Box and Fiddle
Year 42 No 02
October 2018
Musical Memories – Part 1
by Denis Shepherd
Back in the middle of the last century, a man dropped dead during a whist drive and social in Cairncoullie School in upper Donside. The whist had already finished and the company were enjoying the dancing to a local amateur dance band – or most of it, because for that particular dance the accordionist had excused himself from the stage to ask his wife on to the floor. At the moment the unfortunate gentleman died, he was on the dance floor passing close by the aforementioned couple. The accordionist’s wife got quite a shock because she had dreamed a few night’s earlier that whilst she was dancing at the social, a coffin was carried through the company. In fact it had needed all of her husband’s persuasion not to change her mind about attending the event because of ‘a silly dream’, especially considering they had already arranged for a baby-sitter for their infant daughter – my older sister.
This story is true and is still talked about in my family – because the accordionist was Jimmy Shepherd, my late dad, who played at local dances in a band which included his brother Donald, a fiddler, and Donald’s wife Helen who was a pianist and (I am told) the ‘musical director’.
Shortly after this, I appeared on the scene and set out on a varied life in which music and entertainment played a significant and hugely varied role, culminating of course in my appointment as honorary proofreader of the Box and Fiddle.
It would seem dad passed on not only his feeling for music, but also his feeling for mischief. When he was young and living on a farm called Pitprone, his family sometimes organised barn dances. He could recall one occasion when a wind-up gramophone was used to provide the dance music. Older reader will recall that with these gramophones, one could regulate the speed of the turntable by adjusting a lever. He would sometimes amuse himself by moving this lever ever so gradually, and watch as the dancers, without knowing it, slowed down to a painfully slow speed before eventually speeding up to their maximum potential. Of course, he was eventually caught in the act!
His other memories of these dances included the time two young farm-workers took time out to challenge each other to a wrestling match. The music came to an abrupt halt when one got the better of the other and swung him over backwards – his feet scoring a perfect hit on the turntable.
In those days, of course, Sunday entertainment was strictly forbidden. At a barn dance one Saturday evening, the dancers enjoyed live music. Jimmy Hay, a local farmer in Kildrummy and a renowned fiddler, was one of the musicians playing in a dark corner and, as the clock passed midnight without anyone admitting to having noticed, he kept looking anxiously to the door and saying to people, “Mind an’ tell me if the minister comes in! I canna let him see me playin’ on a Sunday!”
In my early days, the dance band still played occasionally, but the only time I remember seeing them play was at my cousin’s wedding held in the Cults Hotel near Aberdeen. They started off the evening reception but my sister explained that “they will have to get off when the real band gets here”.
However, my father still used to ‘have a tune’ at home after the band had wound up and he was usually forced by my sister to play the Joe Loss tune In The Mood. And, in common with many other families at the time, we used to listen to the radio programme Scottish Dance Music (re-names Take the Floor many years later).
Before I was old enough to go to school I became an expert disc jockey, using a wind up gramophone and a box of ‘78’ records. My aunt, visiting from Canada, was amazed that I could pick any record from the box, name the tune and play it – and this before I was old enough to read. I knew each record from the combination of the label colour, the scratches and the shape of the ‘bite’ which was on the outside of most 78s!
Eventually the spring broke in the gramophone – but this did not stop me. I added to my skills manual propulsion of the turntable but ended up with a huge blister on the tip of my index finger for my efforts.
Musical Memories – Part 2 - November 2018 (Year 42 No 3)
by Denis Shepherd
In the previous issue of the B&F, I told you of my early interest in Scottish music and how our family listened to music from the radio and gramophone. With this in mind, my father (who played accordion) came home from a ‘roup’ one day with a fiddle and two bows. Unfortunately for me (but possibly fortunately for the rest of the family), the fiddle and one of the bows had no strings. Despite this, I managed to produce music by ‘playing’ the fiddle and diddling the tunes I had learned from our stock of ‘78’ records. I spent hours standing fiddling and diddling on an old lorry cab which had been deposited near the house, entertaining a large audience…..of nettles! An additional secret member of the audience was sometimes my sister who peeped round the corner to see how my stage presence was developing.
I now realise that diddling was the first thing I ‘performed’ – but in the public domain it was the last, because the first diddling competition I entered was in 2017, and I have now gone on to win my last three diddling competitions. Possibly the skill had lain dormant for 60 years!
I never got as far as playing a fiddle with strings. However, we did have a fiddler in the family – my uncle Donald, my dad’s brother, who also played in the family band. In the early days of Aberdeen Accordion & Fiddle Club, I used to meet up with him and his wife Helen there and Donald would usually seek out the guest fiddle player and ask whether he could play The President!
Not long before he passed away in 1997, Donald enjoyed an 80th birthday party in Logie Coldstone. This was secretly organised by his family and he would have had no inkling what was to happen. One of the entertainers they had booked was Paul Anderson, the legendary Tarland fiddler, and Donald could not resist asking him for a ‘shottie’ on his fiddle – against Helen’s wishes, as she reminded him he had not played for years; “Donald, dinna mak’a feal o’ yersel’!” She was as amazed as everyone else when he proceeded to fiddle his way through a set of tunes as though he played them every day!
Another fiddler still in good forming his 80s was Jimmy Hay, who had been a family friend in my earlier years. When I attended school in Inverurie one of my friends was Bill Clark, and by chance we discovered that Bill’s mum, Anne, had also known Jimmy Hay many years earlier. Bill and I decided to pay him a visit in Kemnay and he insisted on playing us a few tunes – his masterpiece being The Lovat Scouts with Variations. His timing was perfect, helped to a great extent by the tapping of his foot, complete with ‘tackity boot’, as he stood playing. The boot thumping on the floor made an impression on Bill; when Anne asked how the visit had gone, this was the first thing he described!
The second time we visited, Bill took along his fiddle, as he had in the past played in the school orchestra, and the pair played a few duos. On that occasion Bill’s parents dropped us off and, when they arrived later to pick us up, Jimmy invited them in and insisted they hear him play Lovat Scouts. Inevitably, his tackity boot started thumping and Anne, remembering Bill’s previous account, could not contain her laughter; she had to hold a newspaper in front of her face!
On subsequent visits, I managed to borrow my sister’s old acoustic guitar and, not to be left out, made some noises reputed to be bass notes. After a few practices we recorded some numbers on my cassette player and pretended we were doing a Scottish Dance Music radio recording (by the ‘James Hay Trio’ and ‘from our Kemnay studios’), with Bill and myself taking turns making the announcements in our best BBC voices. For our first number, I had announced The Smith’s a Gallant Fireman but, at the moment the music was meant to begin, Jimmy realised he could not use his bow while sitting on his chair and his voice was clearly heard in the background saying, “Ah but I’ll need tae stan’ up – I’m nae playin’ in this cheer!” Jimmy’s playing in these recordings was completely competent and professional, although by now he was over 83.
On the completion of the first set, Bill had just finished a perfect announcement of the second tune, The Cradle Song, when I pointed out he had forgotten to switch on the microphone. He immediately changed to his north-east dialect with an expletive word – switching the mic on just before he did so! There were many other features which you would never hear in a BBC recording. For instance, when a certain tune was announced, Bill’s voice could be heard saying; “This is the ane I’m nae good at!” Aided and abetted by Bill and me, Jimmy carried on with his vocal gems – and only the three of us knew which ones were pre-planned! At the end of one recording, we announced the closing signature tune, Kate Dalrymple, only for the chief fiddler to lead off the following conversation:
“Ach, I’m nae playin’ nae mair!”
“Fit wey?”
“I wis meant tae get twa poun’ for last time an’ I hinna gotten nithin’ yet!”
Musical Memories – Part 3 - December 2018 (Year 42 No 4)
by Denis Shepherd
In the previous issue of the B&F my school friend Bill Clark and I visited Jimmy Hay, in Kemnay, to record sessions in the format of ‘Take the Floor’. Jimmy, at the age of 83, was still an expert player; not so the other two members of the ‘James Hay Trio’. These amateur recordings provided much amusement for certain professional musicians. John Crossman, a family friend, used to promote country dances with the Michael McKay Band often providing the music and myself helping on the door. The photo shows the band when it was the Corly McKay Band, but in the few years between then and the Crossman dances Michael’s father Curly had passed away and Michel had taken over the band which included which included his sister Elizabeth and Tommy McDonald.
The band members used to look forward to the ‘fly’ cup at the end of the dance, when I would play my ‘James Hay Trio’ tapes to them as they admired Jimmy’s fiddle playing and killed themselves laughing at the extras.
One day’s Bill’s mum, Anne, was scanning the entertainment pages of the People’s Journal when she spotted a dance advertised in the hall at Kildrummy Inn and said, “Hey Bill, there really is a band called the James Hay Trio!” However, on closer inspection it appeared the dance was not only on a Tuesday, but on 1st April. Apparently, a party who had hired a car to attend the dance, stomped out of the bar, never to return, on discovering it was a hoax. I wasn’t the proprietor’s favourite person for some time after this!
About this same era, I briefly met another would-be musician – the local poultry dealer, known as ‘Feathery.’ One day I dropped in with a business message and he insisted I witness his new musical skills; “I go the piano ye ken!” The sheet music was in place and so eventually were all his fingers, which he maneuvered perfectly until grinding to a halt on the second bar. I certainly believed him when he said he needed a bit more practice.
Turning again to real musicians, one of the dances John Crossman promoted in the early 70s, at Muggarthaugh Hotel near Alford, featured the Lindsay Ross Trio. Mr Ross, who sadly passed away a few years later, was one of Scotland’s leading dance-band leaders and played a Cordovox, backed by his son Malcolm, now described as a legendary dance band drummer, who was barely out of primary school at that time, and banjo player Nigel Jelks. I had written a march using my knowledge of pipe music (I had by now started taking chanter lessons from a local piper) and gave them a copy as we moved through to start the dance. After examining it for a couple of minutes, they played it perfectly as the floor filled up with couples dancing the Gay Gordons.
It was Anne, a student friend, who unwittingly started my entertainment career. At my 21st birthday party, she gave me a present of the book Poems by J. C. Milne, and I started to recite an expanding repertoire of poems to amuse audiences. My friend Bill and I used to practice by reciting them into a cassette player but we were not word perfect: he once uttered the unimaginable concept of ‘a skirlin’ coo’ instead of ‘a skirlin’ soo!’
My recitations were normally well received. However, having learned the 18 verses of The Orra Loon, I included it in a recital at a nursing home called Cliff House just outside Aberdeen. By the time I was half-way through the poem, one old boy had started snoring! Nevertheless, I was asked back again, and by the time of my second visit I had met up with Sandy Rennie, a former jazz trumpet player packed full of off-beat humour, who was keen to do some entertaining. At our first rehearsal, he appeared dressed in his grandfather’s Gordon Highlanders dress uniform and this immediately planted the seeds in my mind for an item where we could use this along with my bothy outfit. This took the shape of a poem called Grieve and Gordon which was the conversation between a farm grieve (Gordon) and a Gordon Highlander (called Grieve) and which is still a regular item in the Denis and the Menace repertoire (albeit with just hats). Theatre costumes are normally designed to fit the script; in this case, the poem was designed to fit the costumes.
As we drove to Cliff House, Sandy played some of his unique guitar chords. By the time we arrived, we had invented the following conversation to include in our act:
“Can you play that guitar?”
“Michty aye, I can play like The Shadows! Jist listen tae this.” (Sandy plays a few odd-sounding chords).
“I doot that winda be good enough for Cliff Richard.”
“No – but it’s good enough for Cliff Hoose!”
As it turned out we were correct!
Musical Memories – Part 4 - January 2019 (Year 42 No 5)
by Denis Shepherd
I previously told you how I teamed up with the former jazz musician Sandy Rennie to form Denis and the Menace – a name thought up by Sandy’s wife Mary, with our first booking being at the Cliff House Nursing Home near Cults. The Cliff House residents entertained us as much as we entertained them. One interruption was by the slightly deaf man who kept asking his neighbour to take the paper off the sweetie. He could not hear the other chap, ever more loudly telling him it had no paper on it. Another was by the lady who stood up (in the middle of a recitation) and broke wind in front of us.
Sometimes Sandy would sing Three Craws while I carried out all the actions, dressed as a crow. No one ever knew what to expect – sometimes even we did not know! At an event in Aberdeen’s Cowdray Hall, which we did with three other musicians, the chairman of the organisation, in giving in his thank-you speech, made the remark, “I don’t know which one is the Menace – they all seem like menaces to me!” And at yet another, Mackie Burns, the late, great Shetland fiddler/guitarist, introduced himself to us and described Sandy’s chords as “very unusual but very exciting”. We are still not exactly sure what he meant – but I can guess!
Ken to be on TV, we volunteered to do a song for Aberdeen Cable Television, with technical and backing support in abundance including Calum Kennedy’s former pianist, Ian Milne. Unfortunately Ian didn’t understand the rhythm and pausing we used for comedy effect and his accompaniment on Sandy’s song, Square Bashin’, was finished before we got through the first verse!
On one occasion, our clowning almost got us lynched. Sandy’s daughter Fiona, often accompanied us and was given Sandy’s old trumpet (she could not play a single note!) with which she was instructed to come on stage at certain points of the show, apparently eager to play, only for us to send her off again for various reasons (an idea we got from Morecambe and Wise). The members of an Old Folks Club in Inverurie became so incensed – “It’s nae fair, nae lettin’ the lassie play her trumpet!” – that we were forced to make a quick exit in case Fiona was actually forced to attempt to play it!
Aberdeen’s Atholl Hotel once invited Sandy and me to perform during a Burns Supper that the hotel was laying on for its customers and we readily agreed, considering all food and drink was on the house. Unfortunately, we could not take advantage of the latter as we still had to perform! After all the speeches were eventually concluded, we were all set to stand up and do our bit – only to be told that we now be doing it in the bar as the staff needed to clear up the dining room. It was a nigh-impossible task attempting to perform (without amplification, had been assured would not be necessary) to a crowd of people who had just been ‘released’ into the bar after sitting quietly listening to speeches for hours! At one point I stuck my head in during one of Sandy’s solo spots and asked if he was finished. “I was finished afore I started!” he said.
In the early days my own performances were mainly recitations but I gradually introduced some singing, especially after I won the Novice Prize at the Aberdeen Alternative Festival with the Rab the Rhymer song, The Kilt Society Ball. My friend Harry Williamson, who often came along with us to provide backing, proved the ideal accompanist for the type of songs I liked to sing. And as Sandy preferred to develop the comedy side of the act, it was a natural progression that we become a duo. We retained the Denis and the Menace name while Sandy is now known as Alexander Rennie (he is now the resident guest in Middlefield Matters, a weekly programme on the radio station SHMU).
I still see Sandy and some years ago went to be part of the audience at the recordings of the ‘Northern Nights’ series at the Grampian TV studios in Aberdeen. On one occasion, the Alexander Brothers were the closing act and Sandy, the moment the TV cameras stopped rolling, was up on stage getting his photo taken between Tom and Jack. “I telt them I was an entertainer tee – but I dinna think they were affa’ impressed”, Sandy said afterwards. If we happen to be at the same event, we occasionally attempt to give a rendition of our original trademark item, Grieve and Gordon. Sandy, or Alexander, at 84 is still very much to the fore and is always introduced by his radio co-host as, “octogenarian, legend of Pittodrie and the midge man himself.”
Alexander, since the Golden Games several years ago, has had an association with the Aberdeen FC Community Trust and often sings there at both football and other events. He is best known for his midge songs, but has written hundreds of songs, which have had thousands of ‘hits’ on the internet.
Unfortunately, one of his best songs never made it to the stage. The ideas came to him as he cycled home from work one day, and he kept stopping to jot them down on all he had in his pocket – a sweetie paper. However, the family dog was so keen on confectionary he did not always check whether there was anything in the wrapper and the song was eaten and lost forever.
Musical Memories – Part 5 - February 2019 (Year 42 No 6)
by Denis Shepherd
Last time I told you how myself and pianist Harry Williamson launched ourselves as the new Denis and the Menace act, which is still going strong – well, still going – today. Call it “the act you can’t classify”. Having started as exponents of songs in the style of Willie Kemp and Rab the Rhymer, we have now expanded our repertoire – and we still do the odd poem together.
In our earlier years we were often asked by Arthur Middleton, the world-class harmonica player, to support him at his concerts. After he passed away, we asked the late Betty Burnett, another top moothie player, to complete the party, and since then we have often enrolled a fiddler or a woman singer to support us. Our first fiddler was Nicola Auchnie, who went on to be a Glenfiddich champion – little did Nicola realise she would one day be singing the Strathdon Bus Song with us! The first time Nicola did a spot with us at Aberdeen Folk Club, the three of us arrived early at the Blue Lamp. However, the planned rehearsal did not come off – instead, the pedals of the piano came off and Harry spent the time putting it together again! However, Nicola provided a welcome opportunity for me to sing the Richard Thomson song, Nobody’s Wedding, in which the singing parts are interspersed with instrumental renditions of Highland Whisky and Mhairi’s Wedding.
With Harry being much in demand as an accompanist, there have been occasions when I have had to recruit a stand-in Menace. Two of these have gone on to greater, albeit contrasting, things; Gordon Middler has played keyboard in Take the Floor recordingswhile Moray Barber now appears regularly in HMT as one of the Flying Pigs, where the songs he performs in his spots as ‘Hilton John’ bear little resemblance to those performed with me!
For a time, the act had an additional ‘menace’ – Harry’s keyboard. We were due in Ythanbank to record our tracks for the Aberdeen TMSA cassette, Fae Aiberdeen ‘N Roon Aboot, one Saturday, but on the Friday Harry discovered two notes were not functioning. I therefore asked another keyboard player to have his instrument on stand-by. At midnight Harry phoned to say he had fixed the problem, so I cancelled the stand-by – only to be told shortly before we left that there were now three notes out of commission!
This time I asked whistle player Alex Green if we could borrow his ceilidh band instrument and off we set with two keyboards. Dick Trickey, who was producing the tape, examined Alex’s machine but decided we should use Harry’s because he thought that even with three notes missing, it would still sound better than Alex’s. (Alex wasn’t best pleased when I told him this!) Unfortunately, the notes missing were some of the most important for the songs we were recording to Harry spent to time working out alternative melodies using the available notes. When the time came to record, lo and behold – the notes were, inexplicably, all working perfectly. This must have been fate because after this the notes disappeared, never to be heard again!
One December all three of us proved menaces. We, along with Arthur, were at a nursing home built on the site of the Royal Darroch Hotel in cults, which had been blown up by a gas explosion and never re-built. Staff of the home must have thought something similar had hit tem! Whilst connecting our amplifiers and microphones we literally destroyed the Christmas tree, while the keyboard made a huge scratch on the expensive table supporting it.
Another Christmas, we had arranged to do a spot at the Aberdeen Accordion and Fiddle Club’s social in the Dee Motel. Somehow Harry had misunderstood the time I was to pick him up and had a dram while he was waiting ……and another, and another, until I eventually arrived. Our performance certainly went with a swing that night!
In more recent years, we must be one of the few acts to have been locked out of the hall in the middle of our own concert! While performing for pensioners at Ferryhill Church, Aberdeen, we were asked to move our cars as we were blocking in a cleaner. When we returned a few minutes later the door was locked and despite our ringing the bell, shouting and knocking for about 15 minutes, there was no response. Were they trying to tell us something? When we finally got in it transpired they were all slightly deaf – “You should have rung the bell!” we were told!
I hope you have enjoyed this small sample of my musical memories – who knows, you may get to read the rest of them at some point in the future!
