Scotland,The Southeast

Before leaving Edinburgh we hook up with fiddler Aly Bain and accordion player Phil Cunningham.  Aly is actually from Lerwick on the Shetland islands.  The duo recorded some 8 albums between 1995 and 2012, but the highlights are captured on their 2004 Best of album.  Here's a good tune by them including a lengthy and hilarious introduction.  

Just south of Edinburgh we stop in the small village of Penicuick in Midlothian, where folk singer Siobhan Miller was born.  This is the song that goes with the title of this blog, The Rambling Rover from her 2017 album Strata:

Moving south we enter the Scottish Borders region where Dr. Lori Watson hails from.  She actually has a doctorate in Artistic Research in Scottish Music, which I think is mighty impressive!  She has also recorded numerous albums as well as lecturing at Edinburgh university. She is considered an authority on contemporary traditional music practices in Scotland.  I think this song from her latest album Yarrow Acoustic Sessions demonstrates that point.  The song is called Yarrow (A Charm) and here's me showing off some yarrow, a magical healing plant:

Finally before we leave Scotland we encounter Songs of Separation, a collaboration of 10 female musicians from both Scotland and England including some we have already met such as Karine Polwart and others we are yet to meet in England such as Eliza Carthy and Rowan Rheingans amongst others.  They actually met up on the Isle of Eigg in 2015 to explore the similarities and differences between the folk traditions of Scotland and England.  This is their story:

And this is the opening track of the resulting album, Echo Mocks the Corncrake:

That concludes our tour of Scotland, next up we'll be exploring the music of England.  As usual, you can follow my virtual ramblings on my tripline map.

Scotland, Edinburgh

Before we head into the bright lights of Edinburgh we take a wee detour to the small Stirlingshire village of Banknock, where singer-songwriter Karine Polwart is from.  Many of her songs deal with social and political issues, from alcoholism and modern parenthood to genocide and Donald Trump's corporate megalomania.  Here's a set from the npr tiny desk series.  Two of the songs she plays here are featured on her 2018 Laws of Motion album:

And another little detour takes us to Buckhaven in Fife, where Janet Russell was born.  She was active on the Scottish folk scene during the 1980's.  She recorded just one beautiful album together with Christine Kydd in 1988, from which this following song is from.  It's a Robert Burns song called The Deil's Awa wi' th'exciseman, The devil is away with the excise man.  Of course famously the great bard himself was an excise man sniffing out illegal whisky stills in the wild Scottish countryside.

Karine Polwart was also a founding member of Edinburgh based band Malinky, but she left them in 2005. Here's a live performance of their song The Broomfield Hill, which features on their 2008 album Flower and Iron:

Edinburgh band Silly Wizard were active from 1970 onward.  Sadly key members of the group have died since then, including lead singer Andy Stewart.  Here they are in action with the song Donald McGillavry, which features on their 2002 Live Again album:

Alison Kinnaird is not only an excellent glass sculptor, she also is an accomplished player of the small Scottish harp known as the clarsach.  Here's a tune from her 2008 album The Harp Key called The Kid on the Mountain:

Finally we meet the legendary Waterboys.  Although the members hail from all over the UK and Ireland, they launched in Edinburgh and Mike Scott, the only constant member of the band since their inception in 1983, was born and bred here.  This is a live version of their classic Fisherman's Blues from the 1988 album of the same name.

As usual, you can follow my virtual trip on this link.

Scotland, from Glasgow to the Western Highlands

Before we leave Glasgow and head north there is one band I forgot about in my last post and what better tune to recover from your Hogmanay hangover than Drunk at Night, Dry in The Morning by legendary 70's and 80's folk band Ossian from an old live performance.  The tune features on their 1994 Best of Ossian album

 Moving up to Oban in the Argyll region we meet Capercaillie, who have been singing traditional Scottish Gaelic songs with contemporary instrumentation since 1984.  If you have 50 minutes watch this documentary on their 30th anniversary:

If you don't have so much time simply listen to Breisleach from their 1995 album To The Moon:

Fiddler Aidan O'Rourke grew up in Oban and is most notable for his involvement in the Scottish/English folk trio Lau.  The other too members are Kris Drever (Guitar and vocals) from Orkney and accordionist Martin Green from London.  They actually formed in 2004 around a kitchen table in Edinburgh.  They have collaborated with numerous big name artists and write their own material.  I Don't Want to Die Here is the opening track on their 2019 album Midnight and Closedown: 

From Oban we hop over to the Isle of Mull, where Alisdair MacIlleBhain hails from, also sometimes known as Alisdair Whyte for reasons I haven't been able to figure out. He's got together with Ross Whyte of Aberdeenshire (perhaps they are married, explaining Alisdair's 2 names) to form Whɏte the Band, who combine traditional Gaelic songs with electronica, a rather unique blend.  Tairm is the title track from their 2018 album.  

The band Mànran is very much based around the western Highlands with 2 of the founding members originating from Fort William and Spean Bridge respectively (Ewen Henderson and Gary Innes).  They have been active since 2010 playing folk rock mostly sung in Gaelic.  Thugainn is their latest single, which was used as a soundtrack to a film of the legendary North Coast 500 road.  The video shows some spectacular landscapes of the Highlands. 

That's it for today, next we will be hopping around some of the Hebridean islands.  As usual you follow my virtual trip on the Tripline map. 

Scotland, The South-West

From the Isle of Man we take the ferry back to Belfast and from there across to Cairnryan in Dumfries and Galloway in the far south-west of Scotland.

This is very much Robbie Burns country.  The Scottish bard was born in Ayrshire, but this is where he lived most of his life and worked as an excise officer.  The local accent of the area is the closest modern day equivalent to the Scots used in Burn's poetry.  Until recently I didn't know that the region also had its own dialect of Scottish Gaelic. Òran Baghraid is a colaborative project of 10 musicians from all over the UK and Ireland to recreate the only surviving song in Galloway Gaelic from the Middle Ages.  This is their story:

Then they went on to make an album out of that in 2018, which I can heartily recommend.  Here are some samples off this album:

Although originally from Edinburgh, harpist Wendy Stewart now lives in Dumfriesshire.  She often performs together with piper Gary West, who is originally from Pitlochry in Perthshire.  The two met when they were both members of legendary folk band Ceolbeg.  Here's a pair of tunes called Ian Green and Miss Proud from their 2009 album Hinterlands:

Singer and accordionist Emily Smith was born in Dumfries and Galloway and has racked up numerous awards in over a decade of performing.  This a tune from her 2005 debut album A Day Like Today with the title Riggs O' Barley:

Moving north we head for Kilmarnock in Ayrshire, where we meet Heather Heywood, who has been singing Scottish ballads since 1968.  Here is an early recording of from 1974 from a compilation album called Ayrshire Folk, which sadly is no longer available.  The song is called Land o' the Leal:

Guitarist Tony McManus from Paisley, Renfrewshire plays Celtic tunes on finger-style acoustic guitar.  He has been hailed by John Renbourn as the best Celtic guitarist in the world, which is high praise indeed.  His recorded output has been prolific.  Here's a few tunes from a live performance: 

He is pretty nimble-fingered, wouldn't you agree?

This is it from the south-west of Scotland, next stop Glasgow.  As usual you can follow my virtual trip on Tripline, even if it insisted on taking me to Scotland via Liverpool.