Of all the albums recorded at SNAP! Studios – indeed, of all the albums in my collection – one I return to time after time is Life Is People by Bill Fay
After enjoying cult status in the early 1970’s, in Bill’s words, ‘I was deleted.’ He continued to live in North London and write songs while working in a variety of jobs, including groundskeeper, fruit picker, factory worker and fishmonger. Over the years, his early albums achieved an almost mythical status, with some of his songs being covered by the likes of Jeff Tweedy (Wilco), Nick Cave and Mark Almond.
Around 2010, a young musician and producer, Joshua Henry, discovered Fay’s music in his dad’s record collection. They bonded deeply over it as his father was dying from cancer, and Henry vowed to track Fay down and make a record with him. The result was ‘Life Is People,’ recorded at SNAP! in 2012. Produced and engineered by the brilliant Guy Massey, the album features the cream of UK session musicians, including Ray Russell (Guitar) and Mikey Rowe (Hammond Organ).
How would I describe Bill’s music? Lyrically poetic and spiritual, Bill has been compared to Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave, but is unlike any of these. He was truly an original. A one-off.
Bill returned to SNAP! to record his third and final album in 2022, Countless Branches, with Marco Pasquariello engineering and mixing. Another great album.
Bill died in 2025. He was eighty-one. There was a forty-year gap between his second and third (best) albums. He never lost faith, in any sense of the word. As he said in a Guardian interview, “I’m not an upfront kind of guy. From the age of 15, it’s just been me and a piano in the corner of a room. I didn’t leave the music business. The music business left me.”
Bill tracking vocals at SNAP! Studios
Bill Fay tracking vocals at SNAP! Studios