Musical Memories – Part 6 - July 2019 (Year 42 No 11)
by Denis Shepherd
I have previously told of my involvement with the Denis and the Menace Duo since the mid-80s. Since then I have been part of the TMSA and Aberdeen Folk Club and on the Committees of both organizations for much of the time – and this is all attributable to the Duo.
The only musical club I had previously attended, in a purely listening capacity, was Aberdeen A&F Club, originally held in the Gloucester Hotel. Up-and-coming players who regularly performed there included Graeme Mitchell and Graham Geddes, but my most vivid memory of the early days in 1975 is of the time when the stovies ran out, the manager apologised for under-estimating the numbers, and the compere promised the audience that this would not happen again because “next month I’ll be doon here in the aifterneen steerin’ them masel’!”
Ten years later, when Sandy Rennie, the original Menace, and I were starting to establish our act I saw an advert in a Traditional Music & Song Association of Scotland event in the Holburn Bar. This was the first time I had heard of the TMSA, but we did our stint and promptly became members with the encouragement of two office-bearers, Alex Green and Madeline Miller. Shortly after this the Aberdeen Branch held its 21st birthday party in the Gloucester at which the well-known singer Adam McNaughton was MC. When he saw the performers’ list he couldn’t believe there was a serious musical act called Denis and the Menace - and after hearing us he still didn’t believe it! Another singer, Kathleen Robertson, suggested we come along to Aberdeen Folk Club; we promptly did so and for some time we went along to do spots at the regular TMSA and Folk Club sessions, both held at the time in the Three Poceros. Sandy eventually ceased his memberships on developing his solo act but not before we had produced songs about performers and committee members of both organisations. For instance, The Crooked Bawbee was the basis for a song entitled O will ye gang wi’ me tae the TMSA? Which describes how an enthusiast tries to persuade his lassie to come along by naming the galaxy of artistes due to perform, one verse being :-
But I said, “There are ithers, like Florence and Mackie,
Bert Murray, and Esma, and lots mair as weel;
Maybe even Robbie Shepherd – that’s jist if ye’re lucky!”
She said, “The Robbie Shepherd? Ach, dinna be feal!”
And at the Folk Club, our song about the performers of the time (sung to the tune of The Wild Rover) ended :-
Denis and the Menace, that’s us, ye see:
We’re great entertainers, especially me!
(During the last two words we physically struggled with each other to gain pride of place on the stage!)
It was around this time that we heard that Robbie shepherd was learning the fiddle – although we never heard him play. But we did not miss an opportunity for an original gag :-
“Ye ken that group ca’d Rainbow – I hear there’s a new Scottish versionwi’ the same name. It’s got Alex Green, Jimmy Blue, Tam Reid and Robbie Shepherd.”
“I understand them haein’ Green, Blue and Reid in a Rainbow – bit faur does Robbie Shepherd come in?”
“Well, if onybody asks him tae play the fiddle he turns yalla!”
A few years later I found myself performing for none other than Phil Cunningham! Phil, guesting at the Folk Club, had been recommended to hear my rendition of Ian Middleton’s The Humble Tattie, one of the few songs I sang in those days. (I remember asking staff at the Three Poceros to lend me a tattie from the kitchen every time I sang it!)
Every year the Aberdeen TMSA sent a bus to the national AGM in Perth. One year the traditional evening ceilidh had to be cut short because the Aberdeen bus (musicians led by Alex Green) was leaving as the driver did not want to exceed his permitted hours! When I became a TMSA Committee member, we played a major part in the organisation of the traditional competitions at the Aberdeen Alternative Festival in October. One day a teenage girl, wearing a long black coat and playing a whistle, came into the Music Hall foyer. Having been told what time to come back for her competition, and barely pausing from her tune, she turned and went outside to resume her busking! Her name was Sara Reith and she is now famous throughout Europe in the fields of fiddle, tin whistle, Scottish music, traditional dance and traditional song.
Musical Memories – Part 7 - September 2019 (Year 43 No 01)
by Denis Shepherd
As related in the last episode of Musical Memories, I joined the TMSA in the mid-1980s and became a member of the Aberdeen Branch Committee. In those days we were active in organizing competitions and concerts during the Aberdeen Alternative Festival, these being held in the Music Hall, Arts Centre or Lemon Tree.
One of the competitors I got to know was Theresa Lindsay, winner of the women’s singing on seven consecutive occasions. We went on to do the occasional spot together at concerts but I got into trouble for making her laugh when I was singing the man’s verses in Hunting Tower – she took her traditional singing very seriously! It would seem I was making funny eyes at her when singing the line, “Yer een were like a spell, Jeanie.” The TMSA once secured the services of none other than Aly Bain as fiddle judge. As I sat beside him in my capacity as clerk, a 15-year-old girl came in and almost fainted – her idol was Aly Bain! Nevertheless, she went on to win and she is now Secretary of Aberdeen A&F Club – Susan Gordon. Susan went on to become a major player (as well as dancer!) in our country concerts. In fact, after she won that competition we promptly booked her to appear in our forthcoming concert in Lumsden and this turned out to be her first appearance as Scottish Junior champion, as she had picked up the title on that very day.
I suggested in Part 1 of Musical Memories that my dad had passed on his mischievous tendencies to me – and Susan was to discover this at another of our country concerts in Newmachar. Among the other acts booked were the Pam Dignan Dancers, and I had secretly asked Pam to send along not only her dancers but also one of her costumes. I had also asked Susan to play The Hen’s Mairch Ower the Midden as it was one of my favourite tunes. Lo and behold, just as Susan broke into the strains of the Hen’s Mairch, a huge hen, about the same size as myself (exactly the same size and shape, in fact) wandered on to the stage, scratching the floor around her feet. True professional that she is, Susan carried on playing im-peck-ably!
This sort of thing would never have been allowed to happen in our more formal Aberdeen Alternative Festival concerts in the Arts Centre. Over the years I saw many quality singers and players perform there at the TMSA concerts, both established and emerging, one of the latter being a 16-year-old bothy ballad singer called Robert Lovie. The arts Centre, with its cosy amphitheatre-like setting, had a very intimate atmosphere, with a close rapport between the performers and audience – or so it seemed from the auditorium. But when I eventually appeared on stage there at the prize-winners concert, I was amazed at how lonely it was as I stared in the silent theatre into a misty darkness, with not a soul in sight. I was more relieved than anything when the applause came at the end of the song – at least there was someone there!
One of the established performers in our concerts was Alasdair Fraser, the world-famous fiddler, who had star billing on one occasion – but things did not go as smoothly as planned. Branch chairman and compere Alex Green, after welcoming each performer and sharing with them the relevant ‘hospitality’, went on stage to introduce Alasdair Fraser as the final guest, and gave him a faultless build-up – only to turn round and see someone else ready to perform, standing with a somewhat puzzled expression! So when Alasdair’s turn did eventually come, Alex could only say, “Our final musician tonight needs no introduction ‘cos I’ve deen it already!” Alasdair, as you can imagine, took it all in good humour!
Our initial venture into our own country concerts likewise did not enjoy a smooth passage but this had nothing to do with the MC or performers. The Branch had organised a bus to convey a load of performers and supporters to their concert and ceilidh dance in Towie Hall, deep in the heart of farming country in Glenkindie. This was carefully coincide with the end of the busy grain-sewing season – but after a month of rain, on the evening of the concert the ground had dried out just enough for the farmers to get into action. Our concert music was all but drowned out by the noise of tractors all round the hall and beyond. Needless to say the local audience turnout was negligible. When it came to the dance, the only way it could happen was for the musicians to take turns in playing while the others went down to enhance the dancing!
Musical Memories – Part 8 - October 2019 (Year 43 No 02)
by Denis Shepherd
After the demise of the Aberdeen Alternative Festival, the TMSA continued to hold concerts in country venues in conjunction with the annual Aberdeenshire Council Doric Festival. Nowadays there is no Doric Festival but the TMSA Branch still hold two Doric concerts.
Over the years, we have visited quite a variety of halls in the North-East, including Methlick – one venue which I can’t forget because it gave its name to a tune! I had, some years previously, written a 2/4 pipe march, and this nameless tune was first played by Denis and the Menace at a Methlick concert. By the end of the evening, it had a title – The Methlick Barn Dance.
Over the years the Branch has taken part in many events, from Aberdeen to its twin city Clermont Ferrand. The venue closest to home was the historic building, Provost Rust’s House opposite Marischal College, where Aberdeen City Council had asked us to provide traditional music for visiting tourists. In their wisdom the Council did not advertise our event and refused us permission to put up a sign outside, with the result that most visitors saw no reason to proceed beyond the café to the first floor. On one occasion, the only listeners were four people who knew about the event only because I had told them. On another, the audience was even smaller – two female German students who had found us by chance. I think they were outnumbered 4 to 1 by the performers!
In the latter case, I managed to embarrass myself while attempting to show off my knowledge of German acquired at university many years previously. I managed to announce in German that I was going to sing the traditional song The Birken Tree, but had to apologise that I had forgotten the German for birch. The students laughed and said, “It’s birken!”
For the whole of the 1990s we leased the ground floor of the 17th century Wallace Tower – another Council building, which in the 60s had been moved from its city centre location and re-assembled brick by brick, in Tillydrone. By the end of the 90s it had become synonymous with the TMSA as it was the venue of our events ranging from committee meetings and Bothy Nichts rehearsals to open days and Christmas parties. In 1999 when the Branch released its first cassette, Fae Aiberdeen ‘n’ Roon Aboot, the automatic subject choice for the sleeve was the Wallace Tower! It was at one of these Christmas parties that the legendary singer Tam Reid made a speech to the effect that many other branches and festivals were defined by their own song and that it was time the Aberdeen Branch also had its own song. “So”, he concluded, “Denis is gau tae write it.”
This was the first I’d heard of it, but I promptly wrote a song called In the Wallace Tower referring to Wallace as the king (using my artistic licence!)The song has never been recorded but its original tune was included by Arthur Middleton on his second cassette, Mouth-Organ Maestro.
Shortly after the turn of the century we had to vacate The Tower, but by then we had established our monthly sessions. These started off in the Bucksburn British Legion – which closed soon afterwards. We simply relocated to the Westburn Park Lounge – which closed soon afterwards. We then moved to the Grampian Health Services Social Club – which closed soon afterwards. We do not think it is our music that has this devastating effect, but officials of The Sportsman’s Club must be counting their figures each month with bated breath……
We had one panic moment during our spell in the Westburn Lounge, where we also held our big competition day. A few days before the event, we were told we had not booked in, even though our Treasurer had seen the Manager write it in the book. It transpired he had left – taking the book with him.
Another event we used to organize was an afternoon ceilidh in the Douglas Arms during the Banchory Festival in May. I was doing my stint as MC when a group of young musicians came in from their competitions. I asked the fiddle winner, 15-year-old Paul Anderson, to do a spot; he proudly stood up at the microphone and played…… bum note! His automatic reaction (still at the microphone) was to say, “S***e!” So if I ever introduce Paul nowadays, I say I clearly remember the first note I heard him play and the first word I heard him speak on stage!
My other memory from that festival is of organiser Bill Smith objecting strongly to a certain song Sandy Mathers was singing in a bar session. However, he was quite happy when it was explained to him that the chorus consisted of the words, “If you see Kay.”
Musical Memories – Part 9 - November 2019 (Year 43 No 03)
by Denis Shepherd
Last time I told you about some of the various events that the Aberdeen Branch of the TMSA has organised in past years. Some of these were supported by Aberdeen City Council – but the biggest thing the Council did for us was to organize in 1991 a week-long bus trip to France with all expenses paid! Our destination was the Issoire Folk Festival in a village a few miles south-west of Aberdeen’s twin city Clermont Ferrand. Our stay consisted of sight-seeing bus tours and Scottish music performances at various venues including Clermont Ferrand. And we got to witness a variety of singing, dancing and other performances from many other countries.
Our bus party comprised musicians (including pipers), singers and dancers. One day I thought I would add to the variety by organising a street demonstration of Houlihan’s Jig, which I did along with three others including the dancers – but was promptly told by tour organiser Alex Green that I was not a very good exponent of Scottish dance – although I knew the formations, I was, “maist helluva clumsy an’ hytery-lookin’!”
Although we were amply fed throughout our stay, bothy ballad king Tam Reid was not impressed by the French salad-based food. When we traveled back to Scotland, we took the overnight ferry and did not stop until the bus drew into a service station in Warwickshire; and as we disembarked somewhat groggily there was no sign of Tam. Either we had left him in France or he had done a sprint off the bus! Sure enough, we eventually found him tucking into bacon and eggs in the restaurant. “I couldna wait tae get a decent brakfist!” he explained, referring to French cuisine in a rather uncomplimentary manner.
However, this Tam had nothing to do with the Tumlin’ Tams – this was the name of the TMSA team entered in the Aberdeenshire Council-organised Bothy Nichts competition a few years later. The first time it took place, in 1997, Alex’s script featured a bottle of whisky which was due to be opened several times – but in the opening scene the cork popped from the bottle (the content of which was fizzy American ginger) and flew into the audience. This necessitated a hasty script adjustment!
We had recruited Harry Williamson, my pianist Menace partner, as Mains but the first time we competed, in Keith, I was told by one connoisseur; “That wasn’t very realistic – you would never get a Mains who could play the piano as well as that!” However, in Inverurie Town Hall two years later, one of the judges, Jock Duncan, said in his summing-up that the Tummlin’ Tams were the team keeping most to the spirit of the bothy days. By that time Alex Green had retired, leaving me as the script-writer. We only finished third but the whole experience was great fun – although I was a somewhat aggrieved grieve when I heard that someone in one of the teams ahead of us had spoken about combine harvesters – something definitely not in the spirit of the bothy days!
Two other major projects undertaken by the TMSA Aberdeen Branch concerned the production of a cassette, Fae Aiberdeen ‘N Roon Aboot, in 1999, and the TMSA 40th birthday CD in 2006. I told you previously about the problems with Harry’s keyboard when we were recording tracks for the cassette; but that wasn’t the only drawback. Dick Trickey, a fellow TMSA singer who had volunteered to act as recording engineer and producer, had recently acquired the recording equipment and he was learning about it as we went along. We went straight into the Willie Kemp song, It’s Affa Like Its Father, and got it canned perfectly on the first take – or so we thought, until Dick said, “Sorrym guys, we’ll have to do it again – I pressed the wrong button!”
The 40th birthday CD was engineered in the studio at Aden Park, Mintlaw, where I recorded an unaccompanied song (originally a poem by G.K. Menzies) and after a careful sound check, I got the go-ahead. However, half way through the first line I got the command, “Stop! Stop!” The only thing that upset the system was the sound of the letter P – and the song just happened to begin, “I’ve poached a puckle pairtricks….”
The Branch also held some events with special guests in Aberdeen. When I was MC I didn’t always get my wording right. When our guests were the all-girl band The Lemon Tarts, for instance, I began the raffle by saying, “I’ll get the Tarts to draw the first ticket.” However, I made no mistake with the raffle the night we had Sheena Wellington as guest. After announcing her spot, I filled the time as she made her way to the stage by reciting the short Burns poem, Here’s a Bottle, addressing the bottle of whisky in front of me – and lo and behold, I later won the bottle!
Musical Memories – Part 10 - January 2020 (Year 43 No 05)
by Denis Shepherd
Although I had been interested in Scottish music as a youngster, as a youth I spent most of my nights-out at discos or rock concerts with my fellow students. I do remember the odd exception though, such as attending a ceilidh at the College of Agriculture with the Wick Scottish Dance Band led by Addie Harper Snr. (A girl I met there, from the Western Isles, found it surprising that I considered a students’ ceilidh such a novelty!) However, the tide began to turn when I used to spend a large part of my summer vacations on the Donside grouse estates where I got to meet many local people and listen to their stories about their country dances. So I started to go to these dances in Corgarff to experience the fun first-hand!
The band at Corgarff was usually the Dick Stewart Trio and one of the highlights was the Beaters’ Ball at which all the raffle prizes had two legs, two wings and feathers. By the time these were handed out most dancers were well inebriated and usually the winners could not resist the temptation to sit down and pluck their bird right away. Not much of the dance floor was visible by the end of the night! I got to know Wullie Gray, also known as the Bard of Corgarff. He was well-known for his story telling, poetry recitations and occasional singing, and later performed at a couple of our TMSA concerts.
Back in those days he kept us all entertained on the grouse moors and one of his stories about the dances concerned a local couple who had to walk to the hall along a muddy road, the man rolling up his trouser bottoms to keep them clean. On reaching the dance he went straight into action, much to the annoyance of his wife – not because he was dancing with another woman but because his trousers were still rolled up. She marched up to him and stormed, “George! Take your trousers down!”
At these country dances, there was a limited variety of dances which were not always performed to the letter (as I was to find out later when I attended ceilidhs with a caller), and many stories of these dance circulate. The local paper once ran a story about a young man, renowned for his strength, who had allegedly lifted the stage off the floor during a dance in the Towie Hall. One night I drove to a dance in the Glenbuchat Hall and met an ambulance with blue lights flashing I discovered that the dance had already begun and that there had been a casualty during the Eightsome Reel!
I gained further dancing expertise when helping family friend John Crossman at the dances he used to organize at a variety on country venues, with the Michael McKay Band and others. However it was still a shock to the system when I started going to ceilidhs in Aberdeen where there were bands with callers, such as the Desperate Danz Band (with Dave Francis) and Hallyracket. They introduced me to dances I had never heard of, much less attempted! Eventually I got used to the idea that it was beneficial to learn some of these dances and the first one I noted was one of Dave’s called Buttered Peas, a progressive couples dance.
One ceilidh with a difference that I remember was at the Northern Hotel, where my Menace partner Harry Williamson and I once again proved menaces. The dance band at this one was a duo comprising Runrig guitarist Malcolm Jones, and the late Robert MacDonald who had been a founder accordionist member. We picked the wrong stairway to the ballroom and ended up in the kitchen; and as we were obstructed by tables, the only way to get on to the dance floor was to climb under them – not knowing the musicians were at the other side.
My first taste of dance calling came at the Christmas dinner-dance for the athletes I coached and their parents. I was well used to telling the athletes what to do so it was second nature to teach them how to do Buttered Peas! A year or two later, when the band booked for a dance organised by the TMSA arrived at the Northern minus its caller, I volunteered to call a few dances. As a direct result, whistle player Alex Green and his wife, accordionist Madeline Miller, who were leading lights in the TMSA, asked me to call for their band Airs and Graces at a ceilidh at the Douglas Hotel. I became their regular caller until the couple ‘emigrated’ to Portknockie at the end of 1998, after which I managed to organize a band under the name of Fittiefolk based around the remaining members. And we still play (occasionally) to this day!
Musical Memories – Part 11 - February 2020 (Year 43 No 06)
by Denis Shepherd
I previously told you how I started my dance-calling career with Airs and Graces led by Alex Green (whistle) and Madeline Miller (accordion), Susie Simpson (fiddle), Frank Stephen (keyboard) and Alistair Pirie (drums) completed the classic line-up. Up to then I had not known Alex all that well – but I always remembered the first time I met him when, many years earlier, I had been persuaded to do a spot on my practice chanter at Aberdeen A&F Club. I was attempting a final practice in the lobby – only for Alex to come and try to teach me how to breathe in and play at the same time. I never found out if he was serious.
