Box and Fiddle
Year 41 No 10
June 2018
Price £3.00
44 Page Magazine
12 month subscription £33.60 + p&p £15.85 (UK)
Freeland Barbour – Guest of Honour 2018
by Charlie Kirkpatrick
The name Freeland Barbour is synonymous with the very best in Scottish dance music mainly through being a member of the Wallochmor Ceilidh Band and also as a producer with “Take the Floor”. I caught up with him recently to find out that there is much more to this Perthshire lad o’ pairts.
For as long as he can remember Freeland wanted to play the accordion. He doesn’t know why, but he can remember badgering his mother to take him to the Jimmy Shand Show at Pitlochry Theatre in about 1960 and being a little disappointed that there was a lot of dancing and singing but the accordion was somewhat in the background. Nor did he know that the instrument played so effortlessly by the legendary Mr Shand was in fact a good deal different from the first accordion that his parents later bought for him from Bill Wilkie in Perth - a Hohner Lucia 1V 96 bass piano box.
Freeland was brought up in the long-time family home in Glen Fincastle, north- west of Pitlochry. He well remembers in the local hall the old 78’s of Shand, Bobby Macleod and Jim Cameron being played for dances and also the live music of Bert Cameron and his band. This clearly made a deep impression on him, but music making for Freeland also started to include song and folk song in particular. “I had started piano lessons when I was about five” says Freeland, “and having had a few lessons from Margaret Cameron in Pitlochry the accordion began to go quite well in my teens, but I also played guitar, banjo, whistle, autoharp, mandolin, bouzouki, synth, clarinet and pretty much anything I could get a hold of and make a noise with”.
University took Freeland down to East Anglia where he found himself playing mainly Irish music having discovered that it was a mighty good passport to a free pint and even the occasional fee! Coming back north as a post graduate to Aberdeen, he fell in with an up and coming folk group named Silly Wizard and ended up joining them full time in the summer of 1975. Their instrumentals had an Irish flavour led by whizz-kid fiddler Johnny Cunningham and Freeland spent a fair amount of time introducing a more Scottish slant to their repertoire. He had a year and a half of brilliant times with them working mainly in England and on the Continent but eventually decided that he wanted to come back north and turn his hand to different things.
About this time he teamed up with Sandy Coghill a three row box player originally from Caithness but living in Edinburgh and in 1977 they were joined by Neil MacMillan on piano, Gus Millar on drums and the late Jim Barrie on fiddle to form the Wallochmor Ceilidh Band. What followed was a pretty hectic time with recordings, tours, radio, TV, constant gigs and of course they all had full time jobs. Freeland had been working in the housing world but he successfully applied for and got a job as a radio music producer with the BBC. Based in Aberdeen he worked not only with Robbie Shepherd on “Take the Floor” and “The Reel Blend” but also with presenters Gerry Davis, Noel Cannon and a host of other people. In a sense “Take the Floor” had to be put back on the map as its long time presenter David Findlay had sadly lost his life in a car accident, its producer had left and Robbie had recently taken over. Old bands had to be reintroduced, new bands found and given a chance and generally a direction re-established. Freeland is immensely proud of what was achieved. He says; “Robbie of course was brilliant but there was also so much help and support from so many people throughout the Scottish music world that it was a definite high point and privilege for me and I can never thank them enough for their contribution”.
Having now had a number of years of this high octane life Freeland felt that it was now time for new challenges. He and Sandy Coghill had already set up Lapwing Records and it was decided to push this forward along with other business ventures including a music publishing business, a mobile recording unit and a sound hire company. Sandy Coghill had moved to Skye and the Wallochmor activity had necessarily declined but Freeland had been playing with fiddler Charlie Soane and guitarist Brian Miller as the Occasionals and with the addition of Kevin Macleod on banjo and mandolin this became the main vehicle for performance of both concert and dance work. Recordings, tours, TV and radio work have continued with many highlights of different kinds and the current line-up at full strength is Freeland, Kevin, Gus, Neil, Alison Smith and Mairi Campbell on fiddle with dance caller Sheila McCutcheon.
