Chapter 12 (1965 – 1974) – (Pgs 113 – 118) - The Road Tae Auchtermuchty
Over the years Irish fans had not been neglected. As well as successive tumultuous welcomes from the general public, there were the private receptions.
Donal Ring, celebrated Irish accordionist and ceili band leader later told me of the tingling blend of excitement and reverence with which fellow instrumentalists regarded him –
“Sure, he was a god to us ; a god entirely. Ye see there’s accordion players have a good right hand ; with others it is the left hand. Ah, but with Jimmy Shand it is both hands! There never was his like, nor is there likely to be again.”
In 1965 the Jimmy Shand Jnr Trio disbanded. Erskine married Brechin lass Margaret and they set up house in a farm cottage.
Jim senior’s band continued, but there were no longer such hectic timetables. The tapering-off so long considered was now in practice to some extent. Owney the drummer had been feeling the strain for a while, but would never be the one to let Jim down. Eventually, despite the somewhat lighter schedule, and with the boss’s sympathetic persuasion, he retired. For twenty-five years his ‘dunt’ and Jim’s time-keeping foot had maintained an effortless synchronization.
George McKelvey was now longest serving member of the band (Norrie Whitelaw the pianist had retired in 1960).
George had been on all three Australian tours. Now, a fourth was arranged for the summer of 1966, and he gladly stepped down to let another piano accordionist in on the trip, Jim Johnstone. (Fiddler Angus Fitchet, piano Peter Straughan).
The promoter, Mr R. Lean, who had come to Scotland earlier in the year to sign up the band and other artistes was most impressed at the way Jimmy could still pull the stops out when it came to getting from A to B to C……
“When I arrived in London he had driven from Scotland to London Airport to greet me, and then drove back the next day to Scotland. It was mid-winter in Glasgow, but he drove from Stranraer where he had been appearing, and then on to Auchtermuchty where we arrived about four o’clock in the morning.”
Other members of the troupe ; Ian McLeish the baritone who was also a business friend of Jimmy’s, helping him in a music shop he had opened in Perth (Ecosse) – Erskine was keeping an eye on this as well as helping out with the commitments of the band at home. (The New Zealand Taranaki Herald greeted a new record by the band Step we Gaily with “Scotland’s greatest export since whisky. There’s a special lilt of the heart that you get from Shand’s product, something elusive and almost indefinable ; but it’s highly habit-forming, and the charm of it is – there’s no hangover.”)
Ivy Carey was the other vocalist ; and Jimmy Fletcher, who had been featured with the band on several occasions over a couple of years, was the comedian – engaged for the tour at Jimmy’s special request.
Successful as ever as the fourth tour had been, it was, as always, great to get back home.
At the same time another, younger, and already very successful Scottish Country Dance Band leader was completing the winding up of his affairs in Scotland prior to settling in Australia with his wife and two children.
This was Ian Powrie, fiddler son of the illustrious box-player Will whose Beltona records were on the market before the first of Jimmy’s.
Ian wasn’t emigrating through lack of engagements ; in fact his accordionist Jimmy Blue was taking over the band in his own name (still in the limelight in 1976). On a tour of Australia with Andy Stewart earlier in the year he had been offered an attractive business opportunity ; this and the prospects of a closer family life decided the thing.
Ian had been confronted with the same problems of tapering off as Jimmy ; in fact “When your life revolves around the signing of contracts for everything ; television, theatres, etc., you have to honour these dates….It was impossible for me to taper away the band business. Limit the appearances and you are liable to get ‘you played for them – why cannot you play for us?’ and so it builds up again.”
Well, Jimmy was back in Scotland again, and happy to be back despite the headaches associated with keeping his schedule from getting too demanding ; then in November nature took a hand, or rather more or less took a hand from him. There developed in one of the Shand shoulders a pain that could not be shrugged off. At times the pain was such that he could not sleep for it. Erskine filled in when allowed to, which was only when an attack was real bad.
Hope that a manipulative operation under anesthetic would provide a lasting cure faded as time, and the pain, went on.
For most of the spring and summer of 1967 he traveled from Auchtermuchty to Bridge of Earn hospital every morning for treatment and exercises. By the middle of August he could no longer play at all, and Erskine was deputising full-time.