After I had performed at a few ceilidhs with the band, Madeline gave me a book by Robbie Shepherd entitled ‘Let’s Have a Ceilidh’ and suggested I expand my repertoire. One of the dances I learned from this source was the Friendly Waltz and, when we played to a company which included Robbie and his wife Esma at Aberdeen University’s Elphinstone Hall, I mentioned that this dance had several variations but that this was the correct one as I had learned it from Robbie. I gave the instructions and off we went, everyone dancing it perfectly – except Mr Shepherd was now dancing one of the other version! The most amusing incident, however, was at a charity ceilidh at the former Blairs College outside Aberdeen. Additional entertainment had been organised for the interval, provided by the Aberdeen Gun Club. Their first two or three party-pieces were admired by the dancers and band members alike as they caught bullets in saucers and such like. However, the set became rather boring as they continued to show off their huge repertoire of similar tricks and Alex, ever the would-be expert on technical matters, relieved the monotony by having a look at the workings of a spare gun which had been left beside him on the stage. The monotony was shattered rather than broken as the gun went off – Alex had not dreamed it would be loaded! The Gun Club leader must have been one of the few people on earth not to know that Alex played the tin-whistle expertly despite having lost two fingers in a childhood accident. He got quite a shock to hear a gun going off – but nothing compared to his shock on turning to see Alex holding the smoking gun in a hand that had two fingers missing!
Of course, some ceilidhs went with a bigger swing than others. At another event in the Elphinstone Hall, to celebrate a class re-union, we tried our hardest to entice people to dance, without success. One gentleman then came up and said, “That is wonderful music for dancing. Unfortunately none of us came here to dance – we haven’t seen each other for over 20 years and we just came here to talk!”
The venues where we played were many and varied. My calling style was to explain the basics from the stage and sometimes make one or two trips on to the floor to explain the finer points or demonstrate the dance. (“I dinna see foo you can hae the patience!” Alex used to say.) This was usually straightforward but we played at one function in Kincardine O’Neil where the stage was a high balcony, almost at ceiling level (where the jesters performed in days of old, we were told). I definitely benefited from my athletics training that night – every trip between the floor and the stage entailed a long stairway journey! In contrast, I remember when the band played at a well-attended dance in the Beach Ballroom, where the management gave me the use of a radio mic. I enjoyed feeling the power as I stood in the middle of a huge circle of dancers for the Circassian Circle and had them all doing exactly as I told them!
Some venues were private houses, which was fine if we were in a large room in a small house. But in later years, during our time as Fittiefolk, we played for dancing in a fairly small room in a large mansion somewhere south of Aberdeen. Between dances the company spread throughout the house to different rooms; this meant that before each dance, I had to do a tour of the whole house to announce the next dance and wait for the takers to get back to the dancing room! And at one Hogmanay venue, we were allocated a conservatory with no chairs, tables or bar – just ourselves and an empty dancing space, a long corridor away from the main hall where there was entertainment, drinks, seating accommodation – the lot. I think we had takers for just two dances the whole evening!
Musical Memories – Part 12 - March 2020 (Year 43 No 07)
by Denis Shepherd
TO CONTINUE my account of my time as a dance caller with Airs & Graces (led by Alex Green and Madeline Miller), I must tell you about one ceilidh which was memorable for the wrong reasons! We had been booked at short notice to entertain a touring party of Turkish holidaymakers visiting the Craigendarroch Holiday Centre in Ballater. Only on arrival did we discover the reason: the booked band, who had played for them the previous year, had found out at the last minute that this would be the same party and refused point blank to perform!
On making our second equipment-carrying trip from the car to the function room, we discovered Madeline, still in her coat and holding the equipment from her first trip, being lectured by the woman in charge who had her index finger in full flow. "You will play La Cumparsita after we finish our meal . . ."
After setting up the band members, as was usual, retired to the lounge for sandwiches as we waited (supposedly) until the company was ready to begin the dance. The visitors, however, had other ideas. We were literally taking the first bite of our sandwiches when an urgent call came that the band must play during the whole meal! And when they said the whole meal, they meant the whole meal. Playing our sets of music one by one was not enough – it seemed they wanted us to play one long set and only stop when they ordered us to do so. Every time a pause came, the leader exclaimed, "Why have they stopped playing? We are paying them to play the whole time!"
The Gay Gordons is the dance that needs little or no explanation. In this instance, however, I called, explained, instructed and demonstrated the dance for two sets of tunes, after which they still had not a clue what they were doing! The remainder of the dance was no more successful: for instance, I managed to persuade just enough couples to form a small circle for the Friendly Waltz but, once it began, they all obviously forgot even the name of the dance and left the floor, couple by couple.
Alex later displayed his unbounded knowledge of musical culture by partly explaining their attitude: "In Turkey the musicians are regarded on a par with the lowest echelons of society." On discussing the evening with the staff afterwards, we were told: "You’re lucky, you've only had them for one evening. We've had to put up with them for three days!"
Most hiccups, admittedly, were not the fault of the punters. At one ceilidh in Ellon Alex had brought his standby keyboard for Esma Shepherd, who was standing in that night. When Alex discovered that a vital cable had been left in his cupboard in Aberdeen he uttered his infamous catch-phrase, “Ach, Madeline!” and promptly handed Esma his house and car keys to dash back to Aberdeen to get it (the reasoning being that this way the ceilidh could begin with only one instrument missing). Esma must have found the 30-mile round journey hair raising, driving at maximum speed an estate car which she had never driven before!
This reminds me of the time Fittefolk, my latter-day band, played as a trio at a private Hogmanay party at Inglismaldie near Laurencekirk. My “Menace” partner Harry Williamson, who usually stood in on keyboard on Hogmanay, was all set to drive us there but his car had a puncture, just after all the garages had closed for New Year. His car only had an emergency spare, to be used to get to a garage, but he decided to risk it – and fortune certainly favoured the brave. Not only did we have to drive miles along a rough private road, but we covered extra distance on the return journey, having lost our bearings as we left the venue. When Harry eventually went to a garage the mechanic said, “I hope you haven’t gone far on that tyre!”
“I just said I’d been here and there – I didn’t like to tell him I’d been to Inglismaldie!” Harry later told me.
Musical Memories – Part 13 - May 2020 (Year 43 No 09)
by Denis Shepherd
DURING my time as dance caller with Airs & Graces Ceilidh Band I often took (and still do) the opportunity to do a guest caller stint at other events. When my friend Grant got married in Glasgow in 1994 I asked the bandleader, accordionist and caller Paul Johnston, if I could call a couple of dances. Conversely, I noted for the future the details of two of his dances, one of which was the Circle Hornpipe - in fact I called this dance a couple of years ago at our editor Pia’s birthday ceilidh. The other was one he called the Drongo Dance which, with sets of 4 women and 5 men, can involve some physical conflict as the men “fight” for a partner each time the music stops! Grant and his wife Mairi later bumped into Paul at a non-musical event but he couldn’t remember having played at their wedding. However, when they mentioned their friend Denis had called some dances he immediately lit up: “Oh yes, I remember Denis!” I don’t think Mairi was too pleased that I had out-shone the bride, in the bandleader’s eyes at least.
I once also taught ceilidh dances in Germany! Two German students who visited our Folk Club one night were given accommodation by one of my colleagues, and as a result issued an invitation to visit Magdeburg. I took up the invitation and during my stay taught Houlihan’s jig and other dances at a party held in a students’ flat. The only snag was that I forgot to pack the John Ellis cassette I had looked out – and had to make do with one of their cassettes. In some cases the music started perfectly for ceilidh dancing – but then repeatedly increased in tempo before slowing down again. The dances had therefore to be adjusted accordingly!
Memories of the Airs & Graces era abound. More often than not, when we were relaxing over a drink and waiting to go on stage at various venues, the time was spent listening to anecdotes from band organisers Alex Green and Madeline Miller. One story was about the time Alex took part in auditions for the TV show Opportunity Knocks at the Station Hotel in Aberdeen. As he entered a staff member dashed up to him saying, “Can I take your coat, Mr Green?” Alex was for a fleeting moment feeling proud of his new celebrity status – until the staff member brushed past him to greet the show’s host, Hughie Green!
Alex would sometimes tell his more risqué stories, mostly to the male band members, during lulls between dances. On one occasion I had announced the Virginia Reel and was busy explaining the dance to the participants when Alex turned round and told a joke ‘on the sly’ about a girl called Virginia (suffice to say this girl had a nick-name). What Alex had forgotten was that this event was being videoed - and I still have that tape! At another ceilidh Madeline told us the money received was short of the agreed fee, admitting she had not counted it as soon as she had received it (which evoked the usual Alex response, “Ach, Madeline!”). The organisers were adamant they had paid the right amount – and Madeline later found the shortfall stuck down the inside of her bag! Drummer Alistair Pirie once reversed (whilst perfectly sober) into a deep ditch surrounding the unlit tennis courts, and as we left Pittodrie House Hotel all we could see was the nose of his car sticking in the air and no sign of the rear end! Luckily we soon had him back up on his wheels and away.
But I was not immune to embarrassing moments either. At a birthday party at the Northern Hotel, I was helping to set up on stage whilst also liaising with the organisers about their plans – taking the direct route each time to get to the other end of the hall, i.e. jumping off the stage. Setting off on one trip, I did not notice that there was a cable round one of my feet, and in a split second the band’s condensed PA system and all its accoutrements were spread over the floor. By good luck there was no harm done and once re-assembled, everything was working perfectly including me.
Alex sometimes involved some of the band members in concerts at residential homes etc. On one of these occasions another entertainer kept expressing his disappointment that his son had not turned up to see him perform despite having promised to do so. "He has probably been called out to work," said Alex. "After all, he is an undertaker - what if someone has just died?"
"Ach, they wid still be deid in the mornin'!" retorted the fellow.
Musical Memories – Part 14 - July 2020 (Year 43 No 11)
by Denis Shepherd
IN 1998 Alex Green and Madeline Miller had decided to go into semi-retirement as entertainers and move house to Portknockie. I volunteered to keep the ceilidh band (of which I was the caller) going, although it would have to be renamed because they intended to carry on doing small gigs by themselves around Portknockie as Airs & Graces, a name Alex had created from his own initials. (We’ll dee ony gig as lang as there’s nae humph involved,” he said.) This heralded, for me, the end of one era and the start of another.
So I set out on the arduous task of re-forming the band, organising sets of music and scheduling rehearsals – as well as finding a new name! I came up with a few suggestions and the name Fittiefolk (from Harry Gordon’s song The Auldest Aiberdonian) was unanimously voted in. In an attempt to create a similar sound to Airs & Graces I recruited a whistle player and an accordionist.
As a result, Fittefolk became probably the only ceilidh band in the North East to boast a musician who had played on a world-wide No.1 hit! David Dow, a colleague from the Folk Club and TMSA, played guitar, flute and whistle as well as being a singer and had been a member of the military band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards at the recording of their big hit, Amazing Grace. David encouraged Fittiefolk to introduce singing to the music for some of the popular dances. After a few years he left and was replaced by Mark Lammas, a well-known local flautist and whistle player.
And whilst I was doing my ‘first-fittin’’ visits around Kildrummy, I was told of a young accordionist from Strathdon called Charles Coutts. I promptly got in touch and recruited him, without having heard or even met him – and I was not disappointed. He was so keen to get started, he arrived sharp at another band member’s house for his first rehearsal – and they were on to their third set before I arrived! And in true Scottish style it soon transpired that we were related – his uncle was married to my cousin. Charles was on the point of starting a course at Aberdeen University which made him readily available. Playing with a ceilidh band opened his eyes in some respects. After our first booking I gave him a lift and left his share of the fee beside the car seat. When he picked it up he asked, “How much of this is for me?” Charles eventually graduated and relocated to Reading. His seat was then filled by experienced accordionist Mhairi Shand, who had occasionally stood in with Airs & Graces.
So Charles and David joined the other former Airs and Graces players – Susan Simpson (fiddle), Frank Stephen (keyboard) and Alistair Pirie (drums) - for a successful first Fittiefolk ceilidh in Aberdeen‘s Station Hotel. But my otherwise happy memories of the event are tinged with sadness. When we arrived Alistair said jokingly that he had that day been attacked with a hammer – by himself! Apparently he had been doing some DIY work when the hammer had unexpectedly bounced back into his jaw, breaking some teeth. This did not affect his playing, but nobody expected what was to follow over the next couple of years. Complications led to the loss of an eye and ultimately to his passing – but he carried on with Fittiefolk for most of this spell. Brian Watt, whom I later met at Aberdeen Accordion and Fiddle Club, then became our drummer.
The Airs & Graces Ceilidh Band, however, had one final fling at an event in Newmachar, where Alex and Madeline joined us for the last time. To mark the changeover, David and Charles also attended and after the interval a few dances were played by the new band Fittiefolk.
Regardless of the line-up, there were always some Alex influences in the band. We continued to use many of the sets of music he and Madeline had put together (although for the Circle Hornpipe Charles replaced the Primrose Polka with the Patchwork Polka). Before copying the sheets I printed in large capitals, with a marker pen, the names of the dances across the top. People were often amused to see the words “DASHING FITE SERGEANT” – the second word being one of Alex’s favourite Doric words!
Musical Memories – Part 15 - August 2020 (Year 43 No 12)
by Denis Shepherd
THE FITTIEFOLK Ceilidh Band was launched in 1998 and, 22 years later, is still available on request. It is always a pleasure to be told by the leading lights at weddings, birthday parties etc. that we have given them a memorable experience of one of the highlights of their lives.
And it is well known that ceilidh dancing also brings people together - sometimes permanently. Sadly, it was the reverse in the case of one of the early Fittiefolk bookings, made by a friend, Murdo, on behalf of a couple celebrating their silver wedding anniversary. The couple had requested that we play some slow romantic dances to consolidate their relationship, and asked specifically that we include two songs: the classic hit Unchained Melody and Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight. I dug out music for the band and David Dow sang them perfectly. When I happened to ask Murdo some six months later how the silver wedding couple were doing, he replied: “Oh, them – they’ve split up!”
However, in common with most other bands, Fittiefolk did sometimes bring musicians together! At a Christmas ceilidh at Alford Academy, well-known bandleader Frank Thomson replaced our accordionist Charles Coutts who was busy with university exams. Frank struck up a rapport with our drummer Brian Watt and they went on to appear as a guest duo at accordion and fiddle clubs.
This Alford dance, organised by senior pupils, brought to mind a saying about best laid plans. When they returned their contract, the pupils enclosed an order of ceremony for the dances. So instead of having to search for music during the evening, the band members could, in theory, have their sheets all ready in the correct order. But as soon as we arrived, the pupils handed me a folder and said the programme had been completely re-vamped, so we could ignore the previous one! So the musicians still had to scramble for their sheets of music before each dance – and by now, of course, the sheets were no longer all in alphabetical order!
A more serious hiccup almost occurred when we were to play at a private function in the Station Hotel, Portsoy: it was nearly time to begin and there was no sign of whistle player Mark Lammas, who by then had replaced David Dow. I phoned his mobile asking where he was, only to be told, “The Station Hotel in Aberdeen!” He must have clocked a personal best in his car as he arrived in Portsoy half-an-hour later. We would probably not have made such a good impression on the host family with a musician missing; however, they liked us so much they later booked us for another family function in Banff, and also for a wedding in Aviemore. Mind you, the latter was only after some negotiation: they insisted on paying us a higher fee than I was asking for!
There was no fee negotiation when Fittiefolk were booked by the SNP for a function in the Northern Hotel to mark the re-election of Richard Lochhead to the Scottish Parliament. The highlight I remember was sharing the stage with Alex Salmond as he related his inside stories about the leading characters in Westminster! However, we had to haggle to get a cup of tea at the interval – the staff said the tea and sandwiches had been ordered for everyone except the band. Eventually the hotel said we could have some as long as we kept it quiet. Before we could start the ceilidh we also had to explain to the organisers that they would need to clear the table used for the formalities from the dance floor.
In contrast, there was food aplenty for the band when we played at a wedding at an Indian restaurant – but that is not to say we got it! As we arrived, the guests were getting through a lavish meal and we looked forward to the food that the groom had arranged for us to have after the ceilidh. But as soon as our food was laid out – and before we could get to it - the guests, having not long finished their own, formed a queue to help themselves to yet another feast!
At that same wedding, health and safety regulations prevented any dancing in the dancing area, which therefore became the seating area. The dancing took place in the bar area – and we were stuck in the middle! This meant the caller (me) had to face one way to address the dancers and another to address the seated guests. We set the speakers for the dancers to hear the band – which meant that when guests game up to sing or recite their party pieces, the sound of their voices was carried away from the audience!
Musical Memories – Part 16 - September 2020 (Year 44 No 01)
by Denis Shepherd
UNTIL a few years ago all ceilidh bands could be assured of a Hogmanay booking – and Fittiefolk was no exception. And we had a lot of interesting experiences!
On two successive Hogmanays we played at a coastal hotel near Peterhead. The first was uneventful but the second was quite memorable – and not for all the right reasons. Keyboard player Harry Williamson (a Fittiefolk member only on Hogmanays) gave me a lift but a storm had blown in that day and we found ourselves struggling through six inches of sleety snow – and that was before we got out of Aberdeen! Harry had left it till the last minute to get his keyboard repaired by someone in the highest part of Westhill and we had to pick it up on the way to Peterhead. As we were about to set off from the repairer’s I said, half-jokingly, “Did he remember to give you the power lead so that you can plug it in?” It was lucky I did – it saved a second journey to the highest part of Westhill!
When we got to Peterhead there was no snow but plenty of wind. When we left the car it needed all of our combined strength to prevent the keyboard from being blown into the North Sea! As we set up in the function room at the back of the hotel, we noticed the radiators were still cold and assumed the room would gradually heat up once they were switched on. But they never were – the room just got colder and colder. And as people went through to the hotel proper and discovered it was nice and warm there, they simply ‘forgot’ to come back to the ceilidh. We could have gone home early – but for two couples who were determined to get their money’s worth and stuck it out to the bitter end.
At another venue on Deeside the manager put the three of us – myself, Harry and Mark Lammas - in a small room behind closed doors and said those who wanted to dance would find us. The floor was barely big enough to dance on and it transpired that those sitting in the dozen or so chairs only wanted to be entertained. Luckily we had a big repertoire though not the one we had expected to use on Hogmanay! At some point the punters in the lounge opened the door to see what was going on – and hastily shut it again! Then, as we left at the end of the evening, the manager said, “I have a big room through the house where we could have had space for everyone and room for dancing.” Thanks for telling us!
We played a few Hogmanays at another Deeside venue where in contrast everyone was in the same village hall, picnicking and dancing. This venue had only a temporary stage, assembled for each occasion, and its stability left a lot to be desired. As it was a tight fit for a full ceilidh band, Harry pushed the back of his chair close against the wall – closer, in fact, than the section of stage under him. At the end of one dance there was a loud crash and no sign of Harry – apart from his feet sticking up behind the keyboard!
I find that having been a caller makes me appreciate the calling at other ceilidhs that I go to – whether good or bad. One instance of the latter was when a caller at a big event in the Beach Ballroom in Aberdeen announced the Swedish Masquerade and then asked a couple to demonstrate it – which they did, closely watched by all those who were keen to learn it. When they had finished, the caller said: “Thank you very much; that was an excellent demonstration. However, that’s not the way we’re going to do it tonight.” Talk about confusing people! The safest ploy, in my opinion, is for the caller to demonstrate the dance himself!
I enjoy singing to certain dances which do not need to be called; this was something I began after David Dow, who had introduced singing to the band, left. And at 11.55pm every Hogmanay, wherever I may be, I think of all the Fittiefolk Hogmanay gigs of the past and feel I should be singing He’ll Have to Go, as I did every time to get people in a romantic mood before the bells.
Another song I introduced was Lassie Come and Dance with Me – this was a result of my earliest dancing experiences, doing the Boston Two Step to Michael McKay’s Band, with this very song being sung by fiddler and guitarist Tommy McDonald. In more recent years I have done a few ceilidh dance calling jobs with Michael’s current band Country Edition and on one occasion I actually sang this song for a Boston Two Step. I later realised this had great significance: this was essentially the same legendary band that I had learned the song from nearly half-a-century earlier!
