Matt McGinn

Born into Glasgow’s Calton district, Matt McGinn grew up alongside his parents and eight siblings inside severely overcrowded rooms. Although he longed during childhood to attend a Protestant school alongside his friends, his parents insisted on a Catholic upbringing. After being apprehended breaking into a shop at age twelve, he was committed to St. Mary’s Approved School for eighteen months; the experience redirected the course of his life. Upon release he took a series of temporary positions, delivering messages for a florist and assisting a blacksmith, while local voices expounding socialist and anarchist principles left a lasting impression. In 1949 he entered the Communist Party, where he encountered Janette Gallacher, who would become his wife, during a party gathering. He departed the organization in 1956, yet its beliefs continued to guide him. Employed at a screw factory, he rallied coworkers to form a union, prompting a strike that secured him a scholarship to Ruskin College. During this same period his debut record, The Iron Muse, appeared. He then entered Oxford University to study economics and political science. In 1964 he contributed to a compilation documenting the Edinburgh Folk Festival. Capable of composing as many as six songs in a single day, McGinn issued his self-titled album on Transatlantic Records in 1966; that year also saw the release of Matt McGinn Again and To-Night at the Attic. His reputation expanded through lyrics that blended pointed historical commentary with wry humor. Two further albums followed in 1968 and another pair in 1971, one of them the Transatlantic title 5,227,706 Scotsmen Can't Be Wrong!, an allusion to an Elvis Presley release. His most successful effort, The Two Heided Man, came out on Emerald Gem Records in 1972 and was succeeded two years later by The Two Heided Man Strikes Again. McGinn also produced poetry and novels, yet his career ended abruptly at its peak when a fire engulfed his Kelvingrove home on 5 January 1977, claiming his life. Partly responsible for the British and Celtic folk revival of the 1960s, his songs have shaped subsequent generations of Scottish and folk performers. In 2001 The Return of the Two Heided Man was reissued.