WARM tributes have been paid to “one of Coatbridge’s most talented sons” and a “brilliant musician”.
Hugh McKenna, a songwriter and keyboard player with The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, sadly passed away just before Christmas at the age of 70 following a short illness.
Hugh’s passing came just a year on from the death of his cousin Ted, 68, who was the band’s drummer.
Hugh was a key performer for glam rockers The Sensational Alex Harvey Band from its creation in 1972, having previously been a member of progressive rock act Tear Gas.
The band’s top 40 UK hits included Delilah, a cover version of the Tom Jones tune, and The Boston Tea Party.
Coatbridge author Owen Mullen was a long-time friend of Hugh and highlighted how, even from a young age, Hugh was destined for musical greatness.
Owen said: “I met Hugh when we landed in the same first-year class at high school.
“I can recall the first gig Hugh and I ever got; somebody had organised a birthday party for an old lady in the Elizabeth restaurant on Coatbridge Main Street and needed music.
“I spoke to Hugh and he asked, ‘How much are they paying?’ I told him a fiver each plus a meal. He was impressed; ‘Plus a meal? Right, we’ll do it!’
“We finished school at 4pm, turned up at the restaurant at 7.30pm and started to make a noise. I knew a bunch of Sinatra and Crosby tunes I’d learned listening to my mum and dad.
“Hugh played them off the top of his head with no rehearsal, not even a practise. He was 16.
“I realised that night he would make his mark in the music business. And, as we know, he did.”
Owen added: “That restaurant gig was the first time we ever made music together, but it wasn’t the first time Hugh’s huge natural talent had shown itself.
“His mum told me how the seven-year-old Hugh came home from school, sat up at the piano and showed her what the teacher had played; note perfect – both hands.
“Mrs McKenna said, ‘We thought we had a young Mozart in the house’.
“Hugh forming a band was inevitable. We practiced every Friday night in his cousin Ted’s bedroom – Hugh, Ted, Jim Coventry and I; Hugh pointed out to us that while we might be practising, he would be rehearsing.
“God knows how the neighbours coped with the racket!”
Hugh’s skills didn’t end with music, though, as Owen explained: “What is less known about Hugh is that he was a really good footballer – good enough to captain the school team until the master in charge stopped picking him and he didn’t get another game.
“Any disappointment he may have felt he shrugged off before taking up rugby and getting into that team as well.
“I called him, ‘the forgotten man of Scottish football’, and that made him laugh. I thought he’d turned his back on the beautiful game but apparently not. While other boys our age were going to Ibrox or Celtic Park, Hugh went to Edinburgh to watch Hearts.”
Owen remained close friends with Hugh even after the author split his time between Coatbridge and Crete and Hugh moved to London, adding: “We stayed in touch. I visited him and whenever he was in Scotland, he visited me.
“Normally, I ended up running him to the airport.
“The last time we played music together was in a studio in North London, before I moved to Crete, on a song I’d written when I was 23.
“‘Nice chords,’ Hugh said. ‘I like it’. Praise indeed.
“Then, exactly as the whole thing had begun in the restaurant in Coatbridge 40 years earlier, Hugh sat down and played it.
“The friendship I had with Hugh was always strong and remained unchanged by time and distance.
“The last time I spoke to him, he told me that he loved me and I said I loved him too. I’m glad we had that chance.
“I’ll remember Hugh as a special guy and the most talented musician I ever played with.
“You had to have worked with Hugh to understand just how good he was. His talent flowed effortlessly; he made it all seem easy because, for him, it was.
“I’m going to miss him.”
Hugh’s funeral service, attended by hundreds, was held at West London crematorium last Thursday.
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