Ian Hardie (1952 – 2012) - Obituary
by Freeland Barbour (Edinburgh November 2012)
B&F December 2012
Just before he died, Ian Hardie asked me to deliver the ‘spiel’ at his funeral. Being the modest man that he was he didn’t call it a eulogy, but a eulogy it most certainly was as we remembered the rich and varied life of someone I regard as one of Scotland’s leading traditional musicians. Ian was an Edinburgh lad, though with strong Border connections, and indeed it was to Kirk Yetholm and Kelso that he and his wife Viv moved after the completion of legal training for both of them in Edinburgh. During his upbringing in those Edinburgh years Ian was developing into the complete musician. He was classically trained and fluent, as at home playing the violin or double bass in an orchestra as playing the fiddle, viola and latterly small-pipes in a traditional music setting. His first band, who played covers around the Edinburgh pubs, gloried in the name of ‘Fred McLudgie’s Big Idea’. Whatever the idea was, it didn’t last but Ian had by this time discovered the traditional music world of Sandy Bell’s and there he met many future friends and musical colleagues. He played in the bands Wee Willum and Chorda, and then came the highly influential Jock Tamson’s Bairns. At a time when the Scottish folk scene was singing Scottish songs but taking it’s instrumental inspiration from Ireland, Jock Tamson’s Bairns and Ian in particular remained firmly Scots in all their repertoire, and the creative approach to older Scots melody and style that they showed has had a strong influence since then. Ian also had a great love of Scottish dance music, with the names of Shand, Ellis and even The Wallochmor (!) cropping up from time to time.
During his Kelso years, Ian not only was a partner in a leading legal practice, but there was a family to be with, and sports to play. He was a great sportsman, a golfer, curler, skier, runner, cross-country cyclist, squash and tennis player, hill walker, and latterly a fisherman as well. He was also a top-level rugby player, turning out for Edinburgh University, Scottish Universities, Watsonians and Kelso. He was a keen gardener too and how he found time for music too I do not know, but he did, learning the pipes with The Rev. Joe Brown at Yetholm, and honing his compositional techniques that were evident in his first solo recording, ‘A Breath of Fresh Airs,’ which was also the debut release of the Greentrax label. Three more solo releases followed over the years, all showcasing his compositions, and many of these have been taken up, performed and recorded by a huge cast of other well-known musicians, with Willie Hunter’s version of ‘Esther Stephenson of Embleton’ springing immediately to mind. Ian’s own fiddle style possessed great attack and steadiness of rhythm and was at one and the same time Scottish and individual. And his compositions mirrored this, were melodically developed, and in his slow airs in particular extremely moving. The congregation who stood in the church in Nairn as he left us, and listened to his own recording of his air ‘The Last Farewell’, are not likely to forget it.
In 1989 the Hardie family moved up to Nairn and Ian took on new legal duties there, and the music continued with Highland Connection, The Ghillies and The Occasionals. The list of subsequent recordings and highlights is long, and Ian also found time to act as Editor of the foremost contemporary traditional music book to be produced in recent years, ‘The Nineties Collection’. This was sponsored by United Distillers and led The Ghillies to an epic series on concert / dances in distilleries up and down the land. In 2001 Ian decided to leave the law and concentrate on his music, and this allowed him to take up teaching roles with Feis Rois and others, and to act as External Examiner / Adjudicator with The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and in Shetland, amongst others. In 2003 Ian (with The Occasionals) took part in The Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington D.C., and he became very interested in the link between the fiddle music of Scotland and that of Appalachia. A number of trips to The States followed and the results can be heard in his last recording, ‘Westringing’.
Ian’s music is a lasting legacy, I have absolutely no doubt that in many generations to come his name will still be spoken of with admiration and his music will still be played. And that is not just my view, for at this year’s annual Scottish Traditional Music Awards Ian will be inducted into The Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame, and it will be richly deserved.
Ian was a proper ‘bonny lad’ or ‘lad o’ pairts’. He had great wit and humour, a deep love for his family, and a care for all his fellow mortals, and the courageous and dignified way in which he bore his illness was truly admirable. I finished the ‘spiel’ that he had asked me for as follows – “All of us gathered here today, and many, many hundreds more throughout Scotland and far, far beyond will give thanks that our lives coincided with his and that we knew him, in whatever way that may have been.” His zest for life and sense of humour never left him right up to the end, and we shall leave the last word to him. At the end of the ‘Take the Floor’ feature that The Occasionals recorded three weeks before he died, he remarked in characteristic fashion, “Actually, despite the fact that we’ve all been professional musicians for so long, it’s just a bit of fun.”
During his Kelso years, Ian not only was a partner in a leading legal practice, but there was a family to be with, and sports to play. He was a great sportsman, a golfer, curler, skier, runner, cross-country cyclist, squash and tennis player, hill walker, and latterly a fisherman as well. He was also a top-level rugby player, turning out for Edinburgh University, Scottish Universities, Watsonians and Kelso. He was a keen gardener too and how he found time for music too I do not know, but he did, learning the pipes with The Rev. Joe Brown at Yetholm, and honing his compositional techniques that were evident in his first solo recording, ‘A Breath of Fresh Airs,’ which was also the debut release of the Greentrax label. Three more solo releases followed over the years, all showcasing his compositions, and many of these have been taken up, performed and recorded by a huge cast of other well-known musicians, with Willie Hunter’s version of ‘Esther Stephenson of Embleton’ springing immediately to mind. Ian’s own fiddle style possessed great attack and steadiness of rhythm and was at one and the same time Scottish and individual. And his compositions mirrored this, were melodically developed, and in his slow airs in particular extremely moving. The congregation who stood in the church in Nairn as he left us, and listened to his own recording of his air ‘The Last Farewell’, are not likely to forget it.
In 1989 the Hardie family moved up to Nairn and Ian took on new legal duties there, and the music continued with Highland Connection, The Ghillies and The Occasionals. The list of subsequent recordings and highlights is long, and Ian also found time to act as Editor of the foremost contemporary traditional music book to be produced in recent years, ‘The Nineties Collection’. This was sponsored by United Distillers and led The Ghillies to an epic series on concert / dances in distilleries up and down the land. In 2001 Ian decided to leave the law and concentrate on his music, and this allowed him to take up teaching roles with Feis Rois and others, and to act as External Examiner / Adjudicator with The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and in Shetland, amongst others. In 2003 Ian (with The Occasionals) took part in The Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington D.C., and he became very interested in the link between the fiddle music of Scotland and that of Appalachia. A number of trips to The States followed and the results can be heard in his last recording, ‘Westringing’.
Ian’s music is a lasting legacy, I have absolutely no doubt that in many generations to come his name will still be spoken of with admiration and his music will still be played. And that is not just my view, for at this year’s annual Scottish Traditional Music Awards Ian will be inducted into The Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame, and it will be richly deserved.
Ian was a proper ‘bonny lad’ or ‘lad o’ pairts’. He had great wit and humour, a deep love for his family, and a care for all his fellow mortals, and the courageous and dignified way in which he bore his illness was truly admirable. I finished the ‘spiel’ that he had asked me for as follows – “All of us gathered here today, and many, many hundreds more throughout Scotland and far, far beyond will give thanks that our lives coincided with his and that we knew him, in whatever way that may have been.” His zest for life and sense of humour never left him right up to the end, and we shall leave the last word to him. At the end of the ‘Take the Floor’ feature that The Occasionals recorded three weeks before he died, he remarked in characteristic fashion, “Actually, despite the fact that we’ve all been professional musicians for so long, it’s just a bit of fun.”