Musical Memories – Part 17 - November 2020 (Year 44 No 03)
by Denis Shepherd
Tuesday 21st June 2005 marked a significant turning point in my music and entertainment career. This was the date of a routine monthly TMSA session, but on this occasion I not only sang a song but also played a couple of tunes on the mouth-organ. These were Leaving Barra and Lochanside and this was the first time I had played the instrument in public (and these were probably the only tunes I could play!).
I now have a somewhat larger repertoire but this does not include Donald Ian Rankine, the first tune I could almost play on my plastic moothie as a youngster. I was familiar with lots of tunes from the radio and records but I did not know then that you have to suck and blow alternately to play the scale; so I just blew and the notes that came out happened to be the first line of that tune! Of course, I now realise this would be one of the more difficult tunes to play, unless you have a huge lung capacity.
But mouth-organ and other music had never been far away throughout my younger years. My dad Jimmy Shepherd, as well as being an accordionist, was also a proficient moothie player. When the cassette player became popular he was always happy to let me record him playing a tune. However, during the 1972 Olympics I had also recorded (I’ve no idea why) one of the star TV performances of Olga Korbut, the young Soviet gymnast. Dad was taken aback when I played back his tune: it was followed by a BBC voice saying excitedly, “My goodness! That was quite fantastic!” followed by several minutes of solid applause. He couldn’t stop laughing!
Later in life, after joining the Folk Club and TMSA, I got to know the top local moothie players of the time: Arthur Middleton, Tony Shearer and Betty Burnett. As neither Arthur nor Betty drove, I often gave one or other a lift to events and I got to know them and their music well; I later composed a tune called Betty and Arthur and Dad (see back page) which, written after both of them and my dad had all passed away, was dedicated to the three people who had inspired me to start playing the moothie seriously. Although this is a tune rather than a song, the last two bars of each measure lend themselves to the words of the title and it has been a thrill for me on occasions, whilst playing the tune, to hear whole rooms of people singing, “Betty and Arthur and Dad!” In his later years Dad did eventually hear my unique version of the Hen’s Mairch and I was quite chuffed when he said it was the only tune I could play better then he could.
Although Betty and Arthur never heard me playing in a competition, I often heard them do. In those days there was usually a large field of top-class moothie players and both Arthur and Betty took their competitions very seriously. Arthur was always proud of his trophies upon which his name was engraved. Little did I realise then, being a non-player, that many years later I would be lucky enough to have my name engraved under his.
At one event Betty took her competition slightly too seriously. At the now discontinued May Day weekend competitions at Cullerlie Farm Park, held mainly in marquees, she did not get the result she had expected and, when she went up to be presented with her certificate and score-sheet, she showed her displeasure with a display of violence - no, not by attacking the judge but by crumpling up these documents with all the strength she could muster in her hands! Of course, most people got to hear about this, as became evident a year later when I gave Betty a lift to Cullerlie. As we sat in the tearoom, she suddenly realised the time for the moothie competition was fast approaching and dashed off, saying, “I’d better go and brush my teeth.” Just loud enough for her not to hear, I said: “You’d better sharpen them as well!” This raised some knowing laughter from the others at the table.
Arthur told me many stories about competitions of the past, such as the time a bothy ballad singer was disqualified because he wore spectacles (“Faun did ye ivver see a bothy man weerin’ glaisses!” the judge had said). But his favourite was of the time the mouth-organ judge had forgotten his packed lunch and one of the competitors had given him a ham sandwich. The latter was placed second, and this led him to dream of what might have been – if only he had put mustard in the sandwich!
One of my own favourite stories is about a singing competition - again concerning the Cullerlie event, at which I was pleasantly surprised to be placed second in the traditional singing. I sang Drumallochie, a song I had learned many years earlier from the singing of Cullerlie legend Tam Reid. The judge, Tam’s wife Anne, said she had never heard me sing it so well. There was a logical explanation. Just as I started to sing a mighty hailstorm hit the tent, and I had to belt out the song with all my strength just to be able to hear myself!.
Musical Memories – Part 18 - February 2022 (Year 45 No 02)
by Denis Shepherd
ONE of the influences leading me to start playing the mouth organ in 2005 was Arthur Middleton, whom I used to meet at Aberdeen Accordion and Fiddle Club and Aberdeen Folk Club. I often acted as Arthur’s chauffeur and therefore attended many events with him before I had even thought of taking up the instrument myself. When he was asked to do a concert for pensioners or people in sheltered housing, he often asked my duo, Denis and the Menace, to support him; our singing, verse and piano complemented his playing, with Menace Harry Williamson providing accompaniment to him as well as me.
Arthur was one of the top in his field – not only in Aberdeen, Scotland and Britain but also in the world. This is official: when he competed in the world championships in Hamburg, he gained a ‘highly recommended’ certificate for being placed in the top ten. One of the guests there was Larry Adler, the world-famous American mouth-organ player and an acquaintance of Arthur, who said of his Hamburg experience: “At the evening concert, Larry Adler came on to play – and brought the house down. Then I came on to play, in my full highland outfit – and brought the house down again!”
I am proud to say that I played a small part in getting Arthur to Hamburg, by helping to raise funds for the trip. One of my innovations was an anagram competition in which the answers were the names of tunes or songs included in Arthur’s repertoire. Can you guess this one? - HOLY PIG-DUNG, EH, TOBY! (Answer at the bottom.) After this, any time that Arthur and I were at an event where someone started to sing or play this song, we would look at each other and say, “Holy pig-dung, eh, Toby!” and burst out laughing. People around us thought we had completely lost the plot!
Arthur’s repertoire of jokes was not nearly as big as his repertoire of tunes. He invariably talked about the time he announced a Burns tune and was met with the reaction, “Burns! That fine Jewish gentleman!” because the people concerned had thought his name was Rabbi Burns. And his performances invariably included a story about his childhood days in Whitehouse, near Alford, complete with sound effects (played on the mouth-organ) of the hens, the fire engine and the steam train. Of course, Arthur was also famous for inventing the ‘Bon-a-Chord Blasterdiddle’ – a hand-held vacuum cleaner with a mouth-organ taped on to it, which gave the impression of bagpipes droning while he played another mouth-organ held in his other hand. This was always preceded by a long story about wanting to play the bagpipes as a boy – but knowing the price of pipes, his dad had presented him instead with a vacuum cleaner.
Arthur never heard me play the mouth-organ but in more recent years I played at a concert organised by his widow, Eveline, and was surprised but delighted to receive a couple of Arthur’s mouth-organs from her. I think my moothie playing has gone down better than my limited bagpipe playing did in my younger days. As a student I spent part of my first charities week playing my pipes in Union Street, dressed in a Chinese hat, tie-dye shirt and grass skirt (fortunately I have no photos of this). On reflection it perhaps wasn’t a good idea to get them tuned up at 7.30am – especially as I lodged in a large boarding house. Doug, my late friend and room-mate, and I always used to recall the morning that a fellow boarder, a college lecturer, came into the room saying: “Look, boys, there are people asleep downstairs” – whilst all the time, long after I had stopped playing, my drones were groaning in a non-melodic fashion!
But I do have an unusual entry in my moothie CV. One of the duties I performed regularly as an athletics official was that of announcer at Scottish championships, including the indoor events which were then held in Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall. At one such meeting Isobel Dunkeld, a dedicated administration official for the past half-century, was celebrating her 88th birthday and I was asked to announce this as she was presented with a cake during a lull in proceedings. I was also to encourage the singing of Happy Birthday to You. But I went one better: I reached for my bag, which happened to have a mouth-organ in it, and played it through the PA as everyone sang. I don’t know if any other mouth-organ players can say they have performed in the Kelvin Hall!
Anagram solution: The Dying Ploughboy
Photos
Arthur and Denis
Larry Adler
Isobel Dunkeld
Arthur with Tam Reid and Madeline Miller
Musical Memories – Part 19 - March 2022 (Year 45 No 03)
by Denis Shepherd
IN the course of my various activities, I have met many top performers. This is partly because of my membership of the Aberdeen Folk Club and TMSA committees, including spells as entertainment organiser. I remember phoning John Ellis to ask his Highland Country Band to play for a Folk Club ceilidh dance during the Alternative Festival, and he was delighted to accept. The other committee members found it funny when I told them that he had said he would reduce his fee on account of its being part of the Festival. With most artists the opposite was the case! For another ceilidh I booked Wayne Robertson because I had heard him for the first time on Take the Floor and liked the sound of his band. Many years later, when he was a guest at Aberdeen Accordion and Fiddle Club, I was about to remind him about this ceilidh and to re-introduce myself when he spotted me and called, “Hello, Denis!”
In my early days at Aberdeen Folk Club, one of the regular guests was Irish singer Fil Campbell, who still tours with her husband Tom McFarland. It just happened that I was one of the ‘floor’ singers the first time she came to Aberdeen, and I sang one of my Doric songs. When she returned the following year, she asked me to sing that Doric song again and I was delighted that she had liked my rendition. It thus became a tradition that every time she was a guest, I did a floor spot in Doric for her. I even went to Montrose Folk Club to do so when she was a guest there! It was only many years later that I discovered the reason she had first asked me to sing that song again: she hadn’t understood a word of it the first time!
But Fil was not the only famous Campbell to visit Aberdeen Folk Club. On one occasion, we wondered who was responsible for the deep but melodic chorus singing which, coming from a certain table, was almost drowning out everyone else. It turned out this was Ian Campbell of the legendary Ian Campbell Folk Group of the 1960s, who had come along with some of his sons (who were to go on to form the band UB40). On a separate occasion I saw the former Ian Campbell fiddler, Dave Swarbrick, perform a solo concert in the Aberdeen Arts Centre. As many people will remember, Dave was a chain smoker and simply had to light up after each number (this was long before the banning of smoking in public buildings). I don’t know if he had been planning on any audience interaction; but, after finding his packet empty, he had to ask audience members to throw him cigarettes so that he could carry on playing!
Another performer who provided some amusing interaction was singer/guitarist John James. During his act at the Folk Club in the Three Poceros, a lady inadvertently went into the wrong toilet. On emerging she hoped for the error to go unnoticed; but John James stopped singing mid-song and announced: “She went into the gents!”
At another concert I attended, the interaction came purely from the audience – or rather one member of the audience. Mark Lammas, whistle player in my ceilidh band Fittiefolk, also played flute in the Grampian Concert Orchestra and had persuaded me to buy a ticket for their recital in Ferryhill Church. A fair proportion of the audience comprised spouses and children of the musicians on stage. At the end of the first piece of music the players gathered themselves for the start of the next and the conductor, on satisfying himself they were all ready, raised the baton high; but a split second before it was to drop to signal the first note, “Go!” rang out from a little girl in the front row. Everyone fell about laughing and the musicians had to compose themselves all over again.
In the case of Dave Berry, the veteran 1960s singer, the interaction from an audience member at one concert came after the show had finished. Dave tours regularly in the famous Sixties shows and his patter between songs inevitably includes something to the effect: “I always look back fondly on our visits to Aberdeen in the 60s and how you were all so good to us. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some of my sons and daughters in the audience here tonight!” Presumably he uses this gag at all relevant concert venues (I have heard him do so in Dundee) but at this event someone really thought he was demeaning the Aberdeen girls of the era. I had to wait for ages to talk to him at his stall in the Music Hall foyer because the woman in front of me was busy giving him a piece of her mind over this remark!
Photos
Wayne Robertson
Fil Campbell and Tom McFarland
Dave Berry
Dave Swarbrick (by Bryan Ledgard - https://www.flickr.com/photos/)
Musical Memories – Part 20 - April 2022 (Year 45 No 04)
by Denis Shepherd
I have told you about some of the musicians whom I have met for various reasons; but I have also had some encounters that could not have been foreseen.
In 1964 I used to watch the latest No.1 song, I’m Into Something Good, performed on Top of the Pops by Herman’s Hermits, who were fronted by 16-year-old Peter Noone – now, of course, a world-famous singer and actor. Little did I realise that 48 years later I would land up walking along the street and chatting with him! I had just come out at the back door of the Music Hall after a 60s show when a voice said, “Excuse me, can you tell me if this street takes me to Union Street?” In the dim lighting I could just make out the figure with the wheeled suitcase was none other than Peter Noone, who had been singing in the concert. I walked with him towards his hotel and found him very polite and unassuming: “My name is Peter,” he said! (I recently discovered one of the reasons we got on so well is that his middle name is Denis.) On the way he said he was fascinated by the Aberdeen architecture; I then pointed out the Boys’ Brigade HQ, the building where I competed in the annual TMSA competitions including Doric song and verse. He had never heard of Doric but he took a note of it in his phone so that he could look it up later. I don’t know if he did – he has never mentioned it in subsequent concerts!
Another weekly tea-time TV programme, which the whole family used to watch, was Strictly Scottish, featuring the Jack Sinclair Showband. One of the musicians was Alex Green, whose band Airs & Graces I was many years later to join as caller. And one evening, as Jack Sinclair and Frank Thomson played an accordion duet, my dad said, “That’s my banker!” Sure enough, Frank was a banker by profession and at that time was based in the Alford branch where Dad had his business account. And one night many years later, I followed in Dad’s footsteps by handing over a sum of money to Frank in Alford – I had hired him to play in my band Fittiefolk at Alford Academy!
I have never seen Arbroath’s Foundry Bar Band on TV but in their day I saw them play at several venues. One busy weekend, when I had engagements as an athletics official in Grangemouth and as caller with Airs & Graces at Glamis, my mum arranged for me to stay overnight with her cousin and her husband in Letham near Forfar, so that I would not lose sleep by driving to Aberdeen and then back to Grangemouth in the morning. This was perfectly logical – except that my host turned out to be Sandy Beattie, double bass player in the Foundry Bar Band. Sleep was lost anyway as we spent half the night exchanging musical memories, with Sandy telling me about all the musicians he had played with, including Sir Jimmy Shand.
Much earlier in life (early primary school, to be precise) I met three performers without knowing who they were! Victor Davidson, Sandy Michie and George Smith were well-known local entertainers in upper Donside and they had come to do a spot at a Burns supper for the pupils of Kildrummy School. Their act included the Burns song Willie Brew’d a Peck O’ Maut, during which they sat with a whisky bottle round the teacher’s table, dressed in woollen ‘touries,’ and later in the song slipped to the floor, apparently in a drunken stupor. Owing to my inferior stature and the layout of the classroom desks they at this point disappeared from my view – and I missed what my sister thought was the funniest part (she was older and closer to the action). Sandy Michie was known for his distinctive nose, and when his ‘tourie,’ whether by accident or by design, slipped down over his face as he lay on the floor, all that could be seen was his nose sticking through a hole at the top! Several years later, on Bothy Nichts on TV, I heard Sandy singing a song about an Alford farmer’s potato harvest. I stole his chorus (“Fa’ll gither this dreel, fa’ll gither noo ...”) and wrote my own verses about my dad’s tatties, featuring some of the local characters as well as Dad’s rather worse-for-wear tattie-digger. Jimmy Shepherd’s Tatties still features in my repertoire – and the digger is still alive and residing at Birkenhill near Elgin.
Victor Davidson still features in my memories too. I am occasionally asked to address
the haggis; and when I come to the last line, ‘Gi’e her a haggis!’ I always visualise Victor, whilst performing the task many years ago in The Wee Kildrummy Inn, at this point tossing the haggis to the ceiling and catching it again on the plate, before it is taken away by the proprietor to be cut up. I have always had to resist the temptation to do the same – partly because I have already cut the haggis open by then.
Photos
Peter Noone
Foundry Bar Band with Sandy Beattie (back row, centre)
Messrs Smith, Davidson and Michie (acknowledge sources as http://www.alfordimages.com and Alford Heritage Centre)
Tattie digger immortalised in song by Ian Law
Frank Thomson
Musical Memories – Part 21 - May 2022 (Year 45 No 05)
by Denis Shepherd
AT the start of Musical Memories, I told you about my early interest in the 78rpm records. My favourite song was Ye Canna Pit It On Tae Sandy by Willie Kemp, and I knew all the words before I could read – apart from the first four lines. As far as I was concerned the song began with “their mither” – the first words you heard when you lifted the needle arm past the broken bit on the edge of the record. Many years later I found out what the missing part was, the fourth line being “But they’ve mair need o’ their mither.” So when I sing the song nowadays, I automatically change tone at “their mither.” For the same reason, when I sing the other song on that record (where there was a scratch which made the needle jump), I have to stop myself at one point from singing, “At the bottom o’ oor stair ..stair ..stair ...stair...”
And so to the present day. I often take part in Scottish variety concerts with one or two other artists and a lot of my items, whether consciously or not, are based on my musical memories, including those of the aforementioned ‘78s.’ Another of these records was The Auldest Aiberdonian by Harry Gordon; and years later I sang this at a Grampian Health Board Christmas party cabaret (complete with white beard and walking stick, and with the lyrics doctored to cover Health Board matters). The lines, “I can mind afore there wis a helicopter pad;/For patients wi’ a parachute it wisna quite sae bad!” raised quite a few laughs, but not as many as the part which went: “I can mind Buff Hardie actin’ in a travellin’ show;/He charged ye for admission so of coorse I didna go!” – because the late Buff Hardie, well known for his acting in the Scotland The What sketches, also happened to be Secretary to the Health Board and therefore our senior boss! The downside of being one of the ‘GHB Thespians’ was that I was obliged to take part in other musical items definitely not emanating from my memories, such as a song-and-dance routine purported to be a commercial for ‘elasticated nappies’ (again in the appropriate dress!).
I was also a fan of the traditional dance music records, mainly those of the Jim Cameron and Jimmy Shand bands, and it was a big day for me when the family procured (at a cost of 6/8 – 33 pence nowadays) a new record titled simply Irish Jigs by Jimmy Shand. I don’t recall our having a record of Ian Powrie and his Band, so the first time I heard them was at a concert in the Lonach Hall in Strathdon. As the band launched into its opening set, I noticed a seemingly spare accordion on the left side of the stage; but half-way through the number, Mickie Ainsworth calmly sauntered on stage, strapped on this box and joined in. A few numbers later, other band members were having great fun at his expense. At my tender age this was a bit much and I was glad when a much less boisterous lady singer came on! When I eventually saw the band on The White Heather Club on TV, I wondered why they did nothing but play music. So if you ever see anything funny, unusual or frightening during my musical items, you can probably blame it on seeing the Ian Powrie Band live! However, there was one item in The White Heather Club that I found amusing enough to include in my repertoire in later years, and it was always performed in the Hogmanay edition (this was the only night of the year I was allowed to stay up until midnight). As Duncan MacRae sang The Wee Cock Sparra, my dad (being a farmer) once made the remark: “Ye could drive a tractor and cairt through that moo o’ his!” Another Lonach concert, quite a few years later, featured pianist Annie Shand-Scott, whom I had known as Annie Shand on another of my favourite ‘78s,’ Merrily Dance the Quaker’s Wife. She had not lost her unique rhythmic style and as I listened, I could re-live my distant childhood for a few minutes.
I again witnessed a blend of music and comedy in the 1962 Calum Kennedy Show in the Tivoli Theatre, when Calum forcibly persuaded the Irish comedian Sammy Short to reveal what he wore under his kilt – and Short took great delight in showing us a tiny pleated kilt. Shortly after this, Calum used the same sketch on his TV show; but as Sammy Short was not in the show, the part fell to accordionist Will Starr. But his ‘underkilt’ was not nearly as short as Short’s – and he did not appear to display it with the same relish!
