Guests of Honour 2022
Mabel Gray by Pia Walker
B&F - May 2022
Year 45 No 05
One of our Guests of Honour 2022 is pianist Mabel Gray, one of Clackmannanshire’s finest. In fact apart from her spell in Glasgow, she has never left the Wee County. I visited her in her comfy flat in Alloa to learn more about this lovely lady.
Mabel was born in Coalsnaughton in 1940 to George and Rose McCallum. She was a late-comer as her brother George was 12 years older. By the way, he played both the accordion and the piano.
Mabel’s father, a Falkirk man, was injured in WW1 and worked as a cashier in an office. Her father’s musical talent was playing the moothie, and her mother Rose sang in the church choir. With a lovely smile Mabel states, “I had good parents.”
Mabel started school in Coalsnaughton Primary School and then went on to Alloa Academy. It was here she was taught by music teacher Robert Younger BMus who “taught her everything.” He was a musician who could play any genre and, as she says, “had loads of patience.”
Indeed, Mabel went on to study for her LRAM at RSAM for three years. The classical training there was excellent for learning how to teach music. She had by then played in bands since she was 12 and had to keep this very quiet as Scottish music was somewhat frowned upon. Her secret life started every Friday, when she went home to play for dances with the Jim Dawson Band, and ended as she went back to Glasgow when the weekends were over. She remembers there were two other Scottish musicians there at the same time, also studying piano. One was a lad from Mull, George Smith, who left after his tendons in one of his hands were cut in an accident. Classical music was not for him and he took up the accordion instead. According to John Crawford, “he was an absolute legend.” The other student, John Crawford, later played for many years with John Carmichael.
After graduation she continued to Jordanhill College School to gain her Dip Mus Ed in piano teaching. After this Mabel came back to Clackmannanshire to work as a visiting music teacher in both primary and secondary schools. She was by then in her early 20s.
Commuting to and from Glasgow was how she met her beloved husband, Robert. Her father and Robert’s father were both on the Clackmannanshire County Council. Robert was working in Albion Motors in Scotstoun, Glasgow as a trainee mechanic and his father used to bring him to and from Glasgow every weekend; and, thanks to the two fathers, Mabel got a lift too. Later on, Robert bought a Morris Minor van and drove them both and, as Mabel says, “it developed from there.” They stepped out together for 4 years until they got married in 1966, and were happily married until Robert passed away in 2012. Mabel stopped playing gigs when she had her first baby in 1969, although she continued to teach music. She feels lucky that her hobby was a continuation of her work - and that she still is in good health, although she has had a couple of scares in her later years.
In 1991, while she was teaching children with special needs, she went part-time to help her husband in his coach business, Grayline Coaches Clackmannan. She told me that many a time when she came home in the early hours from a gig (meeting the milkman on her way into the house), she would don working clothes and go to help to clean coaches in readiness for the next morning.
Mabel had two children: the firstborn was Suzanne Gray, and 3 years later George Gray came along. Both are well-known musicians in their own right and she is very proud of their achievements. She curtailed her band participation while the children were small. It was not until Suzanne joined a Scottish country dance class in Kincardine that she took up playing again, and then it was for this very class.
As previously mentioned, she started playing when she was 12 with the 15-year-old accordion player Jim Dawson. Both were entertaining solo in Tillicoultry’s Devonvale Hall and it was suggested that they formed as a duo. They used to practise in her mum’s house. However, they had to stop at 10 pm so the neighbours could get to sleep. They also practised at Jim’s mum’s house and, when he got his driving license, they used to drive to Crook of Devon to hear and learn from the great bands of the time. Jim Dawson told me that they got in free because they played in the interval. The band grew to a 6-piece and although they were mostly a local band they did go to Northern Ireland and other places in the UK such as Hexham and Dufftown to play for Scottish Country Dancing. They also did 12-14 broadcasts. She told me that at that time if a band member changed you had to reaudition to broadcast. I’m fairly sure that Mabel feels that this was a good thing. She did tell me that bands had their own specific sound in those days as band members were rarely changed out.
