Scullion guitarist who worked hard for the rights of Irish musicians

Gregory (Greg) Boland

Born: January 15th, 1955; Died: August 16th, 2018

Greg Boland, one of the threesome who made up the innovative traditional-rock group Scullion, has died unexpectedly aged 63. Fellow band member Philip King, presenter of RTÉ Radio's The Rolling Wave music programme, described him as "a sonic expeditionary, one of the best guitarists in the world".

He was one of the greatest guitarists Ireland has ever produced, working in a career spanning over 40 years with such household names – both local and international – as U2’s Bono, Leo Sayer, Carole King, Bill Whelan, Christy Moore, Sinead O’Connor, Davy Spillane, Moving Hearts, Stockton’s Wing, Frances Black, Red Hurley, Jimmy MacCarthy and Johnny Logan. Boland’s musical tastes were as wide and inclusive as his talents were very much in demand by fellow artists.

Boland grew up in Dublin’s Sandymount in a musical household, where his father, the eminent physician and allergies specialist, the late Dr Neville Boland, a gifted pianist, introduced the young Greg and his three brothers to many classic jazz influences from the USA, the UK and Europe.

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Dr Boland, according to Sonny Condell, the third member of Scullion, was “a fantastic boogie-woogie pianist”.

Other influences on Boland whom King notes were, on this side of the Atlantic, “Davy Graham and John Renbourn and, in Ireland, Louis Stewart and Hugh Buckley and, for blues, of course, Rory [Gallagher].”

While still in his early 20s, Boland helped kickstart something of a revolution in Irish music with the significant jazz-rock group Supply, Demand and Curve, and also played with the equally eclectic group Stagalee from the late 1970s.

Early influence

A vital early influence in Boland's career was the experience of working with the great Scottish singer-songwriter, the late John Martyn, on perhaps the most famous of Scullion's albums, Balance and Control, which Martyn produced. Philip King remarks of this that "Greg's contribution, with John, made for a sound which had never come out of Ireland before. John Martyn's music was electric music for the mind and body; Greg really absorbed that and understood it technically."

Boland had a thorough understanding of the mechanics of his art and instrument. After completing his secondary schooling at Sandford Park School in Dublin, Boland had gone on to take a Level Eight qualification in the guitar at the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) in Dublin, and both Condell and King point to the significance of this sheer expertise in his contribution to Scullion.

He was the musical bonding agent, pulling us together from day one. He had the vision to be able to do that

“When you retune a guitar, it can be hard to know what chords you’re playing,” remarks Condell. “Greg would always know exactly what was going on, and would deliver. He was a great arranger, a great interpreter of a songwriter’s efforts.”

The three members of Scullion came “from three different silos: Sonny, a singer-songwriter, myself from trad, and Greg from jazz and jazz rock,” according to King, and Boland “was the musical bonding agent, pulling us together from day one. He had the vision to be able to do that.”

Crucially for his career, Boland added to this a consistent professional reliability. Long-time collaborator and record producer Paul Barrett, who worked regularly with Boland from the mid-1970s in the guitarist’s work as a session musician, said this week that “he was my first instinct and choice for guitar work, as a trusted music ally . . . [he was] a great and determined worker . . . squeezing the last drop out of a studio’s capabilities . . . he set and fought for the highest standards in his music. It was always a matter of pride to me that Greg would keep answering my call.”

Activism

Both Barrett and Sonny Condell were among others this week to draw attention to a totally different aspect of Boland’s career, namely his activism on behalf of his fellow musicians’ rights as working professional people in an industry which can be notoriously exploitative and insecure.

When the old Federation of Irish Musicians, operational since the 1950s, closed down in the early years of this century, a need was identified for a body to represent Irish musical professionals and ensure their rights were respected. With others, Boland formed the Musicians’ Union of Ireland (MUI) in 2003, and was its president for four years until 2007, and its vice-president from 2009 till 2011, serving also on its executive committee for the union’s first nine years.

In recent years, Boland, true to his jazz-rock roots, played with the Steely Dan tribute band Aja and vintage rock outfit Badge.

Greg Boland was pre-deceased both by his father and his brother, Colin. He is survived by his children Laura and Adam, by his former wife Jackie Morris, his mother, Sheelagh, (nee Coleman), a speech and drama teacher, and by his brothers Tim and Andrew, the latter a noted sound engineer .