20 years later, I re-enacted this sketch in my own act – but the first occasion was not a concert but Glenurquhart Highland Games, after I had run in the ‘Auld Scottish’ kilted race. I did go on to perform this revelation sometimes on stage, when I recited my poem My First Auld Scottish. But from Short’s short kilt to short shorts: I once watched the resurrected 60s group, Freddie and the Dreamers, perform Who Wears Short Shorts in the Music Hall in Aberdeen, and during the instrumental interlude Freddie went round the band pulling down their trousers to reveal their brightly coloured boxer shorts. When he came to the lead guitarist he got it slightly wrong and pulled his boxer shorts down too; the guitarist had no option but to carry on playing, but with a less than contented expression. This is definitely one item I have no intention of introducing to my concerts!
Photos
Buff Hardie
The Auldest Aiberdonian
Elasticated Nappies
Mickie Ainsworth or Powrie Band– Pia?
Calum Kennedy – Pia?
Glenurquhart Games
Musical Memories – Part 22 - October 2022 (Year 46 No 01)
by Denis Shepherd
As a child I never missed an opportunity to impersonate artists – or anyone else for that matter. Nowadays young people sometimes play ‘air guitar;’ but, after seeing Will Starr as a youngster, I used to play ‘air accordion’! Adopting the Starr scowl, I used to turn and kick one leg behind me, as Starr always did. At one concert, I remember one bright spark shouting, “Both at once please!”
When Freddie and the Dreamers sang their hit, You Were Made for Me, on TV, Freddie Garrity used to leap about or kneel non-stop. Now this was something for me to impersonate! While in primary 7 I used to spend ‘play-times’ leaping about in the street and attempting to sing this song. Unfortunately, the only girl who took the slightest interest was not one of those I had hoped would be awed. I attempted to impersonate other artists by looking like them; for instance, I got a crew cut in 1962 to emulate Joe Brown. A few years on I wore the woollen hat and side-swept hairstyle of Mike Nesmith of the Monkees – and I was chuffed when a girl at school told me I looked like a Monkee (at least that’s what I hope she meant!).
Many of the tunes I play now on the moothie can be linked to certain performers. One which always goes down well is the Hen’s Mairch Ower the Midden which I once saw fiddler Ron Kerr play on TV. After taking up the mouth-organ I wondered if I could make as good chicken-clucking noises as he could, and over the years I think I have just about managed it. Similarly, when playing the Charlie Hunter tune The Hills of Lorne I automatically think of Jimmy MacFarlane playing it on the Jim MacLeod Band Show, while Harvest Home Hornpipe evokes memories of Scotch Corner and Jimmy Blue.
The family used to have an annual outing to the Lonach Games in Strathdon. When the Lonach Pipe Band led the Highlanders round the arena at 3pm their anthem was, and still is, The Pibroch o’ Donald Dhu. Even now I can’t play the tune without visualising the Lonach Games in days of old!
My most vivid memory of my first visit to Aberdeen Folk Club in 1985 is of Huntly bothy ballad singer Frank McNally reciting a poem called The New Tractor. Mimicking the actions of someone sitting on a runaway tractor, he accidentally knocked the microphone loose and as it sank to the floor he simply lowered his body accordingly, with no interruption to his delivery. The tractor salesman in the poem was known by his initials, WPDI, to which I attached no significance – until several years later when it transpired this was my cousin Sheena’s father-in-law, William Innes, who had co-written the poem. Thanks to Sheena, and to Robbie Shepherd who had given her the words which she passed to me, the poem is now firmly in my repertoire. It was very satisfying to be told by a lady at a recent concert: “Thanks for doing that poem – my dad used to recite it!”
However, I have always enjoyed a wide variety of performances without necessarily looking for something to perform myself. In 1962 I started to pay attention to the Top 20 and I started to be interested in the 45rpm records. Eventually the long-awaited Dansette record-player arrived, by which time the family already had our first ‘45s’ waiting to be played – mine including the Shadows’ Guitar Tango. The B-side, titled What a Lovely Tune, consisted of a one-sided posh conversation with the music in the background (the speaker was trying to woo a girl he had taken aside during a dance) and I used to impersonate parts of this when helping my mum to entertain visitors: “Would you like a cup of tea? Milk? Sugar? No you don’t, do you! Never mind.” At the age of 10 I tipped an unknown group, the Beatles, for stardom after hearing their first release, Love Me Do; and later in life I correctly identified Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by obscure Scottish band Scottish band Middle of the Road as a future No.1.
My dad, being a dance band accordionist and moothie player, did not have a universal admiration of modern songs. He changed the name of American singer Tommy Roe to Tommy Rot, and referred to Alan Price, who sang Hi-Lili Hi-Lo, as “yon affa’ roarin’ manny.” However, when he heard Edelweiss (from The Sound of Music) sung by Vince Hill on Top of the Pops, it became one of his favourite tunes to play on the moothie. In the 1970s, with my resurged interest in Scottish dance music coinciding with the acquisition of my first cassette player, I regularly taped the Scottish Dance Music (later Take the Floor) programmes. These recordings were frequently of low sound quality, owing to a combination of bad radio reception, poor microphone pickup and failing batteries; therefore, when Dad heard my recording of Alastair Hunter’s band playing The Banjo Breakdown, he remarked: “That soonds jist like a thrashin’ mill bummin’.”
In 1974 Will Clark, of the previously mentioned James Hay Trio, and I ventured to the prize-winners’ concert at the Perth Accordion Festival. It was the first time I had seen some of the broadcasting players of that era. Because of the harvest, my parents had to decline their tickets and we gave them to friends of theirs, Jim and Annie, from Abernethy near Perth. The first artist featured was 13-year-old junior winner Gordon Pattullo playing Edgefold House, which we heard several times that night – and every time I hear this tune I still think of Perth and Gordon Pattullo. The senior winner was James Lindsay and I remember Will commenting on his light touch on the keys, but the special guest was the Norwegian Toralf Tollefsen. Afterwards, we asked our guests if they had enjoyed the concert.
“Well, tae tell you the truth,” said Jim in his thick Fife accent, “nae really. I had a sair back and a sair backside – and fit’s mair, I think Tollefsen overstayed his welcome!”
No accounting for taste then, eh?
Photos
Freddie Garritty
Will Starr – Pia?
Joe Brown fan
Gordon Pattullo – Pia?
Toralf Tollefsen
Musical Memories – Part 23 - November 2022 (Year 46 No 02)
by Denis Shepherd
In recent Box & Fiddle magazines I have extracted from my memories a variety of musical experiences from records, TV and live shows – and last time I hinted that the best bits were sometimes what could be seen only at the live performances.
I have seen several concerts over many years featuring Richard Thompson, the legendary English folk singer/songwriter/guitarist. The first was a one-man show at the Metro Hotel in Aberdeen, and it literally was only one man: the singer and his equipment, with not a roadie, sound man or technician in sight. This could have spelt disaster for a lesser performer when, at the end of one song, a string snapped. But the show didn’t stop, even though Thompson had only one guitar with him. Without flinching he changed the string himself, and while doing so he sang an unaccompanied song - not a folk ballad, but the Beatles song Twist and Shout! Later in his career he had a much bigger audience in the Music Hall, where one of his most popular numbers was Don’t Sit on my Jimmy Shands, a song about the joys of dancing to the Shand music at a party whilst mindful of the fragility of the 78rpm records. As he finished the song on one occasion a man from the audience dashed up to the stage and presented him with a Jimmy Shand ‘78.’ Perhaps he thought that Thompson had never seen one of these ‘Jimmy Shands’ that he’d written the song about!
Another musician who seemed to have no problem in ‘double tasking’ was dance band leader Michael McKay, whom I got to know when my friend John Crossman used to book him for local ceilidh dances he used to promote. Before one dance started, a piano was being moved from the hall to another room to make space for the band. Michael managed to side-step at exactly the same speed as the piano was being pushed, whilst expertly playing a set of reels on the keys.
One of the best musicians I have come across personally is the late James Lobban, our music teacher in senior school at Inverurie Academy, who was also a highly respected examiner, performer and conductor. But during a sixth-year class we witnessed a type of performance that few other people may have seen from him, as he gave a professional analysis of some of the latest top 20 records. Towards the end of the summer term we were encouraged to bring in some of our favourites for this purpose, and one of these stretched even Mr Lobban: the unusual vocal and instrumental sound of up-and-coming band Tyrannosaurus Rex (who were soon to become T Rex). But the one I remember best was the current No.1, Something in the Air by the group Thunderclap Newman, which featured an upbeat instrumental passage by pianist Newman. Mr Lobban’s immediately proffered opinion was, “There’s only one thing wrong with this record,” and he left us to guess what this was. A classmate suggested, “The piano bit in the middle,” to which he replied, “Oh no – that bit was good!” Eventually he gave us his answer – the singing. Of course, none of us teenagers shared his opinion; but nowadays, looking back, most of us would probably agree!
Music and singing aside, there are some performers who are physically entertaining and some still have a fitness that belies their age. But this is nothing new: I remember as a youngster seeing on TV the veteran Aberdeen dancer Bobby Watson doing a highland dance whilst playing the pipes! But this was probably matched in later years by American singer Chris Montez. When I saw him perform in Dundee, when in his mid-70s, he sang his 1962 Hit Let’s Dance whilst all the time dancing and stooping down to shake hands with some people dancing in front of the stage. When the instrumental interlude came, he ran to the side of the stage and down the steps to join in the dancing; he then had to run back up again to resume his singing, which he did without a hint of breathlessness.
I used to think I was doing well to do a 360-degree turn with one leap when singing The Weddin’ o’ McGinnis, at the line “They jing-a-ringed roon aboot” – but this has been put to shame by the performances of Alan Holmes of the Scottish 1960s group Marmalade (of Ob-la-Di Ob-la-Da fame). I have seen the band perform several times and on the last occasion I had almost convinced myself that Holmes had settled down to being just a musician as he quietly concentrated on his guitar and keyboard playing and chorus singing. But then, towards the end of their set, there came a massive somersault across the stage culminating in Holmes landing on his hip with a thump and pretending to have done himself a mischief – but 10 seconds later he was back up playing again as if nothing had happened. It is no wonder a newspaper review once called him, “Marmalade’s multi instrumentalist and failed acrobat Alan Holmes.”
Sadly, my memories of concerts featuring Marmalade also bring to mind the mortality of performers whom we regard as immortal. I remember enjoying watching legendary singers Del Shannon and Dave Dee give rousing performances while backed by Marmalade – only for both of them to depart this world shortly afterwards, and in the case of Del Shannon only a few weeks later.
Photos
Richard Thompson
Michael McKay (see Nov.2018, P24 – he is the left hand half of the Salter Duo)
James Lobban
Thunderclap Newman
Chris Montez
Marmalade
Musical Memories – Part 24 - February 2023 (Year 46 No 05)
by Denis Shepherd
Formed in 1959 and eventually retiring in 2019, The Searchers were one of the few groups who performed non-stop during this time with some original members There are probably not many Scottish dance bands that have achieved this! I have seen them play live many times, the first time being at a dance in Inverurie Town Hall in the early 1970s. Their live performances have influenced the things I do on stage today, including at one of my accordion and fiddle club spots. When they performed in Scotland, they always included Loch Lomond in their act – but as you will hear, that is not one of the songs I chose to introduce to my Scottish concerts!
One of my favourite songs that I do is Ian Tyson’s Canadian country song Four Strong Winds which I first heard at a Searchers concert in 1986. The version I sing is based on their arrangement (albeit with the addition of mouth-organ). At a more recent show in Glenrothes, front man Frank Allen unusually missed his cue to start singing one of his verses – but I was all ready and, had I been in the front row rather than the fourth, I would probably have been up there singing the missing bit!
A more recent addition to my repertoire is the self-penned The Girl in Front of the Stage, inspired by a Glenrothes concert where a young girl of 6 threw herself into the Searchers’ music as she danced below the stage. To me this meant that the 60s music will live for ever if there are youngsters today who are so keen on it. And this wasn’t a one-off: I later saw her at a 60s show in Dundee, where Brian Poole and the Tremeloes admired her dancing so much they invited her up on stage to join in their finale! I hope she is still dancing: she would be an asset to any Scottish country dance team!
Also in Dundee, I once attended a Searchers in which Frank sang a solo acoustic song called The Wheelbarrow Song – one of those in which the chorus gets longer and longer as the audience tries to keep up. I decided, naturally, that this was a song I would like to sing. Several years later I took action to realise this dream and, although the tune was easy to pick up online, I had to contact their publicist to get the words. And one of the audiences that have had to endure me singing it is that at Turriff Accordion and Fiddle Club on 7th December 2019 – the date being carefully selected as it was the 10th anniversary of the day I first heard the song!
But the banter between Frank Allen and legendary founder member and guitarist John McNally has also been transported (with slight adjustments) to my Scottish concerts – and Mhairi Shand, the latter-day accordionist in my ceilidh band Fittiefolk, has twice been the butt of ‘their’ jokes! Frank always used to reveal his age, adding: “But I don’t mind – I know that no matter how old I get, there will always be someone older than me,” pointing surreptitiously at John. I once found myself the second oldest in my concert party, and could not resist using this quotation to highlight Mhairi’s chronological status! However, that is not the cruellest joke I have directed at her regarding her age. John McNally always used to show his admiration of the late 1950s rocker Buddy Holly and was invariably asked by Frank if he had ever actually met Buddy Holly – and when he answered in the negative, Frank retorted: “Ah, but it won’t be long now!” So when I was introducing Mhairi one night I pointed out that she had the same surname as many of Scotland’s top accordionists, most notably of course Sir Jimmy Shand, and asked if she had ever met the great man himself. She hadn’t! Her reaction was to announce that she was going to let down my car tyres. I was glad I was getting a lift that night because we were 35 miles from home!
But I once directed a joke of my own at the late Jake Simpson, the former TMSA Aberdeen Branch chairman, who was best known for his Doric recitations and story-telling. The joke was told in private but, rather than being offended, he later related it himself on stage! He had previously attempted some singing, but his self-confessed flaw was that he seemed to change key at every second word. The TMSA sessions have a monthly theme and he once asked me the theme for the next session. I replied: “Tragedy and disaster. That should be easy for you – all you need to do is sing something!”
Musical Memories – Part 25 - April 2023 (Year 46 No 07)
by Denis Shepherd
In January I attended the funeral of Sandy Rennie, my original “Denis and the Menace” partner who had sadly passed away at 88. My early parts of Musical Memories featured many funny stories about Sandy, so it is fitting that this latest part finishes with another.
I recently told you about some of the cheeky jokes I have directed at certain performers, sometimes on stage. However, I have learned that it is not safe to make jokes about someone in public if you don’t want them to find out – no matter how far away they are. Charles Coutts, for instance, relocated to work in Reading having spent his student years as accordionist in my band Fittiefolk - so I thought he would make a suitable character to feature in one of my favourite stories, The Gold-Plated Lavatory, a joke about a student’s adventures at a drunken party (although, to be fair, I never knew Charles to be under the influence in real life). And when I told the story at a concert in Towie, not far from his home village of Bellabeg, all the locals knew whom I was speaking about. But three days later, at a TMSA event in Garlogie, who should sit down beside me but ... bu Charles! He just happened to be home on a few days’ leave and the first thing he said to me was: “I heard ye wis tellin’ stories aboot me!”
At another concert in Methlick I told a story about Charlie Allan, the singer, writer and broadcaster, as again I knew everyone there would know him. This was a true story I had recently been told by Alex Green and concerned the time Charlie had been booked to entertain a women’s group some distance from his home. On hearing Charlie had no transport, the president of the organisation had phoned to ask if he would require a lift there and home again. “Yes, that is correct,” he had said, the woman’s response being: “Ach well, we winna bother!” At the end of the concert, I got a shock to see none other than Charlie Allan making his way to the stage! He admitted the story was true but corrected me on some of the details which either Alex or I had got wrong.
When I made a joke about Robbie Shepherd just before doing my moothie spot at Aberdeen Accordion and Fiddle Club, I knew full well that Robbie would find out: his wife Esma was accompanying me on keyboard! This was the first time I had played Graeme Mitchell’s popular tune Robbie Shepherd MBE, and I explained to the audience that it had taken me some time to learn, adding: “It’s a difficult tune aboot a difficult manny.” As I played it I was wondering whether my remark might offend anyone, so when I finished, I said, “I was just jokin’ aboot the difficult manny.” I needn’t have worried. Esma responded immediately by saying: “You should try bidin’ wi’ him!”
I sometimes tell people the above joke of Esma’s (well, I think it was a joke!) but I tell another story about Esma, based on an innocent remark she had made. After my one and only win in a bothy ballad competition with the Willie Clark song Brose at the Strichen Festival, Esma congratulated me at the next club night and asked what song I had sung. In the bustle of the Aberdeen club Esma misheard my reply and exclaimed: “What! You sang The Rose?”
That bothy ballad win led me to the Champion of Champions event in Elgin where I was careful not to direct any jokes at my opponents. But I did manage to tell a story about brose that my dad had told me many years ago – although I don’t think I was meant to hold up the competition by telling jokes! (I suspect this is why I heard a subsequent competitor being told, “Just sing your ballad! Nothing else!”) But the reporter covering the event for the Northern Scot also appeared to be something of a joke. Not being a Scot himself, he obviously had never heard of nicky tams: he spent half the evening trying to find out why the male competitors were wearing pieces of string round their shins. So I don’t know how much attention he was paying to the competition itself: when writing about me he referred only to the song I had sung in the non-competition first half. Nevertheless I was proud that he called me “my personal favourite” and I was also proud to be part of history, having taken part in the first Championship ever to be won by a woman - Shona Donaldson.
It is often a true story that is the funniest, especially if it is about something that has just happened. Former Aberdeen Accordion & Fiddle Club chairman Stanley Flett, who has often accompanied me on keyboard, is registered partly blind and plays expertly by ear (this often saves time between items!). At a concert in Mintlaw that we did with fiddler Lesley Edmond, a regular player at the Turriff & District Club who also knows Stanley well, we made sure she told the audience what she had done whilst making preparations that very day and why her mum had called her a “feal gype”: she had photocopied all her music sheets for Stanley’s benefit!
There was an amusing incident during an early TMSA concert in Monymusk, which included the Grieve and Gordon poem performed in our full attire by Sandy Rennie and me. Throughout the evening many of the artists were making trips from the hall to the nearby pub, through an old churchyard – just a short though rather eerie walk in the dark and foggy night! A certain woman singer, who had obviously made several such trips, let her imagination run riot when she came round the corner of the graveyard to see the ghostly figure of a Gordon Highlander (Sandy) disappear into the fog. Despite her intemperance, she was intent on driving home after the concert, and was equally intent on giving Sandy a lift – which made it his turn to get a shock!
Musical Memories – Part 26 - June/July 2023 (Year 46 No 09/10)
by Denis Shepherd
As I have told you before, I adapt some jokes to suit the occasion; but, although I do sing some
of my own original songs when performing, I am not averse to adapting other people’s songs
too!
English singer-songwriter Ralph McTell got to No.2 in the charts with Streets of London; some
60 years after recording it, he is still touring and singing it and in fact performed at Portsoy in
2019. In 1974 I changed the words to Streets of Lumsden and wrote my own verses, about
people and places I knew in Lumsden. I tucked it away in a drawer – and found it again many
years later, adding it to my repertoire. Maybe it is just as well I forgot about it at the time
because some of the lyrics are not very complimentary: for instance, they suggest that a certain
well-known local singing and keyboard duo was the reason that people used to nod off in the
Lumsden Arms lounge.
I haven’t had the opportunity to sing Streets of Lumsden to Ralph McTell himself but it did
make an impression on another top musician who had played with McTell on Streets of London.