And early in September Jimmy Logan was going on a two-months tour of Canada and the U.S. – and Jimmy was supposed to be going with him!
Well, he made it.
Other members of the White Heather Concert Party ; Ivy Carey ; Bill McCue the bearded bass-baritone ; John Crawford, piano ; Ronnie Dale, expert on several musical instruments, supporting comic to Logan, and MC.
Jimmy appears to have been able to acquit himself more ambitiously than by just the odd restrained vamp. “Hoot man, it swings” cried the Hamilton Spectator, and described the “accordionist supreme” having fingers spidering over the stops of the difficult instrument squeezing out toe-tapping music.
At Winnipeg the Playhouse Theatre “lapsed into a huge family gathering as though the audience, Logan and his five colleagues, shared some great secret. Perhaps Jimmy Shand………captured the secret best. Airs like Loch Lomond, the Gentle Maiden, Afton Waters and Comin’ Through the Rye trickled from his fingers on the button-key accordion. As they did, the dead-pan musician was surrounded by a sea of humming.
“The quickened pace of Highland pipers’ dance tunes like A Wee Drap O’ Scotch brought almost universal toe-tapping and clapping.
“Shand managed his first smile in acknowledgement of applause at the curtain call.”
The Vancouver Sun said “Jimmy Shand has been entertaining Scotsmen almost as long as the Loch Ness monster. He has the stern aspect of a Presbyterian minister presenting the Scottish Football Cup to Glasgow Celtic, but he drew some warm and friendly sounds from his accordion – the only accordion I’ve heard with a Scottish accent.”
The tour took in twelve cities in the U.S. including Pittsburg, Los Angeles and San Francisco (where the Official Programme carried adverts for the Edinburgh Castle tavern which featured bagpipes on Fridays and Saturdays, and a Fish and Chip Shop which invited you to “Eat with us, or take it home in a newspaper”).
Some vocalists have confessed to leaving their hearts in San Francisco ; without a doubt instrumentalist Jimmy took a few away with him. In New Your he played in a packed Carnegie Hall, visited Jack Dempsey’s Broadway restaurant where he and the old champ swapped not punches but autographs.
By 1968 Erskine had a house built just across from his parents, now grandparents to Diane, and appeared with the band in May when they topped the bill for a fortnight at the Gaiety, Ayr.
In that year George McKelvey retired after twenty-five years as second twiddle. His Morino piano accordion, which he’d had even longer, was still far from being played out, and this he handed to his brother James, who himself might well have made it professionally.
George took a job as a car park attendant, and many a musician dropped in to see him at the little hut down at the docks.
A couple of years ago he retired from that and took a part-time driving job with a jute firm ; and he still revels in being at home and in his own bed every night.
Norrie Whitelaw spends his retirement with the missus in their Dundee Corporation flat in Caird Avenue, right opposite the BBC’s Coldside studio from where he made so many broadcasts with the band.
A large part of the living-room is taken up with a massive memento of his career, a Bechstein grand piano ; but for many years now he has played only bowls – well enough to win trophies.
Erskine launched the Jimmy Shand Jnr. Five-piece band in 1968 (Hamish Smith, second accordion ; Aly Wilkie, double bass ; Billy Thom, drums ; Jim Muir, piano). One-night stands from the Islands to Hammersmith Palais, with occasional radio and TV dates kept them busy enough. They made records.
(In all, to date, with the earlier trio and later quintet, Erskine has made 10 LPs and 5 EPs, containing several of his own compositions – his first British recording in 1961 was of his own The Breathless Piper. Three of his LPs were made earlier in Australia during his tour with Robert Wilson.)
So the son seemed well-established to keep the name of Shand well to the fore in Scottish Country Dance music…….?
Not that Jimmy senior was out of the picture altogether yet.
In December 1968 a report that he planned to play for friends in Glen Clova on New Year’s Day referred to the glen resounding to “what is perhaps the best-known brand of music in the world, that of Jimmy Shand and his Band.”
Playing with his then – Angus Fitchet on fiddle, Peter Straughan on piano, Ian Wilson on drums (Owney McCabe, the wee drummer, died in 1970). Sometimes Erskine was available as second accordion ; at other times Bert Shorthouse augmented. (In 1974 Angus played with Jimmy Blue in the very successful Andy Stewart TV series ‘Scotch Corner’.)
