band’s demos wasn’t an enormous leap. When they requested her to tour England, she went on vacation to Greece as a substitute, so she was shocked when she discovered a word by her door asking her to hitch them recording their CBS debut album, 1987’s Raintown, at London’s AIR Studios. It went platinum, and their double-platinum-selling second album, 1989’s When The World Knows Your Name, topped the charts. They had 17 hit singles, together with a 1991 Top 3 cowl of The Carpenters’ I’ll Never Fall In Love Again.

Deacon Blue excursions by no means hit Led Zeppelin ranges of extra however in Germany in 1989, Lorraine remembers Ewan knocking on Graeme’s resort door “and letting him have it with a fire extinguisher.” She provides, “He thought it was foam but it was chemical; we had to rush Graeme to hospital, his clothes were taken away. He wasn’t happy on the bus the next day…” Peculiar followers have included a borderline stalker and a girl who despatched them clippings of her pubic hair, however Lorraine says, “Most are lovely, some we’ve known for 30 years.” One was Neighbours cleaning soap star Stefan Dennis, aka Paul Robinson, who contacted them whereas they have been touring Australia in 1989. “He said he wanted to write a musical about Bogie, the guy from Dignity,” remembers Lorraine with a smile. “He sent it to us. I don’t think Bogie meant the same thing there as it did in Glasgow.”

Deacon Blue by no means cracked America however they performed the important thing cities. “It was the best fun ever. The Bottom Line in New York was a tiny club with a tiny stage; Rod Stewart was there and Bruce Springsteen’s manager – we were invited to see Bruce play two sets on the same night. Things mean more now, when you’re this age; at the time you don’t realise…” Like Springsteen, Ricky’s songs mirror extraordinary lives with emotional honesty. Lorraine misplaced her voice in Boston and a advisor instructed her she had throat nodules. “He said, ‘You can’t sing for six months’ so we cancelled the entire tour. Back in Glasgow, I saw a specialist who said it wasn’t nodules. We’d missed the whole tour for nothing.”

McIntosh married ex-English trainer Ross in May 1990. They have three daughters, together with Ricky’s daughter from his first marriage, and a son, born in 2000. She is now the “besotted step-grandmother” to Ricky’s two grandsons who have been born in California. Lorraine, who was just lately awarded an honorary doctorate by Abertay University, grew up listening to her brothers’ Springsteen and Jackson Browne albums. “I loved Blondie and the Eurythmics, but I’ll admit the first single I ever bought was Cavatina by The Shadows – the classical guitar piece from The Deer Hunter. That and an ABBA single. My youngest is 24, my kids are obsessed with music but what they listen to is much broader.”

After Deacon Blue break up in 1994, the Rosses spent a summer time in LA the place Rick recorded a solo album. By likelihood they met previous pal Paul Laverty, a screenwriter who was working with filmmaker Ken Loach and requested if Lorraine had thought of appearing. Six months later she met Ken, auditioned and was solid as Maggie in Loach’s hard-hitting 1998 movie My Name is Joe, starring Peter Mullan who received the Best Actor award on the 2000 Cannes Film Festival for his position. She went on to seem in Scottish National Theatre productions, together with Beautiful Burnout and Let The Right One In, and in addition in a stage model of Beowulf and joined the 2016 solid of the dwell run of Scottish sitcom Still Game.

Lorraine’s many TV roles embody enjoying an alcoholic in Scottish cleaning soap River City – not useful on faculty dad and mom’ evenings. She was final seen in 2023’s BBC1 cop drama Shetland with Ashley Jensen, Alison O’Donnell and Phyllis Logan. “We all ended up a bit drunk in the pub one night and me and Phyllis Logan ended up walking the wrong way down the only street in the town. I was heading off into the night with Scottish acting royalty, going the wrong way.”

Although the Rosses love working collectively, Lorraine maintains it’s necessary that in addition they do issues aside, “otherwise you’d go a bit mad; Ricky writes” [including songs for other artists, like James Blunt and Emma Bunton] “and does radio shows and I act, so it’s really special when we come back and do these Deacon Blue shows.” It provides him a break from her impatience, she says, and her break day from his over-attention to element.

Reforming in 1999, the band misplaced Graeme to most cancers in 2004 and bassist Ewan to different tasks. Gregor Philp and Lewis Gordon changed them – “Our two new guys,” she laughs. “We still call them that although they’ve been with us for 17 years.” Lorraine relaxes by socialising with household and pals, and enjoys strolling, chilly water swimming, nights on the theatre and watching good TV. “Almost every night in our house is rounded off with an episode of Seinfeld. We’ve watched it start to finish at least four times. We’re also obsessed with This Country and Daisy May Cooper. We were late to the party but have rewatched every episode. It’s so original, funny and poignant.”

The band stay shut pals and share a dedication to creating each gig the most effective gig it may be, she says. She’s happy with the brand new album. “Fans want to hear the songs you remember but for a band to stay alive you have to write new music. If you don’t, you wither up and die. We’d become a tribute band to ourselves. It’s nostalgic but also joyful. It’s looking back on youth and all the things you’ll never experience again and saying, ‘Celebrate them, but know that there’s still brilliant things to come’.”

*Deacon Blue’s new album The Great Western Road is out now, the band tour extensively this 12 months.