Rod Clements, an original member of the Tyneside band Lindisfarne and writer of their big hit
Meet Me on the Corner, was a guest at Stonehaven Folk Club. Before he came on stage we were
told that he had also played bass on the famous Ralph McTell hit. I was asked to do a floor spot,
and couldn’t resist the temptation to sing my version (making sure that Rod was in the room).
During the second half, he was changing instruments between songs and made the remark,
“Streets of Lumsden, eh!” Of course, he didn’t say if it had made a good or a bad impression.
But someone at Aberdeen Folk Club once said, after hearing my version, “I’ll never again listen
to Streets of London without thinking of Lumsden!”
Some of my other songs also make impressions on people, often unexpectedly. One of these is
The Strathdon Bus Song which tells of my daily journey to Alford School in the 1960s and
which has a reference to the conductress, Ethel, who was affectionately known as “Esh.” When I
sang this in a recent concert a woman came up and said: “I used to go to school in the Strathdon
bus too – and I never thought I would ever hear a song about Esh!”
My uncle John once had an incident which might have gone unreported but for the fact my dad
happened to call in as he was cleaning up the mess. Upon hearing of the incident I of course
made it the subject of a song! Recently widowed, John was learning how to cook for himself and
in an attempt to minimise the washing up he tried to cook his porridge, on the electric hob, in the
same Pyrex bowl that he was to eat it from – with disastrous consequences. For many years after
hearing The Porridge Song sung by Denis and the Menace at Aberdeen Folk Club, people used
to ask: “Do you still sing that song about the exploding porridge?”
I have also been known to adapt unlikely songs to play as instrumentals, and by chance the same
uncle John was the indirect cause of one of these. He was re-married on his 65 th birthday and the
band at the reception in Stewart’s Hall, Huntly, was that of Kemnay accordionist Sandy Milne.
Sandy was obviously a fan of the latest Status Quo hit, Burning Bridges, because every time
there was a break in the dancing, he played his cassette of the song through the speakers. It was
only when searching through my musical memories for this series that I realised Burning
Bridges, with a little tweaking, would have been a good tune to play for the Boston Two Step;
hence its fairly recent inclusion in my repertoire. The first time I played it on stage, a couple of
guitar connoisseurs got quite a shock to hear Status Quo played on the mouth-organ – as did
audience members at North-East Accordion and Fiddle Club last year! I also think I am the only
musician to have had people dancing the Gay Gordons to a Bonnie Tyler song. Several years
after her 1977 hit Lost in France, it resurfaced from my memories for some reason, begging for
4/4 tempo treatment; it is now played in an unlikely combination alongside Kelvingrove and
Corriehollie’s Welcome to the Northern Meeting!
One of my own songs, Jimmy (The Gollanfield Horseman), is a character sketch - written about
a man I had never met before writing it! My cousin Billy was one of his neighbours at
Gollanfield, near Nairn, and every time I visited Billy I had to listen to his antidotes about the
latest antics of this retired farm worker. Billy persuaded me to write a song about Jimmy and,
when I eventually did meet him, he turned out to be the colourful character exactly as described
in my song!
Further to this song, I have gone on to produce several completely original works, when I have
felt there is something I want to say – but mainly because I wouldn’t want to be classed as a
parasite in the musical world!
Year 42 No 02
October 2018
Musical Memories – Part 1
by Denis Shepherd
Back in the middle of the last century, a man dropped dead during a whist drive and social in Cairncoullie School in upper Donside. The whist had already finished and the company were enjoying the dancing to a local amateur dance band – or most of it, because for that particular dance the accordionist had excused himself from the stage to ask his wife on to the floor. At the moment the unfortunate gentleman died, he was on the dance floor passing close by the aforementioned couple. The accordionist’s wife got quite a shock because she had dreamed a few night’s earlier that whilst she was dancing at the social, a coffin was carried through the company. In fact it had needed all of her husband’s persuasion not to change her mind about attending the event because of ‘a silly dream’, especially considering they had already arranged for a baby-sitter for their infant daughter – my older sister.
This story is true and is still talked about in my family – because the accordionist was Jimmy Shepherd, my late dad, who played at local dances in a band which included his brother Donald, a fiddler, and Donald’s wife Helen who was a pianist and (I am told) the ‘musical director’.
Shortly after this, I appeared on the scene and set out on a varied life in which music and entertainment played a significant and hugely varied role, culminating of course in my appointment as honorary proofreader of the Box and Fiddle.
It would seem dad passed on not only his feeling for music, but also his feeling for mischief. When he was young and living on a farm called Pitprone, his family sometimes organised barn dances. He could recall one occasion when a wind-up gramophone was used to provide the dance music. Older reader will recall that with these gramophones, one could regulate the speed of the turntable by adjusting a lever. He would sometimes amuse himself by moving this lever ever so gradually, and watch as the dancers, without knowing it, slowed down to a painfully slow speed before eventually speeding up to their maximum potential. Of course, he was eventually caught in the act!
His other memories of these dances included the time two young farm-workers took time out to challenge each other to a wrestling match. The music came to an abrupt halt when one got the better of the other and swung him over backwards – his feet scoring a perfect hit on the turntable.
In those days, of course, Sunday entertainment was strictly forbidden. At a barn dance one Saturday evening, the dancers enjoyed live music. Jimmy Hay, a local farmer in Kildrummy and a renowned fiddler, was one of the musicians playing in a dark corner and, as the clock passed midnight without anyone admitting to having noticed, he kept looking anxiously to the door and saying to people, “Mind an’ tell me if the minister comes in! I canna let him see me playin’ on a Sunday!”
In my early days, the dance band still played occasionally, but the only time I remember seeing them play was at my cousin’s wedding held in the Cults Hotel near Aberdeen. They started off the evening reception but my sister explained that “they will have to get off when the real band gets here”.
However, my father still used to ‘have a tune’ at home after the band had wound up and he was usually forced by my sister to play the Joe Loss tune In The Mood. And, in common with many other families at the time, we used to listen to the radio programme Scottish Dance Music (re-names Take the Floor many years later).
Before I was old enough to go to school I became an expert disc jockey, using a wind up gramophone and a box of ‘78’ records. My aunt, visiting from Canada, was amazed that I could pick any record from the box, name the tune and play it – and this before I was old enough to read. I knew each record from the combination of the label colour, the scratches and the shape of the ‘bite’ which was on the outside of most 78s!
Eventually the spring broke in the gramophone – but this did not stop me. I added to my skills manual propulsion of the turntable but ended up with a huge blister on the tip of my index finger for my efforts.
Musical Memories – Part 2 - November 2018 (Year 42 No 3)
by Denis Shepherd
In the previous issue of the B&F, I told you of my early interest in Scottish music and how our family listened to music from the radio and gramophone. With this in mind, my father (who played accordion) came home from a ‘roup’ one day with a fiddle and two bows. Unfortunately for me (but possibly fortunately for the rest of the family), the fiddle and one of the bows had no strings. Despite this, I managed to produce music by ‘playing’ the fiddle and diddling the tunes I had learned from our stock of ‘78’ records. I spent hours standing fiddling and diddling on an old lorry cab which had been deposited near the house, entertaining a large audience…..of nettles! An additional secret member of the audience was sometimes my sister who peeped round the corner to see how my stage presence was developing.
I now realise that diddling was the first thing I ‘performed’ – but in the public domain it was the last, because the first diddling competition I entered was in 2017, and I have now gone on to win my last three diddling competitions. Possibly the skill had lain dormant for 60 years!
I never got as far as playing a fiddle with strings. However, we did have a fiddler in the family – my uncle Donald, my dad’s brother, who also played in the family band. In the early days of Aberdeen Accordion & Fiddle Club, I used to meet up with him and his wife Helen there and Donald would usually seek out the guest fiddle player and ask whether he could play The President!
Not long before he passed away in 1997, Donald enjoyed an 80th birthday party in Logie Coldstone. This was secretly organised by his family and he would have had no inkling what was to happen. One of the entertainers they had booked was Paul Anderson, the legendary Tarland fiddler, and Donald could not resist asking him for a ‘shottie’ on his fiddle – against Helen’s wishes, as she reminded him he had not played for years; “Donald, dinna mak’a feal o’ yersel’!” She was as amazed as everyone else when he proceeded to fiddle his way through a set of tunes as though he played them every day!
Another fiddler still in good forming his 80s was Jimmy Hay, who had been a family friend in my earlier years. When I attended school in Inverurie one of my friends was Bill Clark, and by chance we discovered that Bill’s mum, Anne, had also known Jimmy Hay many years earlier. Bill and I decided to pay him a visit in Kemnay and he insisted on playing us a few tunes – his masterpiece being The Lovat Scouts with Variations. His timing was perfect, helped to a great extent by the tapping of his foot, complete with ‘tackity boot’, as he stood playing. The boot thumping on the floor made an impression on Bill; when Anne asked how the visit had gone, this was the first thing he described!
The second time we visited, Bill took along his fiddle, as he had in the past played in the school orchestra, and the pair played a few duos. On that occasion Bill’s parents dropped us off and, when they arrived later to pick us up, Jimmy invited them in and insisted they hear him play Lovat Scouts. Inevitably, his tackity boot started thumping and Anne, remembering Bill’s previous account, could not contain her laughter; she had to hold a newspaper in front of her face!
On subsequent visits, I managed to borrow my sister’s old acoustic guitar and, not to be left out, made some noises reputed to be bass notes. After a few practices we recorded some numbers on my cassette player and pretended we were doing a Scottish Dance Music radio recording (by the ‘James Hay Trio’ and ‘from our Kemnay studios’), with Bill and myself taking turns making the announcements in our best BBC voices. For our first number, I had announced The Smith’s a Gallant Fireman but, at the moment the music was meant to begin, Jimmy realised he could not use his bow while sitting on his chair and his voice was clearly heard in the background saying, “Ah but I’ll need tae stan’ up – I’m nae playin’ in this cheer!” Jimmy’s playing in these recordings was completely competent and professional, although by now he was over 83.
On the completion of the first set, Bill had just finished a perfect announcement of the second tune, The Cradle Song, when I pointed out he had forgotten to switch on the microphone. He immediately changed to his north-east dialect with an expletive word – switching the mic on just before he did so! There were many other features which you would never hear in a BBC recording. For instance, when a certain tune was announced, Bill’s voice could be heard saying; “This is the ane I’m nae good at!” Aided and abetted by Bill and me, Jimmy carried on with his vocal gems – and only the three of us knew which ones were pre-planned! At the end of one recording, we announced the closing signature tune, Kate Dalrymple, only for the chief fiddler to lead off the following conversation:
“Ach, I’m nae playin’ nae mair!”
“Fit wey?”
“I wis meant tae get twa poun’ for last time an’ I hinna gotten nithin’ yet!”
Musical Memories – Part 3 - December 2018 (Year 42 No 4)
by Denis Shepherd
In the previous issue of the B&F my school friend Bill Clark and I visited Jimmy Hay, in Kemnay, to record sessions in the format of ‘Take the Floor’. Jimmy, at the age of 83, was still an expert player; not so the other two members of the ‘James Hay Trio’. These amateur recordings provided much amusement for certain professional musicians. John Crossman, a family friend, used to promote country dances with the Michael McKay Band often providing the music and myself helping on the door. The photo shows the band when it was the Corly McKay Band, but in the few years between then and the Crossman dances Michael’s father Curly had passed away and Michel had taken over the band which included which included his sister Elizabeth and Tommy McDonald.
The band members used to look forward to the ‘fly’ cup at the end of the dance, when I would play my ‘James Hay Trio’ tapes to them as they admired Jimmy’s fiddle playing and killed themselves laughing at the extras.
One day’s Bill’s mum, Anne, was scanning the entertainment pages of the People’s Journal when she spotted a dance advertised in the hall at Kildrummy Inn and said, “Hey Bill, there really is a band called the James Hay Trio!” However, on closer inspection it appeared the dance was not only on a Tuesday, but on 1st April. Apparently, a party who had hired a car to attend the dance, stomped out of the bar, never to return, on discovering it was a hoax. I wasn’t the proprietor’s favourite person for some time after this!
About this same era, I briefly met another would-be musician – the local poultry dealer, known as ‘Feathery.’ One day I dropped in with a business message and he insisted I witness his new musical skills; “I go the piano ye ken!” The sheet music was in place and so eventually were all his fingers, which he maneuvered perfectly until grinding to a halt on the second bar. I certainly believed him when he said he needed a bit more practice.
Turning again to real musicians, one of the dances John Crossman promoted in the early 70s, at Muggarthaugh Hotel near Alford, featured the Lindsay Ross Trio. Mr Ross, who sadly passed away a few years later, was one of Scotland’s leading dance-band leaders and played a Cordovox, backed by his son Malcolm, now described as a legendary dance band drummer, who was barely out of primary school at that time, and banjo player Nigel Jelks. I had written a march using my knowledge of pipe music (I had by now started taking chanter lessons from a local piper) and gave them a copy as we moved through to start the dance. After examining it for a couple of minutes, they played it perfectly as the floor filled up with couples dancing the Gay Gordons.
It was Anne, a student friend, who unwittingly started my entertainment career. At my 21st birthday party, she gave me a present of the book Poems by J. C. Milne, and I started to recite an expanding repertoire of poems to amuse audiences. My friend Bill and I used to practice by reciting them into a cassette player but we were not word perfect: he once uttered the unimaginable concept of ‘a skirlin’ coo’ instead of ‘a skirlin’ soo!’
My recitations were normally well received. However, having learned the 18 verses of The Orra Loon, I included it in a recital at a nursing home called Cliff House just outside Aberdeen. By the time I was half-way through the poem, one old boy had started snoring! Nevertheless, I was asked back again, and by the time of my second visit I had met up with Sandy Rennie, a former jazz trumpet player packed full of off-beat humour, who was keen to do some entertaining. At our first rehearsal, he appeared dressed in his grandfather’s Gordon Highlanders dress uniform and this immediately planted the seeds in my mind for an item where we could use this along with my bothy outfit. This took the shape of a poem called Grieve and Gordon which was the conversation between a farm grieve (Gordon) and a Gordon Highlander (called Grieve) and which is still a regular item in the Denis and the Menace repertoire (albeit with just hats). Theatre costumes are normally designed to fit the script; in this case, the poem was designed to fit the costumes.
As we drove to Cliff House, Sandy played some of his unique guitar chords. By the time we arrived, we had invented the following conversation to include in our act:
“Can you play that guitar?”
“Michty aye, I can play like The Shadows! Jist listen tae this.” (Sandy plays a few odd-sounding chords).
“I doot that winda be good enough for Cliff Richard.”
“No – but it’s good enough for Cliff Hoose!”
As it turned out we were correct!
Musical Memories – Part 4 - January 2019 (Year 42 No 5)
by Denis Shepherd
I previously told you how I teamed up with the former jazz musician Sandy Rennie to form Denis and the Menace – a name thought up by Sandy’s wife Mary, with our first booking being at the Cliff House Nursing Home near Cults. The Cliff House residents entertained us as much as we entertained them. One interruption was by the slightly deaf man who kept asking his neighbour to take the paper off the sweetie. He could not hear the other chap, ever more loudly telling him it had no paper on it. Another was by the lady who stood up (in the middle of a recitation) and broke wind in front of us.
Sometimes Sandy would sing Three Craws while I carried out all the actions, dressed as a crow. No one ever knew what to expect – sometimes even we did not know! At an event in Aberdeen’s Cowdray Hall, which we did with three other musicians, the chairman of the organisation, in giving in his thank-you speech, made the remark, “I don’t know which one is the Menace – they all seem like menaces to me!” And at yet another, Mackie Burns, the late, great Shetland fiddler/guitarist, introduced himself to us and described Sandy’s chords as “very unusual but very exciting”. We are still not exactly sure what he meant – but I can guess!
Ken to be on TV, we volunteered to do a song for Aberdeen Cable Television, with technical and backing support in abundance including Calum Kennedy’s former pianist, Ian Milne. Unfortunately Ian didn’t understand the rhythm and pausing we used for comedy effect and his accompaniment on Sandy’s song, Square Bashin’, was finished before we got through the first verse!
On one occasion, our clowning almost got us lynched. Sandy’s daughter Fiona, often accompanied us and was given Sandy’s old trumpet (she could not play a single note!) with which she was instructed to come on stage at certain points of the show, apparently eager to play, only for us to send her off again for various reasons (an idea we got from Morecambe and Wise). The members of an Old Folks Club in Inverurie became so incensed – “It’s nae fair, nae lettin’ the lassie play her trumpet!” – that we were forced to make a quick exit in case Fiona was actually forced to attempt to play it!
Aberdeen’s Atholl Hotel once invited Sandy and me to perform during a Burns Supper that the hotel was laying on for its customers and we readily agreed, considering all food and drink was on the house. Unfortunately, we could not take advantage of the latter as we still had to perform! After all the speeches were eventually concluded, we were all set to stand up and do our bit – only to be told that we now be doing it in the bar as the staff needed to clear up the dining room. It was a nigh-impossible task attempting to perform (without amplification, had been assured would not be necessary) to a crowd of people who had just been ‘released’ into the bar after sitting quietly listening to speeches for hours! At one point I stuck my head in during one of Sandy’s solo spots and asked if he was finished. “I was finished afore I started!” he said.
In the early days my own performances were mainly recitations but I gradually introduced some singing, especially after I won the Novice Prize at the Aberdeen Alternative Festival with the Rab the Rhymer song, The Kilt Society Ball. My friend Harry Williamson, who often came along with us to provide backing, proved the ideal accompanist for the type of songs I liked to sing. And as Sandy preferred to develop the comedy side of the act, it was a natural progression that we become a duo. We retained the Denis and the Menace name while Sandy is now known as Alexander Rennie (he is now the resident guest in Middlefield Matters, a weekly programme on the radio station SHMU).
I still see Sandy and some years ago went to be part of the audience at the recordings of the ‘Northern Nights’ series at the Grampian TV studios in Aberdeen. On one occasion, the Alexander Brothers were the closing act and Sandy, the moment the TV cameras stopped rolling, was up on stage getting his photo taken between Tom and Jack. “I telt them I was an entertainer tee – but I dinna think they were affa’ impressed”, Sandy said afterwards. If we happen to be at the same event, we occasionally attempt to give a rendition of our original trademark item, Grieve and Gordon. Sandy, or Alexander, at 84 is still very much to the fore and is always introduced by his radio co-host as, “octogenarian, legend of Pittodrie and the midge man himself.”
Alexander, since the Golden Games several years ago, has had an association with the Aberdeen FC Community Trust and often sings there at both football and other events. He is best known for his midge songs, but has written hundreds of songs, which have had thousands of ‘hits’ on the internet.
Unfortunately, one of his best songs never made it to the stage. The ideas came to him as he cycled home from work one day, and he kept stopping to jot them down on all he had in his pocket – a sweetie paper. However, the family dog was so keen on confectionary he did not always check whether there was anything in the wrapper and the song was eaten and lost forever.
Musical Memories – Part 5 - February 2019 (Year 42 No 6)
by Denis Shepherd
Last time I told you how myself and pianist Harry Williamson launched ourselves as the new Denis and the Menace act, which is still going strong – well, still going – today. Call it “the act you can’t classify”. Having started as exponents of songs in the style of Willie Kemp and Rab the Rhymer, we have now expanded our repertoire – and we still do the odd poem together.
In our earlier years we were often asked by Arthur Middleton, the world-class harmonica player, to support him at his concerts. After he passed away, we asked the late Betty Burnett, another top moothie player, to complete the party, and since then we have often enrolled a fiddler or a woman singer to support us. Our first fiddler was Nicola Auchnie, who went on to be a Glenfiddich champion – little did Nicola realise she would one day be singing the Strathdon Bus Song with us! The first time Nicola did a spot with us at Aberdeen Folk Club, the three of us arrived early at the Blue Lamp. However, the planned rehearsal did not come off – instead, the pedals of the piano came off and Harry spent the time putting it together again! However, Nicola provided a welcome opportunity for me to sing the Richard Thomson song, Nobody’s Wedding, in which the singing parts are interspersed with instrumental renditions of Highland Whisky and Mhairi’s Wedding.