He was taking care, however, not to let the pressures built up to the extent of yore ; or perhaps he was not taking as much care as he thought. In late July 1970 he collapsed, suffering from exhaustion, which forced him to rest until winter.
He was back on the button keys in November, off to London with the band in the ‘This is Scotland’ show, although he did not plan to be with them for the full tour of the south.
Care must be taken not to overdo it.
Highlight of 1971 was perhaps the mammoth star-studded BBC project in June staged at His Majesty’s in Aberdeen, in which the band appeared with Moira Anderson, Kenneth McKellar, Jimmy Logan, Rikki Fulton, Jack Milroy, Lena Martell, Ian Wallace, The Corries, John Grieve, Chick Murray,, and many more.
On radio, ‘Heather Mixture’ seemed as if, with an occasional rest, like Jimmy it would go on indefinitely…..
In 1972 it had to go on without him when he collapsed again in March that year. The series was taken over by Erskine and Jim MacLeod.
This time this WAS it. Tapering off, cutting down was not working. It seemed the only system that was going to work for hissystem was just not to work.
So, he finally retired.
Professionally, that is ; which of course has given him more time to play in hospitals, play for the old folks. And there are always other instrumentalists dropping in for a chat and a tune.
Fast cars still have as strong an appeal for him, as I am well aware through his driving me back from some of the interviews!
What of Erskine? Will Jimmy Shand Jnr. And his Band fill the illustrious shoes adequately? Could they?
Perhaps this will never be known. After a few years full-time Erskine began to have trouble with two fingers of his right hand.
The cause and cure proved elusive. It wasn’t a stiffness, an inhibiting pain ; just the power of two fingers somehow leaked away. By April 1974 Erskine had to give up playing. Treatment ranging from manipulative therapy to acupuncture to the alarming-sounding full-voltage electrical treatment has been ineffective to date.
Now he devotes himself to running a music shop in Auchtermuchty ; has come to terms with the situation – only – “I’d be a l;ot happier if only I could play well enough to do a bit of charity work………”
And that is certainly following in the finest Shand tradition.
Donal Ring, celebrated Irish accordionist and ceili band leader later told me of the tingling blend of excitement and reverence with which fellow instrumentalists regarded him –
“Sure, he was a god to us ; a god entirely. Ye see there’s accordion players have a good right hand ; with others it is the left hand. Ah, but with Jimmy Shand it is both hands! There never was his like, nor is there likely to be again.”
In 1965 the Jimmy Shand Jnr Trio disbanded. Erskine married Brechin lass Margaret and they set up house in a farm cottage.
Jim senior’s band continued, but there were no longer such hectic timetables. The tapering-off so long considered was now in practice to some extent. Owney the drummer had been feeling the strain for a while, but would never be the one to let Jim down. Eventually, despite the somewhat lighter schedule, and with the boss’s sympathetic persuasion, he retired. For twenty-five years his ‘dunt’ and Jim’s time-keeping foot had maintained an effortless synchronization.
George McKelvey was now longest serving member of the band (Norrie Whitelaw the pianist had retired in 1960).
George had been on all three Australian tours. Now, a fourth was arranged for the summer of 1966, and he gladly stepped down to let another piano accordionist in on the trip, Jim Johnstone. (Fiddler Angus Fitchet, piano Peter Straughan).
The promoter, Mr R. Lean, who had come to Scotland earlier in the year to sign up the band and other artistes was most impressed at the way Jimmy could still pull the stops out when it came to getting from A to B to C……
“When I arrived in London he had driven from Scotland to London Airport to greet me, and then drove back the next day to Scotland. It was mid-winter in Glasgow, but he drove from Stranraer where he had been appearing, and then on to Auchtermuchty where we arrived about four o’clock in the morning.”
Other members of the troupe ; Ian McLeish the baritone who was also a business friend of Jimmy’s, helping him in a music shop he had opened in Perth (Ecosse) – Erskine was keeping an eye on this as well as helping out with the commitments of the band at home. (The New Zealand Taranaki Herald greeted a new record by the band Step we Gaily with “Scotland’s greatest export since whisky. There’s a special lilt of the heart that you get from Shand’s product, something elusive and almost indefinable ; but it’s highly habit-forming, and the charm of it is – there’s no hangover.”)
