Dan McCafferty’s name will not be forgotten, his memorable songs continue to play on countless rock radio stations around the world. Now the public is learning that undiscovered treasures were stored in McCafferty’s private archives. Some of them can now be found on the posthumous homage: ‘No Turning Back – In Memory of Dan McCafferty’, out December 7th, 2023 via Rock of Angels Records.
The previously unreleased songs ‘Occident’ and ‘No Turning Back’ are original recordings from the late 1990s that McCafferty made with German director, composer and music producer Christoph Busse. The previously unreleased track ‘Children’s Eyes’ comes from a cooperation with the composer and producer Detlef Wiedeke. All three titles were tailor-made for McCafferty and show the stylistically enormous range of his rough rock voice. With ‘Into the Ring’, ‘Starry Eyes’ and ‘Sunny Island’, three more pieces worth listening to follow from a particularly eventful career phase of the Scottish musician.
Written by McCafferty himself, the songs were released on his now long-out-of-print solo album ‘Into the Ring’ in 1987. The album was created between the two Nazareth classics ‘Cinema’ (1986) and ‘Snakes’n’Ladders’ (1989) and shows how imaginative the exceptional singer also acted outside of his band. ‘No Turning Back – In Memory of Dan McCafferty’ is rounded off with ‘Going Home’ from 1993 and from the eponymous album by the short-lived project Seasons, with partly original Scottish and Irish bagpipes, fiddles, flutes and percussion instruments. The song is based on the piece ‘Largo’ from the 9th symphony ‘From the New World’ by Antonin Dvorak. There are also two current cover versions of the Nazareth evergreens ‘Love Hurts’ and ‘Dream On’ as bonus tracks, sung by the Greek Panos Kalifis, whose vocal color is remarkably similar to McCafferty’s.
The songs were recorded and mixed by the renowned sound engineer Bob Katsionis (Firewind, Kamelot, etc.). Last but not least: The album cover features a photo of young Dan McCafferty, while the twelve pencil and charcoal illustrations in the atmospheric booklet are by Welsh artist Martyn Dunn and reflect the respective songs and lyrics. So ‘No Turning Back – In Memory of Dan McCafferty’ is both a musical and visual treat for any McCafferty/Nazareth fan!
(metalshockfinland.com/2023/11/08/dan-mccafferty-no-turning-back-in-memory-of-dan-mccafferty-to-be-released-on-december-7th/)