With Harry being much in demand as an accompanist, there have been occasions when I have had to recruit a stand-in Menace. Two of these have gone on to greater, albeit contrasting, things; Gordon Middler has played keyboard in Take the Floor recordingswhile Moray Barber now appears regularly in HMT as one of the Flying Pigs, where the songs he performs in his spots as ‘Hilton John’ bear little resemblance to those performed with me!
For a time, the act had an additional ‘menace’ – Harry’s keyboard. We were due in Ythanbank to record our tracks for the Aberdeen TMSA cassette, Fae Aiberdeen ‘N Roon Aboot, one Saturday, but on the Friday Harry discovered two notes were not functioning. I therefore asked another keyboard player to have his instrument on stand-by. At midnight Harry phoned to say he had fixed the problem, so I cancelled the stand-by – only to be told shortly before we left that there were now three notes out of commission!
This time I asked whistle player Alex Green if we could borrow his ceilidh band instrument and off we set with two keyboards. Dick Trickey, who was producing the tape, examined Alex’s machine but decided we should use Harry’s because he thought that even with three notes missing, it would still sound better than Alex’s. (Alex wasn’t best pleased when I told him this!) Unfortunately, the notes missing were some of the most important for the songs we were recording to Harry spent to time working out alternative melodies using the available notes. When the time came to record, lo and behold – the notes were, inexplicably, all working perfectly. This must have been fate because after this the notes disappeared, never to be heard again!
One December all three of us proved menaces. We, along with Arthur, were at a nursing home built on the site of the Royal Darroch Hotel in cults, which had been blown up by a gas explosion and never re-built. Staff of the home must have thought something similar had hit tem! Whilst connecting our amplifiers and microphones we literally destroyed the Christmas tree, while the keyboard made a huge scratch on the expensive table supporting it.
Another Christmas, we had arranged to do a spot at the Aberdeen Accordion and Fiddle Club’s social in the Dee Motel. Somehow Harry had misunderstood the time I was to pick him up and had a dram while he was waiting ……and another, and another, until I eventually arrived. Our performance certainly went with a swing that night!
In more recent years, we must be one of the few acts to have been locked out of the hall in the middle of our own concert! While performing for pensioners at Ferryhill Church, Aberdeen, we were asked to move our cars as we were blocking in a cleaner. When we returned a few minutes later the door was locked and despite our ringing the bell, shouting and knocking for about 15 minutes, there was no response. Were they trying to tell us something? When we finally got in it transpired they were all slightly deaf – “You should have rung the bell!” we were told!
I hope you have enjoyed this small sample of my musical memories – who knows, you may get to read the rest of them at some point in the future!
Musical Memories – Part 6 - July 2019 (Year 42 No 11)
by Denis Shepherd
I have previously told of my involvement with the Denis and the Menace Duo since the mid-80s. Since then I have been part of the TMSA and Aberdeen Folk Club and on the Committees of both organizations for much of the time – and this is all attributable to the Duo.
The only musical club I had previously attended, in a purely listening capacity, was Aberdeen A&F Club, originally held in the Gloucester Hotel. Up-and-coming players who regularly performed there included Graeme Mitchell and Graham Geddes, but my most vivid memory of the early days in 1975 is of the time when the stovies ran out, the manager apologised for under-estimating the numbers, and the compere promised the audience that this would not happen again because “next month I’ll be doon here in the aifterneen steerin’ them masel’!”
Ten years later, when Sandy Rennie, the original Menace, and I were starting to establish our act I saw an advert in a Traditional Music & Song Association of Scotland event in the Holburn Bar. This was the first time I had heard of the TMSA, but we did our stint and promptly became members with the encouragement of two office-bearers, Alex Green and Madeline Miller. Shortly after this the Aberdeen Branch held its 21st birthday party in the Gloucester at which the well-known singer Adam McNaughton was MC. When he saw the performers’ list he couldn’t believe there was a serious musical act called Denis and the Menace - and after hearing us he still didn’t believe it! Another singer, Kathleen Robertson, suggested we come along to Aberdeen Folk Club; we promptly did so and for some time we went along to do spots at the regular TMSA and Folk Club sessions, both held at the time in the Three Poceros. Sandy eventually ceased his memberships on developing his solo act but not before we had produced songs about performers and committee members of both organisations. For instance, The Crooked Bawbee was the basis for a song entitled O will ye gang wi’ me tae the TMSA? Which describes how an enthusiast tries to persuade his lassie to come along by naming the galaxy of artistes due to perform, one verse being :-
But I said, “There are ithers, like Florence and Mackie,
Bert Murray, and Esma, and lots mair as weel;
Maybe even Robbie Shepherd – that’s jist if ye’re lucky!”
She said, “The Robbie Shepherd? Ach, dinna be feal!”
And at the Folk Club, our song about the performers of the time (sung to the tune of The Wild Rover) ended :-
Denis and the Menace, that’s us, ye see:
We’re great entertainers, especially me!
(During the last two words we physically struggled with each other to gain pride of place on the stage!)
It was around this time that we heard that Robbie shepherd was learning the fiddle – although we never heard him play. But we did not miss an opportunity for an original gag :-
“Ye ken that group ca’d Rainbow – I hear there’s a new Scottish versionwi’ the same name. It’s got Alex Green, Jimmy Blue, Tam Reid and Robbie Shepherd.”
“I understand them haein’ Green, Blue and Reid in a Rainbow – bit faur does Robbie Shepherd come in?”
“Well, if onybody asks him tae play the fiddle he turns yalla!”
A few years later I found myself performing for none other than Phil Cunningham! Phil, guesting at the Folk Club, had been recommended to hear my rendition of Ian Middleton’s The Humble Tattie, one of the few songs I sang in those days. (I remember asking staff at the Three Poceros to lend me a tattie from the kitchen every time I sang it!)
Every year the Aberdeen TMSA sent a bus to the national AGM in Perth. One year the traditional evening ceilidh had to be cut short because the Aberdeen bus (musicians led by Alex Green) was leaving as the driver did not want to exceed his permitted hours! When I became a TMSA Committee member, we played a major part in the organisation of the traditional competitions at the Aberdeen Alternative Festival in October. One day a teenage girl, wearing a long black coat and playing a whistle, came into the Music Hall foyer. Having been told what time to come back for her competition, and barely pausing from her tune, she turned and went outside to resume her busking! Her name was Sara Reith and she is now famous throughout Europe in the fields of fiddle, tin whistle, Scottish music, traditional dance and traditional song.
Musical Memories – Part 7 - September 2019 (Year 43 No 01)
by Denis Shepherd
As related in the last episode of Musical Memories, I joined the TMSA in the mid-1980s and became a member of the Aberdeen Branch Committee. In those days we were active in organizing competitions and concerts during the Aberdeen Alternative Festival, these being held in the Music Hall, Arts Centre or Lemon Tree.
One of the competitors I got to know was Theresa Lindsay, winner of the women’s singing on seven consecutive occasions. We went on to do the occasional spot together at concerts but I got into trouble for making her laugh when I was singing the man’s verses in Hunting Tower – she took her traditional singing very seriously! It would seem I was making funny eyes at her when singing the line, “Yer een were like a spell, Jeanie.” The TMSA once secured the services of none other than Aly Bain as fiddle judge. As I sat beside him in my capacity as clerk, a 15-year-old girl came in and almost fainted – her idol was Aly Bain! Nevertheless, she went on to win and she is now Secretary of Aberdeen A&F Club – Susan Gordon. Susan went on to become a major player (as well as dancer!) in our country concerts. In fact, after she won that competition we promptly booked her to appear in our forthcoming concert in Lumsden and this turned out to be her first appearance as Scottish Junior champion, as she had picked up the title on that very day.
I suggested in Part 1 of Musical Memories that my dad had passed on his mischievous tendencies to me – and Susan was to discover this at another of our country concerts in Newmachar. Among the other acts booked were the Pam Dignan Dancers, and I had secretly asked Pam to send along not only her dancers but also one of her costumes. I had also asked Susan to play The Hen’s Mairch Ower the Midden as it was one of my favourite tunes. Lo and behold, just as Susan broke into the strains of the Hen’s Mairch, a huge hen, about the same size as myself (exactly the same size and shape, in fact) wandered on to the stage, scratching the floor around her feet. True professional that she is, Susan carried on playing im-peck-ably!
This sort of thing would never have been allowed to happen in our more formal Aberdeen Alternative Festival concerts in the Arts Centre. Over the years I saw many quality singers and players perform there at the TMSA concerts, both established and emerging, one of the latter being a 16-year-old bothy ballad singer called Robert Lovie. The arts Centre, with its cosy amphitheatre-like setting, had a very intimate atmosphere, with a close rapport between the performers and audience – or so it seemed from the auditorium. But when I eventually appeared on stage there at the prize-winners concert, I was amazed at how lonely it was as I stared in the silent theatre into a misty darkness, with not a soul in sight. I was more relieved than anything when the applause came at the end of the song – at least there was someone there!
One of the established performers in our concerts was Alasdair Fraser, the world-famous fiddler, who had star billing on one occasion – but things did not go as smoothly as planned. Branch chairman and compere Alex Green, after welcoming each performer and sharing with them the relevant ‘hospitality’, went on stage to introduce Alasdair Fraser as the final guest, and gave him a faultless build-up – only to turn round and see someone else ready to perform, standing with a somewhat puzzled expression! So when Alasdair’s turn did eventually come, Alex could only say, “Our final musician tonight needs no introduction ‘cos I’ve deen it already!” Alasdair, as you can imagine, took it all in good humour!
Our initial venture into our own country concerts likewise did not enjoy a smooth passage but this had nothing to do with the MC or performers. The Branch had organised a bus to convey a load of performers and supporters to their concert and ceilidh dance in Towie Hall, deep in the heart of farming country in Glenkindie. This was carefully coincide with the end of the busy grain-sewing season – but after a month of rain, on the evening of the concert the ground had dried out just enough for the farmers to get into action. Our concert music was all but drowned out by the noise of tractors all round the hall and beyond. Needless to say the local audience turnout was negligible. When it came to the dance, the only way it could happen was for the musicians to take turns in playing while the others went down to enhance the dancing!
Musical Memories – Part 8 - October 2019 (Year 43 No 02)
by Denis Shepherd
After the demise of the Aberdeen Alternative Festival, the TMSA continued to hold concerts in country venues in conjunction with the annual Aberdeenshire Council Doric Festival. Nowadays there is no Doric Festival but the TMSA Branch still hold two Doric concerts.
Over the years, we have visited quite a variety of halls in the North-East, including Methlick – one venue which I can’t forget because it gave its name to a tune! I had, some years previously, written a 2/4 pipe march, and this nameless tune was first played by Denis and the Menace at a Methlick concert. By the end of the evening, it had a title – The Methlick Barn Dance.
Over the years the Branch has taken part in many events, from Aberdeen to its twin city Clermont Ferrand. The venue closest to home was the historic building, Provost Rust’s House opposite Marischal College, where Aberdeen City Council had asked us to provide traditional music for visiting tourists. In their wisdom the Council did not advertise our event and refused us permission to put up a sign outside, with the result that most visitors saw no reason to proceed beyond the café to the first floor. On one occasion, the only listeners were four people who knew about the event only because I had told them. On another, the audience was even smaller – two female German students who had found us by chance. I think they were outnumbered 4 to 1 by the performers!
In the latter case, I managed to embarrass myself while attempting to show off my knowledge of German acquired at university many years previously. I managed to announce in German that I was going to sing the traditional song The Birken Tree, but had to apologise that I had forgotten the German for birch. The students laughed and said, “It’s birken!”
For the whole of the 1990s we leased the ground floor of the 17th century Wallace Tower – another Council building, which in the 60s had been moved from its city centre location and re-assembled brick by brick, in Tillydrone. By the end of the 90s it had become synonymous with the TMSA as it was the venue of our events ranging from committee meetings and Bothy Nichts rehearsals to open days and Christmas parties. In 1999 when the Branch released its first cassette, Fae Aiberdeen ‘n’ Roon Aboot, the automatic subject choice for the sleeve was the Wallace Tower! It was at one of these Christmas parties that the legendary singer Tam Reid made a speech to the effect that many other branches and festivals were defined by their own song and that it was time the Aberdeen Branch also had its own song. “So”, he concluded, “Denis is gau tae write it.”
This was the first I’d heard of it, but I promptly wrote a song called In the Wallace Tower referring to Wallace as the king (using my artistic licence!)The song has never been recorded but its original tune was included by Arthur Middleton on his second cassette, Mouth-Organ Maestro.
Shortly after the turn of the century we had to vacate The Tower, but by then we had established our monthly sessions. These started off in the Bucksburn British Legion – which closed soon afterwards. We simply relocated to the Westburn Park Lounge – which closed soon afterwards. We then moved to the Grampian Health Services Social Club – which closed soon afterwards. We do not think it is our music that has this devastating effect, but officials of The Sportsman’s Club must be counting their figures each month with bated breath……
We had one panic moment during our spell in the Westburn Lounge, where we also held our big competition day. A few days before the event, we were told we had not booked in, even though our Treasurer had seen the Manager write it in the book. It transpired he had left – taking the book with him.
Another event we used to organize was an afternoon ceilidh in the Douglas Arms during the Banchory Festival in May. I was doing my stint as MC when a group of young musicians came in from their competitions. I asked the fiddle winner, 15-year-old Paul Anderson, to do a spot; he proudly stood up at the microphone and played…… bum note! His automatic reaction (still at the microphone) was to say, “S***e!” So if I ever introduce Paul nowadays, I say I clearly remember the first note I heard him play and the first word I heard him speak on stage!
My other memory from that festival is of organiser Bill Smith objecting strongly to a certain song Sandy Mathers was singing in a bar session. However, he was quite happy when it was explained to him that the chorus consisted of the words, “If you see Kay.”
Musical Memories – Part 9 - November 2019 (Year 43 No 03)
by Denis Shepherd
Last time I told you about some of the various events that the Aberdeen Branch of the TMSA has organised in past years. Some of these were supported by Aberdeen City Council – but the biggest thing the Council did for us was to organize in 1991 a week-long bus trip to France with all expenses paid! Our destination was the Issoire Folk Festival in a village a few miles south-west of Aberdeen’s twin city Clermont Ferrand. Our stay consisted of sight-seeing bus tours and Scottish music performances at various venues including Clermont Ferrand. And we got to witness a variety of singing, dancing and other performances from many other countries.
Our bus party comprised musicians (including pipers), singers and dancers. One day I thought I would add to the variety by organising a street demonstration of Houlihan’s Jig, which I did along with three others including the dancers – but was promptly told by tour organiser Alex Green that I was not a very good exponent of Scottish dance – although I knew the formations, I was, “maist helluva clumsy an’ hytery-lookin’!”
Although we were amply fed throughout our stay, bothy ballad king Tam Reid was not impressed by the French salad-based food. When we traveled back to Scotland, we took the overnight ferry and did not stop until the bus drew into a service station in Warwickshire; and as we disembarked somewhat groggily there was no sign of Tam. Either we had left him in France or he had done a sprint off the bus! Sure enough, we eventually found him tucking into bacon and eggs in the restaurant. “I couldna wait tae get a decent brakfist!” he explained, referring to French cuisine in a rather uncomplimentary manner.
However, this Tam had nothing to do with the Tumlin’ Tams – this was the name of the TMSA team entered in the Aberdeenshire Council-organised Bothy Nichts competition a few years later. The first time it took place, in 1997, Alex’s script featured a bottle of whisky which was due to be opened several times – but in the opening scene the cork popped from the bottle (the content of which was fizzy American ginger) and flew into the audience. This necessitated a hasty script adjustment!
We had recruited Harry Williamson, my pianist Menace partner, as Mains but the first time we competed, in Keith, I was told by one connoisseur; “That wasn’t very realistic – you would never get a Mains who could play the piano as well as that!” However, in Inverurie Town Hall two years later, one of the judges, Jock Duncan, said in his summing-up that the Tummlin’ Tams were the team keeping most to the spirit of the bothy days. By that time Alex Green had retired, leaving me as the script-writer. We only finished third but the whole experience was great fun – although I was a somewhat aggrieved grieve when I heard that someone in one of the teams ahead of us had spoken about combine harvesters – something definitely not in the spirit of the bothy days!
Two other major projects undertaken by the TMSA Aberdeen Branch concerned the production of a cassette, Fae Aiberdeen ‘N Roon Aboot, in 1999, and the TMSA 40th birthday CD in 2006. I told you previously about the problems with Harry’s keyboard when we were recording tracks for the cassette; but that wasn’t the only drawback. Dick Trickey, a fellow TMSA singer who had volunteered to act as recording engineer and producer, had recently acquired the recording equipment and he was learning about it as we went along. We went straight into the Willie Kemp song, It’s Affa Like Its Father, and got it canned perfectly on the first take – or so we thought, until Dick said, “Sorrym guys, we’ll have to do it again – I pressed the wrong button!”
The 40th birthday CD was engineered in the studio at Aden Park, Mintlaw, where I recorded an unaccompanied song (originally a poem by G.K. Menzies) and after a careful sound check, I got the go-ahead. However, half way through the first line I got the command, “Stop! Stop!” The only thing that upset the system was the sound of the letter P – and the song just happened to begin, “I’ve poached a puckle pairtricks….”
The Branch also held some events with special guests in Aberdeen. When I was MC I didn’t always get my wording right. When our guests were the all-girl band The Lemon Tarts, for instance, I began the raffle by saying, “I’ll get the Tarts to draw the first ticket.” However, I made no mistake with the raffle the night we had Sheena Wellington as guest. After announcing her spot, I filled the time as she made her way to the stage by reciting the short Burns poem, Here’s a Bottle, addressing the bottle of whisky in front of me – and lo and behold, I later won the bottle!
Musical Memories – Part 10 - January 2020 (Year 43 No 05)
by Denis Shepherd
Although I had been interested in Scottish music as a youngster, as a youth I spent most of my nights-out at discos or rock concerts with my fellow students. I do remember the odd exception though, such as attending a ceilidh at the College of Agriculture with the Wick Scottish Dance Band led by Addie Harper Snr. (A girl I met there, from the Western Isles, found it surprising that I considered a students’ ceilidh such a novelty!) However, the tide began to turn when I used to spend a large part of my summer vacations on the Donside grouse estates where I got to meet many local people and listen to their stories about their country dances. So I started to go to these dances in Corgarff to experience the fun first-hand!
The band at Corgarff was usually the Dick Stewart Trio and one of the highlights was the Beaters’ Ball at which all the raffle prizes had two legs, two wings and feathers. By the time these were handed out most dancers were well inebriated and usually the winners could not resist the temptation to sit down and pluck their bird right away. Not much of the dance floor was visible by the end of the night! I got to know Wullie Gray, also known as the Bard of Corgarff. He was well-known for his story telling, poetry recitations and occasional singing, and later performed at a couple of our TMSA concerts.
Back in those days he kept us all entertained on the grouse moors and one of his stories about the dances concerned a local couple who had to walk to the hall along a muddy road, the man rolling up his trouser bottoms to keep them clean. On reaching the dance he went straight into action, much to the annoyance of his wife – not because he was dancing with another woman but because his trousers were still rolled up. She marched up to him and stormed, “George! Take your trousers down!”