Ivy Carey was the other vocalist ; and Jimmy Fletcher, who had been featured with the band on several occasions over a couple of years, was the comedian – engaged for the tour at Jimmy’s special request.
Successful as ever as the fourth tour had been, it was, as always, great to get back home.
At the same time another, younger, and already very successful Scottish Country Dance Band leader was completing the winding up of his affairs in Scotland prior to settling in Australia with his wife and two children.
This was Ian Powrie, fiddler son of the illustrious box-player Will whose Beltona records were on the market before the first of Jimmy’s.
Ian wasn’t emigrating through lack of engagements ; in fact his accordionist Jimmy Blue was taking over the band in his own name (still in the limelight in 1976). On a tour of Australia with Andy Stewart earlier in the year he had been offered an attractive business opportunity ; this and the prospects of a closer family life decided the thing.
Ian had been confronted with the same problems of tapering off as Jimmy ; in fact “When your life revolves around the signing of contracts for everything ; television, theatres, etc., you have to honour these dates….It was impossible for me to taper away the band business. Limit the appearances and you are liable to get ‘you played for them – why cannot you play for us?’ and so it builds up again.”
Well, Jimmy was back in Scotland again, and happy to be back despite the headaches associated with keeping his schedule from getting too demanding ; then in November nature took a hand, or rather more or less took a hand from him. There developed in one of the Shand shoulders a pain that could not be shrugged off. At times the pain was such that he could not sleep for it. Erskine filled in when allowed to, which was only when an attack was real bad.
Hope that a manipulative operation under anesthetic would provide a lasting cure faded as time, and the pain, went on.
For most of the spring and summer of 1967 he traveled from Auchtermuchty to Bridge of Earn hospital every morning for treatment and exercises. By the middle of August he could no longer play at all, and Erskine was deputising full-time.
And early in September Jimmy Logan was going on a two-months tour of Canada and the U.S. – and Jimmy was supposed to be going with him!
Well, he made it.
Other members of the White Heather Concert Party ; Ivy Carey ; Bill McCue the bearded bass-baritone ; John Crawford, piano ; Ronnie Dale, expert on several musical instruments, supporting comic to Logan, and MC.
Jimmy appears to have been able to acquit himself more ambitiously than by just the odd restrained vamp. “Hoot man, it swings” cried the Hamilton Spectator, and described the “accordionist supreme” having fingers spidering over the stops of the difficult instrument squeezing out toe-tapping music.
At Winnipeg the Playhouse Theatre “lapsed into a huge family gathering as though the audience, Logan and his five colleagues, shared some great secret. Perhaps Jimmy Shand………captured the secret best. Airs like Loch Lomond, the Gentle Maiden, Afton Waters and Comin’ Through the Rye trickled from his fingers on the button-key accordion. As they did, the dead-pan musician was surrounded by a sea of humming.
“The quickened pace of Highland pipers’ dance tunes like A Wee Drap O’ Scotch brought almost universal toe-tapping and clapping.
“Shand managed his first smile in acknowledgement of applause at the curtain call.”
The Vancouver Sun said “Jimmy Shand has been entertaining Scotsmen almost as long as the Loch Ness monster. He has the stern aspect of a Presbyterian minister presenting the Scottish Football Cup to Glasgow Celtic, but he drew some warm and friendly sounds from his accordion – the only accordion I’ve heard with a Scottish accent.”
The tour took in twelve cities in the U.S. including Pittsburg, Los Angeles and San Francisco (where the Official Programme carried adverts for the Edinburgh Castle tavern which featured bagpipes on Fridays and Saturdays, and a Fish and Chip Shop which invited you to “Eat with us, or take it home in a newspaper”).
Some vocalists have confessed to leaving their hearts in San Francisco ; without a doubt instrumentalist Jimmy took a few away with him. In New Your he played in a packed Carnegie Hall, visited Jack Dempsey’s Broadway restaurant where he and the old champ swapped not punches but autographs.
