Dick Gaughan is one of the most highly respected folk singers in the world. He has toured extensively in the UK, North America and Australia.

Gaughan Live: At the Trades Club, was recorded in December 2007

Dick Gaughan has never been easy. The songs he delivers ask questions that some listeners may have thought never existed - so they may not, instantly at least, know the answers. When the answers duly come, delivered in a voice that throbs with a unique kind of controlled, vibrating passion, he can shake the most complacent mindset out of it's skull.

You go home from a Dick Gaughan session feeling exhilarated, not just at the wonderful skills of the most potent singer ever to emerge from the Scottish folk-music revival, not just at the astonishingly fluent and explosively eloquent guitar playing, but by the sense of the stark exposition of wrong and the tremendously argued legitimacy of right. Even those who disagree profoundly with his view of life recognize the conviction and the supreme artistry.

The Trades Club is one of Dick's favorite places to play. In November and December every year he does a tour through England and Wales, and the final night of the tour is always the Trades Club. It's not a folk club - in fact they put on rock gigs and stand-up comedy - but it's one of the few venues of that kind where someone like Dick can get the House Full notices up on a Saturday night!

Dick has so much affection for the club as it is a solidly working class venue and is one of the few venues where the idea of a performer having to explain why their work contains commentary on political and social issues would be absurd - it is not only taken for granted, but expected, that working class art and politics are inseparable.

This is just Dick and his guitar in front of a capacity audience performing songs he loves and playing guitar tunes in his own inimitable style.

Song lyrics are also included in the booklet.

Track Listing