Most of Freeland’s many recordings have been self-produced but he has lost count of the number of recordings he has produced for other musicians over a broad musical spectrum. One recording that will always live with him was working with the late great Scottish actor Tom Fleming on his readings from the Lorimer translation of the New Testament into Scots. Two other musical connections that are worthy of mention are his interest in Scandinavian music as a part time member of the Faroese band Spaelimenninir and also work with the Ghillies led by his great friend the late Ian Hardie
In addition to producing music, Freeland has done a fair bit of teaching particularly as the first accordion tutor on the BA course in Scottish Traditional Music at the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow. He has also been involved in many composition projects. “Over the years I have composed a lot in various idioms” he says “and I have been extremely fortunate in that quite a lot of my stuff has been performed and recorded by others over quite a wide musical spectrum”. Two books of Freeland’s work were published by Deeay Music in the 1980s and within the last two years one of the leading Scottish publishers Birlinn produced the 2 volume collection “The Music and the Land” being a collection of most of Freeland’s work illustrated by some utterly stunning photography mainly by Cailean Maclean from Skye. Freeland says “It’s huge, it’s heavy and something that I’d been longing to do for years”.
Freeland has long pioneered the use of smaller and also wood finished accordions and has had some of his ideas put into practice by Pigini, Zero Sette and Brandoni. He is keen to mention particular thanks to Prof. Owen Murray, John Huband and Charlie Watkins respectively for their assistance. Though not claiming to be the next Ian Holmes, he dabbles with the 5 row, struggles with the D/G melodeon and concertina and is still pretty much at sea with the 40 key Shand Morino that he recently acquired.
In 1998 came quite a leap of faith when Freeland purchased Castlesound Studios from old friend Calum Malcolm. The hard work involved in this project has somewhat reduced Freeland’s other musical activities over the last while but it has been well worth it as it is still very much the “go-to” place for the wider professional music world for all styles of music as well as film soundtrack and radio dramas.
What of the future? “Well I’ve started writing a bit and have just finished a biography of Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne, the Scottish songwriter, which will be published in the autumn. There will I hope be more gigs, compositions and recordings – and I’ve still got to learn this Shand Morino thing. The Bluebells of Scotland in C is where I’m presently at and that’s not really good enough”.
That then is Freeland Barbour – someone whose contribution to our music scene cannot be underestimated and someone who is well worthy to be Guest of Honour at our annual Celebrity Luncheon on Sunday 24 June 2018
by Charlie Kirkpatrick
The name Freeland Barbour is synonymous with the very best in Scottish dance music mainly through being a member of the Wallochmor Ceilidh Band and also as a producer with “Take the Floor”. I caught up with him recently to find out that there is much more to this Perthshire lad o’ pairts.
For as long as he can remember Freeland wanted to play the accordion. He doesn’t know why, but he can remember badgering his mother to take him to the Jimmy Shand Show at Pitlochry Theatre in about 1960 and being a little disappointed that there was a lot of dancing and singing but the accordion was somewhat in the background. Nor did he know that the instrument played so effortlessly by the legendary Mr Shand was in fact a good deal different from the first accordion that his parents later bought for him from Bill Wilkie in Perth - a Hohner Lucia 1V 96 bass piano box.
Freeland was brought up in the long-time family home in Glen Fincastle, north- west of Pitlochry. He well remembers in the local hall the old 78’s of Shand, Bobby Macleod and Jim Cameron being played for dances and also the live music of Bert Cameron and his band. This clearly made a deep impression on him, but music making for Freeland also started to include song and folk song in particular. “I had started piano lessons when I was about five” says Freeland, “and having had a few lessons from Margaret Cameron in Pitlochry the accordion began to go quite well in my teens, but I also played guitar, banjo, whistle, autoharp, mandolin, bouzouki, synth, clarinet and pretty much anything I could get a hold of and make a noise with”.
University took Freeland down to East Anglia where he found himself playing mainly Irish music having discovered that it was a mighty good passport to a free pint and even the occasional fee! Coming back north as a post graduate to Aberdeen, he fell in with an up and coming folk group named Silly Wizard and ended up joining them full time in the summer of 1975. Their instrumentals had an Irish flavour led by whizz-kid fiddler Johnny Cunningham and Freeland spent a fair amount of time introducing a more Scottish slant to their repertoire. He had a year and a half of brilliant times with them working mainly in England and on the Continent but eventually decided that he wanted to come back north and turn his hand to different things.