By 1968 Erskine had a house built just across from his parents, now grandparents to Diane, and appeared with the band in May when they topped the bill for a fortnight at the Gaiety, Ayr.
In that year George McKelvey retired after twenty-five years as second twiddle. His Morino piano accordion, which he’d had even longer, was still far from being played out, and this he handed to his brother James, who himself might well have made it professionally.
George took a job as a car park attendant, and many a musician dropped in to see him at the little hut down at the docks.
A couple of years ago he retired from that and took a part-time driving job with a jute firm ; and he still revels in being at home and in his own bed every night.
Norrie Whitelaw spends his retirement with the missus in their Dundee Corporation flat in Caird Avenue, right opposite the BBC’s Coldside studio from where he made so many broadcasts with the band.
A large part of the living-room is taken up with a massive memento of his career, a Bechstein grand piano ; but for many years now he has played only bowls – well enough to win trophies.
Erskine launched the Jimmy Shand Jnr. Five-piece band in 1968 (Hamish Smith, second accordion ; Aly Wilkie, double bass ; Billy Thom, drums ; Jim Muir, piano). One-night stands from the Islands to Hammersmith Palais, with occasional radio and TV dates kept them busy enough. They made records.
(In all, to date, with the earlier trio and later quintet, Erskine has made 10 LPs and 5 EPs, containing several of his own compositions – his first British recording in 1961 was of his own The Breathless Piper. Three of his LPs were made earlier in Australia during his tour with Robert Wilson.)
So the son seemed well-established to keep the name of Shand well to the fore in Scottish Country Dance music…….?
Not that Jimmy senior was out of the picture altogether yet.
In December 1968 a report that he planned to play for friends in Glen Clova on New Year’s Day referred to the glen resounding to “what is perhaps the best-known brand of music in the world, that of Jimmy Shand and his Band.”
Playing with his then – Angus Fitchet on fiddle, Peter Straughan on piano, Ian Wilson on drums (Owney McCabe, the wee drummer, died in 1970). Sometimes Erskine was available as second accordion ; at other times Bert Shorthouse augmented. (In 1974 Angus played with Jimmy Blue in the very successful Andy Stewart TV series ‘Scotch Corner’.)
He was taking care, however, not to let the pressures built up to the extent of yore ; or perhaps he was not taking as much care as he thought. In late July 1970 he collapsed, suffering from exhaustion, which forced him to rest until winter.
He was back on the button keys in November, off to London with the band in the ‘This is Scotland’ show, although he did not plan to be with them for the full tour of the south.
Care must be taken not to overdo it.
Highlight of 1971 was perhaps the mammoth star-studded BBC project in June staged at His Majesty’s in Aberdeen, in which the band appeared with Moira Anderson, Kenneth McKellar, Jimmy Logan, Rikki Fulton, Jack Milroy, Lena Martell, Ian Wallace, The Corries, John Grieve, Chick Murray,, and many more.
On radio, ‘Heather Mixture’ seemed as if, with an occasional rest, like Jimmy it would go on indefinitely…..
In 1972 it had to go on without him when he collapsed again in March that year. The series was taken over by Erskine and Jim MacLeod.
This time this WAS it. Tapering off, cutting down was not working. It seemed the only system that was going to work for hissystem was just not to work.
So, he finally retired.
Professionally, that is ; which of course has given him more time to play in hospitals, play for the old folks. And there are always other instrumentalists dropping in for a chat and a tune.
Fast cars still have as strong an appeal for him, as I am well aware through his driving me back from some of the interviews!
What of Erskine? Will Jimmy Shand Jnr. And his Band fill the illustrious shoes adequately? Could they?
Perhaps this will never be known. After a few years full-time Erskine began to have trouble with two fingers of his right hand.
The cause and cure proved elusive. It wasn’t a stiffness, an inhibiting pain ; just the power of two fingers somehow leaked away. By April 1974 Erskine had to give up playing. Treatment ranging from manipulative therapy to acupuncture to the alarming-sounding full-voltage electrical treatment has been ineffective to date.
Now he devotes himself to running a music shop in Auchtermuchty ; has come to terms with the situation – only – “I’d be a l;ot happier if only I could play well enough to do a bit of charity work………”
And that is certainly following in the finest Shand tradition.