Jackie McAuley

As a member of Them (on keyboards)[1] he recorded and toured with Van Morrison behind hit records ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’,[2] ‘Gloria’ and ‘Here Comes The Night’ sharing stages with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks etc. Later when Van Morrison went solo, Jackie joined Paul Brady in Dublin band ‘The Kult’[3] Moving back to London he formed The Belfast Gypsies recording just one album "Them Belfast Gypsies" which was produced by Kim Fowley. The album is hailed as one of the rawest and most powerful to emerge during the 60s R&B Boom.

McAuleys psych-folk duo Trader Horne, with ex Fairport Convention singer Judy Dyble also only released one album ‘Morning Way’ in 1970. The album, much played by BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel at the time, has been re-released seven times since.[4] Through the seventies and beyond Jackie recorded and worked with artists such as Viv Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Do Da Band to Clodagh Rodgers, Jamaican reggae group The Heptones, Rick Wakeman and also as musical director with Lonnie Donegan on guitar and fiddle.

In 1982 his songwriting came to fruition when he and John Gustafson of Roxy Music penned the hit song "Dear John" for Status Quo. Meanwhile they formed Rowdy with Billy Bremner (The Pretenders) and Les Binks (Judas Priest).

In the late eighties McAuley led for several years the critically acclaimed Celtic rock outfit Poor Mouth recording the album ‘Gael Force’ After an accident almost severing his finger McAuley during recovery began to write more solo driven material. Since breaking up the band in the nineties he has released several well reviewed albums under his own name.

Recently McAuley and Dyble reformed Trader Horne for a one-off London gig which was awarded four stars in a review in The Times. And his songwriting was recognised once again in the Hollywood movies Humble Pie ‘American Fork’ (William Baldwin) and Stranger Things (Winona Ryder) He is currently working as the Jackie McAuley Band[5] with PierLuigi Cioci and Joe Toal. In 2017 Jackie played at the "A New Day Festival"[6] in Kent, England and finished writing his memoirs titled I, Sideman.