Her first broadcast, while she was still at the RSAM, was with Jimmy Shand through a recommendation by Stan Saunders. Ben Lyons was the producer in those days, and the Aberdeen broadcasting studio a large room. She also played the Glasgow Empire Theatre with a young Jimmy Shand Junior while she was only 18 years old, and remembers that Jack Delaney also was there.
She has played with many other bands right up until this day, including her daughter’s band in the late 80s with whom she also did two broadcasts. During the interview Andrew Rankine, Jack Delaney, Ian Holmes, Hamish Menzies Nicol McLaren and Michael Philip were all mentioned, but there are far too many to name here. She could tell many a story, she says with a glint in her eye, but won’t. I asked her if she saw herself as one of the boys. “You had to,” she tells me. “If you had to go on a 3-hour cramped car journey, you had to fit in. A band is more than just playing the music. But I was always a lady and was always shown respect.” There was a very mischievous glint in her eye just then. She did tell me that she had fallen off her piano stool twice in her life: once during a CD recording and once at a dance. “It was one of those folding stools and it hadn’t clicked in well enough, obviously - so when I sat down, I continued on to the floor. And what did the band do? Well, they just looked at me and began laughing as I lay sprawled on the floor.” So, obviously, one of the boys then! She also remembers playing with Jimmy Shand Junior when a draught blew her music off the stand. “What could you do, but busk. I certainly wasn’t going to go crawling round the stage during a concert.” She now brings clips with her to hold the music in place.
When she was asked to join Bill Black’s band in 1990 she was over the moon, and played with Bill till around 2009 when he stopped playing. She just loved his style of music and wished she had got to play with him much sooner – “But manners dictate that you have to wait until asked.” she says. They went everywhere, she told me. She mentions village hall dances in the middle of nowhere with sheep all around and, after she stopped working full time, playing Bells Brae during Up Helly Aa from 1992. She remembers being given the advice: “Just don’t look at the clock!” Until it happened, she didn’t believe that they were to play all night and she quickly learnt to take a couple of ProPlus to keep going. She fondly remembers staying with the Nicholsons while in Shetland.
Mabel loves music. In her living room she has a piano which came from her mother and a keyboard given to her by Bill Black. Bill brought it to her after he stopped band playing and she told me that she burst out crying when he told her it was a present. She plays a couple of times a week, but listens to Classic FM every day. She loves playing with others and being part of a group. “I like to put my wee twist on the music and hope that the band likes it too.” When she started playing with bands, she only played the melody as she didn’t know what vamping was. She went to the dancing in Cochrane Hall in Alva regularly as there were some great bands playing there. It was there she learnt this important skill from Jimmy Scott and Stan Saunders when Andrew Rankine played for the dancing. They invited her to sit behind the piano so she could see what went on. This new skill allowed her to play with many other bands.
Can she play other instruments? “I could get a tune out of an accordion. At the Academy you had to have a second instrument, and mine was the fiddle. Luckily you didn’t have to be good at your second instrument, just to know about it.”
In Scottish music she likes the old style best. She played mostly for old time dances but also for Scottish Country Dancing, which she sees as more disciplined with regard to barring etc. When she listens to Scottish music she likes to hear ‘the whole sound’, i.e. a well-balanced sound. “I would never want to be a band leader; they are the bosses and I would rather sit in the back than have that kind of responsibility.” She is not too keen on the melody getting lost. “Scottish dance music is about dancing and a band should keep an eye on the dancers.” She also thinks that if musicians can dance, their playing for dancing has another dimension.
She loves accompanying soloists. One such person was Kathryn Nicol whom she accompanied in 1993 when she won the Glenfiddich Fiddle Championship. “You need specific skills to support them. For fiddlers you need to listen, have eye contact and watch their bowing – it can tell you a lot.” She has also accompanied choirs and solo singers regularly and here, she says, it is it is important to watch their breathing and fit the music accordingly.
She is a regular at Dunblane Accordion and Fiddle Club where she shares the accompanist duties with Marissa Bryce.
Judy Nicolson says:
I first met Mabel in the 90’s when I lived in Shetland and she was playing with Bill Black. We had some great afternoons of music and laughter. After I had relocated to Aberdeenshire, Bill, Mabel and I played regularly for the Cults social dances. Her talent as a musician and her great sense of humor made the perfect combination for many great musical evenings. I treasure the recording I made with Bill and Mabel entitled ‘Just the Three of Us.’ Mabel’s playing is so versatile, and I especially admire her style of accompaniment for slow airs; just beautiful.
