Scottish Country Dance Bands (9th March, 1961)
The King with a Touch of Magic by Charles McPhail
He’s the shy man who finds a welcome in every home
On Apil 2 this year a Scots musician will leave for a tour of the principal cities and towns of Australia.
Already the publicity bills and pamphlets are being circulated in Melbourne and Sydney and thousands of Scots exiles are rushing to make their bookings. The name of the man who is causing all the excitement is – JIMMY SHAND.
And you can be sure that during the tour although it is certain lavish praise will be lavished on him, and numerous articles will be written, Jimmy – perhaps the most popular musician in Scottish history – will remain the same unassuming, genial, no-nonsense Fifer he has always been.
I spent a day with Jimmy, the King of the Accordion, at his lovely home in Auchtermuchty recently and the visit was as warming and illuminating an experience as I have had in hundreds of visits to the homes of famous people.
For the first thing that strikes the visitor to the Shand home is the sheer lack of pretention or affectation.
Homely Touch
In his couthy Fife accent and sitting back in the livingroom, Jimmy is the kind of Scot who may have wined and dined with the most distinguished in the land, but has preserved the homely touch in a way few of us could achieve.
As Jimmy flicked through bundles of family photographs for me, I listened to the story of the man who has sold over a million records and entertained in almost every town and village in Scotland, England and Ireland.
Born in East Wemyss, Fife, in 1908, he very soon knew what poverty meant. Brought up in a working class house, the life of the district was firmly hinged on mining.
But although life was hard, the young Jimmy was always cheery and always fond of music. His father had been a ploughman, and a bothy player of music. And the love of folk music was soon imparted in the youngster.
While he was still a laddie at school his father bought him a melodeon. The cost, a pound for the melodeon, and one and six-pence for a strap. Soon Jimmy had mastered the keyboard for he was a ‘natural’ player, playing by ear.
But his mother wanted him to learn something of the technicalities of music and he had to attend lessons for reading music. The master was a Mr Barnes, from Dysart.
Not Too Keen
Said Jimmy, “I had to try and play the violin for three lessons. I wasn’t too keen on the violin, and I used to ask Mr Barnes to play a lot of tunes. If my mother was listening she must have thought, “My God, that lad must be getting on fine”.
“Then I heard my brother and I thought, if that is the result of playing the violin by reading music, I’d better stop now and go back to the melodeon.”
The understanding Mr Barnes realised this too, and encouraged Jimmy to practice on his melodeon – by ear.
Schooldays were over, and Jimmy entered the pit. For three years he knew the rigours and dangers of mining until 1926 – the year of the General Strike, and like so many others, young Jimmy Shand was out of work., even when the strike was over.
In the turmoil of those days mining officials had so many worries that many men who had been on strike found it difficult to become re-engaged.
After days of fruitless applications at the pit, Jimmy vowed never to return. His melodeon came in handy about this time, for earning a little money.
He played by himself at Women’s Guilds, picnics, Scouts’ parties, outings……
On one occasion he was heard by a Mr Charles S. Forbes, of Dundee, who was impressed by the verse and dexterity of Jimmy’s playing. He went out of his way to help Jimmy make his first recording in London for Regal-Zonophone records. This record was of strathspeys, hornpipes and reels.
The year was 1933. And Jimmy joined Mr Forbes’ firm in Dundee as a travelling accordion salesman.
His Shyness
Today Jimmy has a reputation for shyness. But it is interesting to reflect on the talking he had to do in these days. On one occasion he had to address a large meeting – talking first, then playing the accordion.
Life was now beginning to give a hint of the fame to come. Jimmy was receiving more and more requests to play at local functions. In Dundee and Angus he was acquiring a local following.
1936 – and Jimmy married Annie Guthrie Anderson in her home town, Colinsburgh. Chuckled Jimmy, “I was a fly Fifer, she was an East Fifer.”
All too soon the war years came, and Jimmy joined the Fire Service. Many of the men he worked with then are still his good friends.
The end of the war saw Jimmy continue his salesman career for only one more year. In that time his spare-time engagements had assumed formidable proportions and it became obvious he would have to turn full-time professional.
That was in 1948. Since then he has been on Hogmanay B.B.C. programme every year. Hogmanay to millions of viewers and listeners without Jimmy Shand would be well nigh unthinkable.
The records were being turned out by the thousand, engagements flowed in by the score, and every week Jimmy had at least one broadcast to record.
But although life should have been rosy it had its unfortunate side. For years Jimmy had been bothered by his stomach. He had felt a mysterious pain in his right side since the days he sat beside the fires of the concrete mixing firm. He had been to doctors, but examinations and X-rays revealed nothing.
Then one day a surgeon told him a plate had revealed an ulcer.
