In the late David Cavanagh’s definitive history of Creation Records, My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry for the Prize, the 80s indie band Felt are depicted existing in a continual state of luckless disarray. Their hugely original albums ultimately prove influential – on Belle and Sebastian, the Charlatans and Manic Street Preachers among others – and provoke a rabid cult following, but everything else goes wrong. Band members depart with alarming regularity, career-boosting magazine cover features are pulled at the last minute, a gig packed with interested parties from major labels devolves into farcical chaos after lead singer Lawrence Hayward elects to take LSD before going on stage. But even by Felt’s standards, 1985 found them in a tight spot: they had just scored a No 1 single on the indie chart with Primitive Painters, but their guitarist Maurice Deebank – whose classical-inspired filigree defined their sound – had left for good. For once, Felt’s luck was in. While hopefully putting up an advert in a record store for new musicians, Hayward had been informed of a “genius” keyboard player who had just left school aged 16. It was Martin Duffy.
It turned out that Hayward’s informant wasn’t exaggerating: Duffy was a preternaturally gifted musician. He had first appeared on Ignite the Seven Canons, an album on which Deebank also appeared – but after the guitarist’s departure, Felt dramatically remodelled their sound around Duffy. His organ playing dominated 1986’s Forever Breathes the Lonely Word, suddenly lending Felt something of the feel of Bob Dylan’s mid-60s recordings with Al Kooper. They began releasing a succession of gorgeous piano instrumentals, featuring Duffy alone: the B-sides Magellan and Autumn, Sending Lady Load, which took up most of one side of 1988’s The Pictorial Jackson Review.