Mabel was born in Coalsnaughton in 1940 to George and Rose McCallum. She was a late-comer as her brother George was 12 years older. By the way, he played both the accordion and the piano.
Mabel’s father, a Falkirk man, was injured in WW1 and worked as a cashier in an office. Her father’s musical talent was playing the moothie, and her mother Rose sang in the church choir. With a lovely smile Mabel states, “I had good parents.”
Mabel started school in Coalsnaughton Primary School and then went on to Alloa Academy. It was here she was taught by music teacher Robert Younger BMus who “taught her everything.” He was a musician who could play any genre and, as she says, “had loads of patience.”
Indeed, Mabel went on to study for her LRAM at RSAM for three years. The classical training there was excellent for learning how to teach music. She had by then played in bands since she was 12 and had to keep this very quiet as Scottish music was somewhat frowned upon. Her secret life started every Friday, when she went home to play for dances with the Jim Dawson Band, and ended as she went back to Glasgow when the weekends were over. She remembers there were two other Scottish musicians there at the same time, also studying piano. One was a lad from Mull, George Smith, who left after his tendons in one of his hands were cut in an accident. Classical music was not for him and he took up the accordion instead. According to John Crawford, “he was an absolute legend.” The other student, John Crawford, later played for many years with John Carmichael.
After graduation she continued to Jordanhill College School to gain her Dip Mus Ed in piano teaching. After this Mabel came back to Clackmannanshire to work as a visiting music teacher in both primary and secondary schools. She was by then in her early 20s.
Commuting to and from Glasgow was how she met her beloved husband, Robert. Her father and Robert’s father were both on the Clackmannanshire County Council. Robert was working in Albion Motors in Scotstoun, Glasgow as a trainee mechanic and his father used to bring him to and from Glasgow every weekend; and, thanks to the two fathers, Mabel got a lift too. Later on, Robert bought a Morris Minor van and drove them both and, as Mabel says, “it developed from there.” They stepped out together for 4 years until they got married in 1966, and were happily married until Robert passed away in 2012. Mabel stopped playing gigs when she had her first baby in 1969, although she continued to teach music. She feels lucky that her hobby was a continuation of her work - and that she still is in good health, although she has had a couple of scares in her later years.
In 1991, while she was teaching children with special needs, she went part-time to help her husband in his coach business, Grayline Coaches Clackmannan. She told me that many a time when she came home in the early hours from a gig (meeting the milkman on her way into the house), she would don working clothes and go to help to clean coaches in readiness for the next morning.
Mabel had two children: the firstborn was Suzanne Gray, and 3 years later George Gray came along. Both are well-known musicians in their own right and she is very proud of their achievements. She curtailed her band participation while the children were small. It was not until Suzanne joined a Scottish country dance class in Kincardine that she took up playing again, and then it was for this very class.
As previously mentioned, she started playing when she was 12 with the 15-year-old accordion player Jim Dawson. Both were entertaining solo in Tillicoultry’s Devonvale Hall and it was suggested that they formed as a duo. They used to practise in her mum’s house. However, they had to stop at 10 pm so the neighbours could get to sleep. They also practised at Jim’s mum’s house and, when he got his driving license, they used to drive to Crook of Devon to hear and learn from the great bands of the time. Jim Dawson told me that they got in free because they played in the interval. The band grew to a 6-piece and although they were mostly a local band they did go to Northern Ireland and other places in the UK such as Hexham and Dufftown to play for Scottish Country Dancing. They also did 12-14 broadcasts. She told me that at that time if a band member changed you had to reaudition to broadcast. I’m fairly sure that Mabel feels that this was a good thing. She did tell me that bands had their own specific sound in those days as band members were rarely changed out.
Her first broadcast, while she was still at the RSAM, was with Jimmy Shand through a recommendation by Stan Saunders. Ben Lyons was the producer in those days, and the Aberdeen broadcasting studio a large room. She also played the Glasgow Empire Theatre with a young Jimmy Shand Junior while she was only 18 years old, and remembers that Jack Delaney also was there.