Jimmy’s reaction was surprising, “Thank God for that,” he said with feeling, “At last you can do something”.
He was operated on in Maryfield Hospital, Dundee, successfully. “I have been all right since then,” says Jimmy. “I can eat and enjoy anything, as long as I just don’t eat too much.”
For a period before and after his operation Jimmy had temporarily retired from show business. But he came back with a bang. On his first tour of Canada, he received a tumultuous welcome from Scots-Canadians.
Jimmy still had his worries, Jimmy Shand Junior had been born, and was a fine healthy boy. But his other son, David, had health issues. And Jimmy left the town that had become synonymous with his name – Dundee.
Happy Laddie
“I decided to look for a house in the country to help David’s health. I settled on Auchtermuchty. It was central for almost every area in Scotland. The air was fresh, clean and I thought that it would be good for David. This was the reason I left Dundee.
“And it has done the world of good for David. He had a bad cough in Dundee, but it has disappeared now, and David is as happy a laddie as you could meet.”
The story is now up-to-date. Jimmy is working had at his playing and on the peak of a wave of greater popularity than ever. He loves his new home and is busy modernising it. He has three cars and an outside pool at the front of his house.
But Jimmy has no film-star complex. The cars are vital to a man who travels as much as he does.
He is cutting down now on many of his engagements, although his bookings would still delight most bandleaders and there are only a few dates to be filled in his diary – for 1964!
He is proud that this week his son, Jimmy Junior, has made HIS first record. So it looks as if the name Shand will be ringing out in concert halls and theatres all over Britain for many years to come.
He is looking forward to his tour of Australia, when he will take over a Trio to entertain the Aussies in his own inimitable way. The other two will be old friends of his – Bert Shorthouse and George McKelvey.
Funny Stories
I wandered down the road outside the house with Jimmy. Workmen on the road waved to him – and he waved back.
A breeze carried through the hills and Jimmy scratched his head, “you know, there have been some funny stories written about me. It is true I am shy WITH the accordion, but away from my I am the same as anyone else. I have never turned anyone away from my door, and am always glad to see any old friends.”
Plain Jimmy Shand – accordionist, a simple ordinary man with no time for humbug or snobbery, that is the man who is Scotland’s great ambassador of goodwill.
(This article is supported by a dozen varied photographs, none of which I have. I particularly like the one at Braidley’s, Jimmy & Anne’s house at Auchtermuchty, which shows Jimmy standing beside his new outdoor swimming pool).
The King with a Touch of Magic by Charles McPhail
He’s the shy man who finds a welcome in every home
On Apil 2 this year a Scots musician will leave for a tour of the principal cities and towns of Australia.
Already the publicity bills and pamphlets are being circulated in Melbourne and Sydney and thousands of Scots exiles are rushing to make their bookings. The name of the man who is causing all the excitement is – JIMMY SHAND.
And you can be sure that during the tour although it is certain lavish praise will be lavished on him, and numerous articles will be written, Jimmy – perhaps the most popular musician in Scottish history – will remain the same unassuming, genial, no-nonsense Fifer he has always been.
I spent a day with Jimmy, the King of the Accordion, at his lovely home in Auchtermuchty recently and the visit was as warming and illuminating an experience as I have had in hundreds of visits to the homes of famous people.
For the first thing that strikes the visitor to the Shand home is the sheer lack of pretention or affectation.
Homely Touch
In his couthy Fife accent and sitting back in the livingroom, Jimmy is the kind of Scot who may have wined and dined with the most distinguished in the land, but has preserved the homely touch in a way few of us could achieve.
As Jimmy flicked through bundles of family photographs for me, I listened to the story of the man who has sold over a million records and entertained in almost every town and village in Scotland, England and Ireland.
Born in East Wemyss, Fife, in 1908, he very soon knew what poverty meant. Brought up in a working class house, the life of the district was firmly hinged on mining.
But although life was hard, the young Jimmy was always cheery and always fond of music. His father had been a ploughman, and a bothy player of music. And the love of folk music was soon imparted in the youngster.
While he was still a laddie at school his father bought him a melodeon. The cost, a pound for the melodeon, and one and six-pence for a strap. Soon Jimmy had mastered the keyboard for he was a ‘natural’ player, playing by ear.
But his mother wanted him to learn something of the technicalities of music and he had to attend lessons for reading music. The master was a Mr Barnes, from Dysart.
Not Too Keen
Said Jimmy, “I had to try and play the violin for three lessons. I wasn’t too keen on the violin, and I used to ask Mr Barnes to play a lot of tunes. If my mother was listening she must have thought, “My God, that lad must be getting on fine”.
“Then I heard my brother and I thought, if that is the result of playing the violin by reading music, I’d better stop now and go back to the melodeon.”
The understanding Mr Barnes realised this too, and encouraged Jimmy to practice on his melodeon – by ear.