About this time he teamed up with Sandy Coghill a three row box player originally from Caithness but living in Edinburgh and in 1977 they were joined by Neil MacMillan on piano, Gus Millar on drums and the late Jim Barrie on fiddle to form the Wallochmor Ceilidh Band. What followed was a pretty hectic time with recordings, tours, radio, TV, constant gigs and of course they all had full time jobs. Freeland had been working in the housing world but he successfully applied for and got a job as a radio music producer with the BBC. Based in Aberdeen he worked not only with Robbie Shepherd on “Take the Floor” and “The Reel Blend” but also with presenters Gerry Davis, Noel Cannon and a host of other people. In a sense “Take the Floor” had to be put back on the map as its long time presenter David Findlay had sadly lost his life in a car accident, its producer had left and Robbie had recently taken over. Old bands had to be reintroduced, new bands found and given a chance and generally a direction re-established. Freeland is immensely proud of what was achieved. He says; “Robbie of course was brilliant but there was also so much help and support from so many people throughout the Scottish music world that it was a definite high point and privilege for me and I can never thank them enough for their contribution”.
Having now had a number of years of this high octane life Freeland felt that it was now time for new challenges. He and Sandy Coghill had already set up Lapwing Records and it was decided to push this forward along with other business ventures including a music publishing business, a mobile recording unit and a sound hire company. Sandy Coghill had moved to Skye and the Wallochmor activity had necessarily declined but Freeland had been playing with fiddler Charlie Soane and guitarist Brian Miller as the Occasionals and with the addition of Kevin Macleod on banjo and mandolin this became the main vehicle for performance of both concert and dance work. Recordings, tours, TV and radio work have continued with many highlights of different kinds and the current line-up at full strength is Freeland, Kevin, Gus, Neil, Alison Smith and Mairi Campbell on fiddle with dance caller Sheila McCutcheon.
Most of Freeland’s many recordings have been self-produced but he has lost count of the number of recordings he has produced for other musicians over a broad musical spectrum. One recording that will always live with him was working with the late great Scottish actor Tom Fleming on his readings from the Lorimer translation of the New Testament into Scots. Two other musical connections that are worthy of mention are his interest in Scandinavian music as a part time member of the Faroese band Spaelimenninir and also work with the Ghillies led by his great friend the late Ian Hardie
In addition to producing music, Freeland has done a fair bit of teaching particularly as the first accordion tutor on the BA course in Scottish Traditional Music at the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow. He has also been involved in many composition projects. “Over the years I have composed a lot in various idioms” he says “and I have been extremely fortunate in that quite a lot of my stuff has been performed and recorded by others over quite a wide musical spectrum”. Two books of Freeland’s work were published by Deeay Music in the 1980s and within the last two years one of the leading Scottish publishers Birlinn produced the 2 volume collection “The Music and the Land” being a collection of most of Freeland’s work illustrated by some utterly stunning photography mainly by Cailean Maclean from Skye. Freeland says “It’s huge, it’s heavy and something that I’d been longing to do for years”.
Freeland has long pioneered the use of smaller and also wood finished accordions and has had some of his ideas put into practice by Pigini, Zero Sette and Brandoni. He is keen to mention particular thanks to Prof. Owen Murray, John Huband and Charlie Watkins respectively for their assistance. Though not claiming to be the next Ian Holmes, he dabbles with the 5 row, struggles with the D/G melodeon and concertina and is still pretty much at sea with the 40 key Shand Morino that he recently acquired.
In 1998 came quite a leap of faith when Freeland purchased Castlesound Studios from old friend Calum Malcolm. The hard work involved in this project has somewhat reduced Freeland’s other musical activities over the last while but it has been well worth it as it is still very much the “go-to” place for the wider professional music world for all styles of music as well as film soundtrack and radio dramas.
What of the future? “Well I’ve started writing a bit and have just finished a biography of Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne, the Scottish songwriter, which will be published in the autumn. There will I hope be more gigs, compositions and recordings – and I’ve still got to learn this Shand Morino thing. The Bluebells of Scotland in C is where I’m presently at and that’s not really good enough”.
That then is Freeland Barbour – someone whose contribution to our music scene cannot be underestimated and someone who is well worthy to be Guest of Honour at our annual Celebrity Luncheon on Sunday 24 June 2018