She has played with many other bands right up until this day, including her daughter’s band in the late 80s with whom she also did two broadcasts. During the interview Andrew Rankine, Jack Delaney, Ian Holmes, Hamish Menzies Nicol McLaren and Michael Philip were all mentioned, but there are far too many to name here. She could tell many a story, she says with a glint in her eye, but won’t. I asked her if she saw herself as one of the boys. “You had to,” she tells me. “If you had to go on a 3-hour cramped car journey, you had to fit in. A band is more than just playing the music. But I was always a lady and was always shown respect.” There was a very mischievous glint in her eye just then. She did tell me that she had fallen off her piano stool twice in her life: once during a CD recording and once at a dance. “It was one of those folding stools and it hadn’t clicked in well enough, obviously - so when I sat down, I continued on to the floor. And what did the band do? Well, they just looked at me and began laughing as I lay sprawled on the floor.” So, obviously, one of the boys then! She also remembers playing with Jimmy Shand Junior when a draught blew her music off the stand. “What could you do, but busk. I certainly wasn’t going to go crawling round the stage during a concert.” She now brings clips with her to hold the music in place.
When she was asked to join Bill Black’s band in 1990 she was over the moon, and played with Bill till around 2009 when he stopped playing. She just loved his style of music and wished she had got to play with him much sooner – “But manners dictate that you have to wait until asked.” she says. They went everywhere, she told me. She mentions village hall dances in the middle of nowhere with sheep all around and, after she stopped working full time, playing Bells Brae during Up Helly Aa from 1992. She remembers being given the advice: “Just don’t look at the clock!” Until it happened, she didn’t believe that they were to play all night and she quickly learnt to take a couple of ProPlus to keep going. She fondly remembers staying with the Nicholsons while in Shetland.
Mabel loves music. In her living room she has a piano which came from her mother and a keyboard given to her by Bill Black. Bill brought it to her after he stopped band playing and she told me that she burst out crying when he told her it was a present. She plays a couple of times a week, but listens to Classic FM every day. She loves playing with others and being part of a group. “I like to put my wee twist on the music and hope that the band likes it too.” When she started playing with bands, she only played the melody as she didn’t know what vamping was. She went to the dancing in Cochrane Hall in Alva regularly as there were some great bands playing there. It was there she learnt this important skill from Jimmy Scott and Stan Saunders when Andrew Rankine played for the dancing. They invited her to sit behind the piano so she could see what went on. This new skill allowed her to play with many other bands.
Can she play other instruments? “I could get a tune out of an accordion. At the Academy you had to have a second instrument, and mine was the fiddle. Luckily you didn’t have to be good at your second instrument, just to know about it.”
In Scottish music she likes the old style best. She played mostly for old time dances but also for Scottish Country Dancing, which she sees as more disciplined with regard to barring etc. When she listens to Scottish music she likes to hear ‘the whole sound’, i.e. a well-balanced sound. “I would never want to be a band leader; they are the bosses and I would rather sit in the back than have that kind of responsibility.” She is not too keen on the melody getting lost. “Scottish dance music is about dancing and a band should keep an eye on the dancers.” She also thinks that if musicians can dance, their playing for dancing has another dimension.
She loves accompanying soloists. One such person was Kathryn Nicol whom she accompanied in 1993 when she won the Glenfiddich Fiddle Championship. “You need specific skills to support them. For fiddlers you need to listen, have eye contact and watch their bowing – it can tell you a lot.” She has also accompanied choirs and solo singers regularly and here, she says, it is it is important to watch their breathing and fit the music accordingly.
She is a regular at Dunblane Accordion and Fiddle Club where she shares the accompanist duties with Marissa Bryce.
Judy Nicolson says:
I first met Mabel in the 90’s when I lived in Shetland and she was playing with Bill Black. We had some great afternoons of music and laughter. After I had relocated to Aberdeenshire, Bill, Mabel and I played regularly for the Cults social dances. Her talent as a musician and her great sense of humor made the perfect combination for many great musical evenings. I treasure the recording I made with Bill and Mabel entitled ‘Just the Three of Us.’ Mabel’s playing is so versatile, and I especially admire her style of accompaniment for slow airs; just beautiful.