Schooldays were over, and Jimmy entered the pit. For three years he knew the rigours and dangers of mining until 1926 – the year of the General Strike, and like so many others, young Jimmy Shand was out of work., even when the strike was over.
In the turmoil of those days mining officials had so many worries that many men who had been on strike found it difficult to become re-engaged.
After days of fruitless applications at the pit, Jimmy vowed never to return. His melodeon came in handy about this time, for earning a little money.
He played by himself at Women’s Guilds, picnics, Scouts’ parties, outings……
On one occasion he was heard by a Mr Charles S. Forbes, of Dundee, who was impressed by the verse and dexterity of Jimmy’s playing. He went out of his way to help Jimmy make his first recording in London for Regal-Zonophone records. This record was of strathspeys, hornpipes and reels.
The year was 1933. And Jimmy joined Mr Forbes’ firm in Dundee as a travelling accordion salesman.
His Shyness
Today Jimmy has a reputation for shyness. But it is interesting to reflect on the talking he had to do in these days. On one occasion he had to address a large meeting – talking first, then playing the accordion.
Life was now beginning to give a hint of the fame to come. Jimmy was receiving more and more requests to play at local functions. In Dundee and Angus he was acquiring a local following.
1936 – and Jimmy married Annie Guthrie Anderson in her home town, Colinsburgh. Chuckled Jimmy, “I was a fly Fifer, she was an East Fifer.”
All too soon the war years came, and Jimmy joined the Fire Service. Many of the men he worked with then are still his good friends.
The end of the war saw Jimmy continue his salesman career for only one more year. In that time his spare-time engagements had assumed formidable proportions and it became obvious he would have to turn full-time professional.
That was in 1948. Since then he has been on Hogmanay B.B.C. programme every year. Hogmanay to millions of viewers and listeners without Jimmy Shand would be well nigh unthinkable.
The records were being turned out by the thousand, engagements flowed in by the score, and every week Jimmy had at least one broadcast to record.
But although life should have been rosy it had its unfortunate side. For years Jimmy had been bothered by his stomach. He had felt a mysterious pain in his right side since the days he sat beside the fires of the concrete mixing firm. He had been to doctors, but examinations and X-rays revealed nothing.
Then one day a surgeon told him a plate had revealed an ulcer.
Jimmy’s reaction was surprising, “Thank God for that,” he said with feeling, “At last you can do something”.
He was operated on in Maryfield Hospital, Dundee, successfully. “I have been all right since then,” says Jimmy. “I can eat and enjoy anything, as long as I just don’t eat too much.”
For a period before and after his operation Jimmy had temporarily retired from show business. But he came back with a bang. On his first tour of Canada, he received a tumultuous welcome from Scots-Canadians.
Jimmy still had his worries, Jimmy Shand Junior had been born, and was a fine healthy boy. But his other son, David, had health issues. And Jimmy left the town that had become synonymous with his name – Dundee.
Happy Laddie
“I decided to look for a house in the country to help David’s health. I settled on Auchtermuchty. It was central for almost every area in Scotland. The air was fresh, clean and I thought that it would be good for David. This was the reason I left Dundee.
“And it has done the world of good for David. He had a bad cough in Dundee, but it has disappeared now, and David is as happy a laddie as you could meet.”
The story is now up-to-date. Jimmy is working had at his playing and on the peak of a wave of greater popularity than ever. He loves his new home and is busy modernising it. He has three cars and an outside pool at the front of his house.
But Jimmy has no film-star complex. The cars are vital to a man who travels as much as he does.
He is cutting down now on many of his engagements, although his bookings would still delight most bandleaders and there are only a few dates to be filled in his diary – for 1964!
He is proud that this week his son, Jimmy Junior, has made HIS first record. So it looks as if the name Shand will be ringing out in concert halls and theatres all over Britain for many years to come.
He is looking forward to his tour of Australia, when he will take over a Trio to entertain the Aussies in his own inimitable way. The other two will be old friends of his – Bert Shorthouse and George McKelvey.
Funny Stories
I wandered down the road outside the house with Jimmy. Workmen on the road waved to him – and he waved back.
A breeze carried through the hills and Jimmy scratched his head, “you know, there have been some funny stories written about me. It is true I am shy WITH the accordion, but away from my I am the same as anyone else. I have never turned anyone away from my door, and am always glad to see any old friends.”
Plain Jimmy Shand – accordionist, a simple ordinary man with no time for humbug or snobbery, that is the man who is Scotland’s great ambassador of goodwill.
(This article is supported by a dozen varied photographs, none of which I have. I particularly like the one at Braidley’s, Jimmy & Anne’s house at Auchtermuchty, which shows Jimmy standing beside his new outdoor swimming pool).