At these country dances, there was a limited variety of dances which were not always performed to the letter (as I was to find out later when I attended ceilidhs with a caller), and many stories of these dance circulate. The local paper once ran a story about a young man, renowned for his strength, who had allegedly lifted the stage off the floor during a dance in the Towie Hall. One night I drove to a dance in the Glenbuchat Hall and met an ambulance with blue lights flashing I discovered that the dance had already begun and that there had been a casualty during the Eightsome Reel!
I gained further dancing expertise when helping family friend John Crossman at the dances he used to organize at a variety on country venues, with the Michael McKay Band and others. However it was still a shock to the system when I started going to ceilidhs in Aberdeen where there were bands with callers, such as the Desperate Danz Band (with Dave Francis) and Hallyracket. They introduced me to dances I had never heard of, much less attempted! Eventually I got used to the idea that it was beneficial to learn some of these dances and the first one I noted was one of Dave’s called Buttered Peas, a progressive couples dance.
One ceilidh with a difference that I remember was at the Northern Hotel, where my Menace partner Harry Williamson and I once again proved menaces. The dance band at this one was a duo comprising Runrig guitarist Malcolm Jones, and the late Robert MacDonald who had been a founder accordionist member. We picked the wrong stairway to the ballroom and ended up in the kitchen; and as we were obstructed by tables, the only way to get on to the dance floor was to climb under them – not knowing the musicians were at the other side.
My first taste of dance calling came at the Christmas dinner-dance for the athletes I coached and their parents. I was well used to telling the athletes what to do so it was second nature to teach them how to do Buttered Peas! A year or two later, when the band booked for a dance organised by the TMSA arrived at the Northern minus its caller, I volunteered to call a few dances. As a direct result, whistle player Alex Green and his wife, accordionist Madeline Miller, who were leading lights in the TMSA, asked me to call for their band Airs and Graces at a ceilidh at the Douglas Hotel. I became their regular caller until the couple ‘emigrated’ to Portknockie at the end of 1998, after which I managed to organize a band under the name of Fittiefolk based around the remaining members. And we still play (occasionally) to this day!
Musical Memories – Part 11 - February 2020 (Year 43 No 06)
by Denis Shepherd
I previously told you how I started my dance-calling career with Airs and Graces led by Alex Green (whistle) and Madeline Miller (accordion), Susie Simpson (fiddle), Frank Stephen (keyboard) and Alistair Pirie (drums) completed the classic line-up. Up to then I had not known Alex all that well – but I always remembered the first time I met him when, many years earlier, I had been persuaded to do a spot on my practice chanter at Aberdeen A&F Club. I was attempting a final practice in the lobby – only for Alex to come and try to teach me how to breathe in and play at the same time. I never found out if he was serious.
After I had performed at a few ceilidhs with the band, Madeline gave me a book by Robbie Shepherd entitled ‘Let’s Have a Ceilidh’ and suggested I expand my repertoire. One of the dances I learned from this source was the Friendly Waltz and, when we played to a company which included Robbie and his wife Esma at Aberdeen University’s Elphinstone Hall, I mentioned that this dance had several variations but that this was the correct one as I had learned it from Robbie. I gave the instructions and off we went, everyone dancing it perfectly – except Mr Shepherd was now dancing one of the other version! The most amusing incident, however, was at a charity ceilidh at the former Blairs College outside Aberdeen. Additional entertainment had been organised for the interval, provided by the Aberdeen Gun Club. Their first two or three party-pieces were admired by the dancers and band members alike as they caught bullets in saucers and such like. However, the set became rather boring as they continued to show off their huge repertoire of similar tricks and Alex, ever the would-be expert on technical matters, relieved the monotony by having a look at the workings of a spare gun which had been left beside him on the stage. The monotony was shattered rather than broken as the gun went off – Alex had not dreamed it would be loaded! The Gun Club leader must have been one of the few people on earth not to know that Alex played the tin-whistle expertly despite having lost two fingers in a childhood accident. He got quite a shock to hear a gun going off – but nothing compared to his shock on turning to see Alex holding the smoking gun in a hand that had two fingers missing!
Of course, some ceilidhs went with a bigger swing than others. At another event in the Elphinstone Hall, to celebrate a class re-union, we tried our hardest to entice people to dance, without success. One gentleman then came up and said, “That is wonderful music for dancing. Unfortunately none of us came here to dance – we haven’t seen each other for over 20 years and we just came here to talk!”
The venues where we played were many and varied. My calling style was to explain the basics from the stage and sometimes make one or two trips on to the floor to explain the finer points or demonstrate the dance. (“I dinna see foo you can hae the patience!” Alex used to say.) This was usually straightforward but we played at one function in Kincardine O’Neil where the stage was a high balcony, almost at ceiling level (where the jesters performed in days of old, we were told). I definitely benefited from my athletics training that night – every trip between the floor and the stage entailed a long stairway journey! In contrast, I remember when the band played at a well-attended dance in the Beach Ballroom, where the management gave me the use of a radio mic. I enjoyed feeling the power as I stood in the middle of a huge circle of dancers for the Circassian Circle and had them all doing exactly as I told them!
Some venues were private houses, which was fine if we were in a large room in a small house. But in later years, during our time as Fittiefolk, we played for dancing in a fairly small room in a large mansion somewhere south of Aberdeen. Between dances the company spread throughout the house to different rooms; this meant that before each dance, I had to do a tour of the whole house to announce the next dance and wait for the takers to get back to the dancing room! And at one Hogmanay venue, we were allocated a conservatory with no chairs, tables or bar – just ourselves and an empty dancing space, a long corridor away from the main hall where there was entertainment, drinks, seating accommodation – the lot. I think we had takers for just two dances the whole evening!
Musical Memories – Part 12 - March 2020 (Year 43 No 07)
by Denis Shepherd
TO CONTINUE my account of my time as a dance caller with Airs & Graces (led by Alex Green and Madeline Miller), I must tell you about one ceilidh which was memorable for the wrong reasons! We had been booked at short notice to entertain a touring party of Turkish holidaymakers visiting the Craigendarroch Holiday Centre in Ballater. Only on arrival did we discover the reason: the booked band, who had played for them the previous year, had found out at the last minute that this would be the same party and refused point blank to perform!
On making our second equipment-carrying trip from the car to the function room, we discovered Madeline, still in her coat and holding the equipment from her first trip, being lectured by the woman in charge who had her index finger in full flow. "You will play La Cumparsita after we finish our meal . . ."
After setting up the band members, as was usual, retired to the lounge for sandwiches as we waited (supposedly) until the company was ready to begin the dance. The visitors, however, had other ideas. We were literally taking the first bite of our sandwiches when an urgent call came that the band must play during the whole meal! And when they said the whole meal, they meant the whole meal. Playing our sets of music one by one was not enough – it seemed they wanted us to play one long set and only stop when they ordered us to do so. Every time a pause came, the leader exclaimed, "Why have they stopped playing? We are paying them to play the whole time!"
The Gay Gordons is the dance that needs little or no explanation. In this instance, however, I called, explained, instructed and demonstrated the dance for two sets of tunes, after which they still had not a clue what they were doing! The remainder of the dance was no more successful: for instance, I managed to persuade just enough couples to form a small circle for the Friendly Waltz but, once it began, they all obviously forgot even the name of the dance and left the floor, couple by couple.
Alex later displayed his unbounded knowledge of musical culture by partly explaining their attitude: "In Turkey the musicians are regarded on a par with the lowest echelons of society." On discussing the evening with the staff afterwards, we were told: "You’re lucky, you've only had them for one evening. We've had to put up with them for three days!"
Most hiccups, admittedly, were not the fault of the punters. At one ceilidh in Ellon Alex had brought his standby keyboard for Esma Shepherd, who was standing in that night. When Alex discovered that a vital cable had been left in his cupboard in Aberdeen he uttered his infamous catch-phrase, “Ach, Madeline!” and promptly handed Esma his house and car keys to dash back to Aberdeen to get it (the reasoning being that this way the ceilidh could begin with only one instrument missing). Esma must have found the 30-mile round journey hair raising, driving at maximum speed an estate car which she had never driven before!
This reminds me of the time Fittefolk, my latter-day band, played as a trio at a private Hogmanay party at Inglismaldie near Laurencekirk. My “Menace” partner Harry Williamson, who usually stood in on keyboard on Hogmanay, was all set to drive us there but his car had a puncture, just after all the garages had closed for New Year. His car only had an emergency spare, to be used to get to a garage, but he decided to risk it – and fortune certainly favoured the brave. Not only did we have to drive miles along a rough private road, but we covered extra distance on the return journey, having lost our bearings as we left the venue. When Harry eventually went to a garage the mechanic said, “I hope you haven’t gone far on that tyre!”
“I just said I’d been here and there – I didn’t like to tell him I’d been to Inglismaldie!” Harry later told me.
Musical Memories – Part 13 - May 2020 (Year 43 No 09)
by Denis Shepherd
DURING my time as dance caller with Airs & Graces Ceilidh Band I often took (and still do) the opportunity to do a guest caller stint at other events. When my friend Grant got married in Glasgow in 1994 I asked the bandleader, accordionist and caller Paul Johnston, if I could call a couple of dances. Conversely, I noted for the future the details of two of his dances, one of which was the Circle Hornpipe - in fact I called this dance a couple of years ago at our editor Pia’s birthday ceilidh. The other was one he called the Drongo Dance which, with sets of 4 women and 5 men, can involve some physical conflict as the men “fight” for a partner each time the music stops! Grant and his wife Mairi later bumped into Paul at a non-musical event but he couldn’t remember having played at their wedding. However, when they mentioned their friend Denis had called some dances he immediately lit up: “Oh yes, I remember Denis!” I don’t think Mairi was too pleased that I had out-shone the bride, in the bandleader’s eyes at least.
I once also taught ceilidh dances in Germany! Two German students who visited our Folk Club one night were given accommodation by one of my colleagues, and as a result issued an invitation to visit Magdeburg. I took up the invitation and during my stay taught Houlihan’s jig and other dances at a party held in a students’ flat. The only snag was that I forgot to pack the John Ellis cassette I had looked out – and had to make do with one of their cassettes. In some cases the music started perfectly for ceilidh dancing – but then repeatedly increased in tempo before slowing down again. The dances had therefore to be adjusted accordingly!
Memories of the Airs & Graces era abound. More often than not, when we were relaxing over a drink and waiting to go on stage at various venues, the time was spent listening to anecdotes from band organisers Alex Green and Madeline Miller. One story was about the time Alex took part in auditions for the TV show Opportunity Knocks at the Station Hotel in Aberdeen. As he entered a staff member dashed up to him saying, “Can I take your coat, Mr Green?” Alex was for a fleeting moment feeling proud of his new celebrity status – until the staff member brushed past him to greet the show’s host, Hughie Green!
Alex would sometimes tell his more risqué stories, mostly to the male band members, during lulls between dances. On one occasion I had announced the Virginia Reel and was busy explaining the dance to the participants when Alex turned round and told a joke ‘on the sly’ about a girl called Virginia (suffice to say this girl had a nick-name). What Alex had forgotten was that this event was being videoed - and I still have that tape! At another ceilidh Madeline told us the money received was short of the agreed fee, admitting she had not counted it as soon as she had received it (which evoked the usual Alex response, “Ach, Madeline!”). The organisers were adamant they had paid the right amount – and Madeline later found the shortfall stuck down the inside of her bag! Drummer Alistair Pirie once reversed (whilst perfectly sober) into a deep ditch surrounding the unlit tennis courts, and as we left Pittodrie House Hotel all we could see was the nose of his car sticking in the air and no sign of the rear end! Luckily we soon had him back up on his wheels and away.
But I was not immune to embarrassing moments either. At a birthday party at the Northern Hotel, I was helping to set up on stage whilst also liaising with the organisers about their plans – taking the direct route each time to get to the other end of the hall, i.e. jumping off the stage. Setting off on one trip, I did not notice that there was a cable round one of my feet, and in a split second the band’s condensed PA system and all its accoutrements were spread over the floor. By good luck there was no harm done and once re-assembled, everything was working perfectly including me.
Alex sometimes involved some of the band members in concerts at residential homes etc. On one of these occasions another entertainer kept expressing his disappointment that his son had not turned up to see him perform despite having promised to do so. "He has probably been called out to work," said Alex. "After all, he is an undertaker - what if someone has just died?"
"Ach, they wid still be deid in the mornin'!" retorted the fellow.
Musical Memories – Part 14 - July 2020 (Year 43 No 11)
by Denis Shepherd
IN 1998 Alex Green and Madeline Miller had decided to go into semi-retirement as entertainers and move house to Portknockie. I volunteered to keep the ceilidh band (of which I was the caller) going, although it would have to be renamed because they intended to carry on doing small gigs by themselves around Portknockie as Airs & Graces, a name Alex had created from his own initials. (We’ll dee ony gig as lang as there’s nae humph involved,” he said.) This heralded, for me, the end of one era and the start of another.
So I set out on the arduous task of re-forming the band, organising sets of music and scheduling rehearsals – as well as finding a new name! I came up with a few suggestions and the name Fittiefolk (from Harry Gordon’s song The Auldest Aiberdonian) was unanimously voted in. In an attempt to create a similar sound to Airs & Graces I recruited a whistle player and an accordionist.
As a result, Fittefolk became probably the only ceilidh band in the North East to boast a musician who had played on a world-wide No.1 hit! David Dow, a colleague from the Folk Club and TMSA, played guitar, flute and whistle as well as being a singer and had been a member of the military band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards at the recording of their big hit, Amazing Grace. David encouraged Fittiefolk to introduce singing to the music for some of the popular dances. After a few years he left and was replaced by Mark Lammas, a well-known local flautist and whistle player.
And whilst I was doing my ‘first-fittin’’ visits around Kildrummy, I was told of a young accordionist from Strathdon called Charles Coutts. I promptly got in touch and recruited him, without having heard or even met him – and I was not disappointed. He was so keen to get started, he arrived sharp at another band member’s house for his first rehearsal – and they were on to their third set before I arrived! And in true Scottish style it soon transpired that we were related – his uncle was married to my cousin. Charles was on the point of starting a course at Aberdeen University which made him readily available. Playing with a ceilidh band opened his eyes in some respects. After our first booking I gave him a lift and left his share of the fee beside the car seat. When he picked it up he asked, “How much of this is for me?” Charles eventually graduated and relocated to Reading. His seat was then filled by experienced accordionist Mhairi Shand, who had occasionally stood in with Airs & Graces.
So Charles and David joined the other former Airs and Graces players – Susan Simpson (fiddle), Frank Stephen (keyboard) and Alistair Pirie (drums) - for a successful first Fittiefolk ceilidh in Aberdeen‘s Station Hotel. But my otherwise happy memories of the event are tinged with sadness. When we arrived Alistair said jokingly that he had that day been attacked with a hammer – by himself! Apparently he had been doing some DIY work when the hammer had unexpectedly bounced back into his jaw, breaking some teeth. This did not affect his playing, but nobody expected what was to follow over the next couple of years. Complications led to the loss of an eye and ultimately to his passing – but he carried on with Fittiefolk for most of this spell. Brian Watt, whom I later met at Aberdeen Accordion and Fiddle Club, then became our drummer.
The Airs & Graces Ceilidh Band, however, had one final fling at an event in Newmachar, where Alex and Madeline joined us for the last time. To mark the changeover, David and Charles also attended and after the interval a few dances were played by the new band Fittiefolk.
Regardless of the line-up, there were always some Alex influences in the band. We continued to use many of the sets of music he and Madeline had put together (although for the Circle Hornpipe Charles replaced the Primrose Polka with the Patchwork Polka). Before copying the sheets I printed in large capitals, with a marker pen, the names of the dances across the top. People were often amused to see the words “DASHING FITE SERGEANT” – the second word being one of Alex’s favourite Doric words!
Musical Memories – Part 15 - August 2020 (Year 43 No 12)
by Denis Shepherd
THE FITTIEFOLK Ceilidh Band was launched in 1998 and, 22 years later, is still available on request. It is always a pleasure to be told by the leading lights at weddings, birthday parties etc. that we have given them a memorable experience of one of the highlights of their lives.
And it is well known that ceilidh dancing also brings people together - sometimes permanently. Sadly, it was the reverse in the case of one of the early Fittiefolk bookings, made by a friend, Murdo, on behalf of a couple celebrating their silver wedding anniversary. The couple had requested that we play some slow romantic dances to consolidate their relationship, and asked specifically that we include two songs: the classic hit Unchained Melody and Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight. I dug out music for the band and David Dow sang them perfectly. When I happened to ask Murdo some six months later how the silver wedding couple were doing, he replied: “Oh, them – they’ve split up!”
However, in common with most other bands, Fittiefolk did sometimes bring musicians together! At a Christmas ceilidh at Alford Academy, well-known bandleader Frank Thomson replaced our accordionist Charles Coutts who was busy with university exams. Frank struck up a rapport with our drummer Brian Watt and they went on to appear as a guest duo at accordion and fiddle clubs.
This Alford dance, organised by senior pupils, brought to mind a saying about best laid plans. When they returned their contract, the pupils enclosed an order of ceremony for the dances. So instead of having to search for music during the evening, the band members could, in theory, have their sheets all ready in the correct order. But as soon as we arrived, the pupils handed me a folder and said the programme had been completely re-vamped, so we could ignore the previous one! So the musicians still had to scramble for their sheets of music before each dance – and by now, of course, the sheets were no longer all in alphabetical order!
A more serious hiccup almost occurred when we were to play at a private function in the Station Hotel, Portsoy: it was nearly time to begin and there was no sign of whistle player Mark Lammas, who by then had replaced David Dow. I phoned his mobile asking where he was, only to be told, “The Station Hotel in Aberdeen!” He must have clocked a personal best in his car as he arrived in Portsoy half-an-hour later. We would probably not have made such a good impression on the host family with a musician missing; however, they liked us so much they later booked us for another family function in Banff, and also for a wedding in Aviemore. Mind you, the latter was only after some negotiation: they insisted on paying us a higher fee than I was asking for!
There was no fee negotiation when Fittiefolk were booked by the SNP for a function in the Northern Hotel to mark the re-election of Richard Lochhead to the Scottish Parliament. The highlight I remember was sharing the stage with Alex Salmond as he related his inside stories about the leading characters in Westminster! However, we had to haggle to get a cup of tea at the interval – the staff said the tea and sandwiches had been ordered for everyone except the band. Eventually the hotel said we could have some as long as we kept it quiet. Before we could start the ceilidh we also had to explain to the organisers that they would need to clear the table used for the formalities from the dance floor.
In contrast, there was food aplenty for the band when we played at a wedding at an Indian restaurant – but that is not to say we got it! As we arrived, the guests were getting through a lavish meal and we looked forward to the food that the groom had arranged for us to have after the ceilidh. But as soon as our food was laid out – and before we could get to it - the guests, having not long finished their own, formed a queue to help themselves to yet another feast!
At that same wedding, health and safety regulations prevented any dancing in the dancing area, which therefore became the seating area. The dancing took place in the bar area – and we were stuck in the middle! This meant the caller (me) had to face one way to address the dancers and another to address the seated guests. We set the speakers for the dancers to hear the band – which meant that when guests game up to sing or recite their party pieces, the sound of their voices was carried away from the audience!
Musical Memories – Part 16 - September 2020 (Year 44 No 01)
by Denis Shepherd
UNTIL a few years ago all ceilidh bands could be assured of a Hogmanay booking – and Fittiefolk was no exception. And we had a lot of interesting experiences!
On two successive Hogmanays we played at a coastal hotel near Peterhead. The first was uneventful but the second was quite memorable – and not for all the right reasons. Keyboard player Harry Williamson (a Fittiefolk member only on Hogmanays) gave me a lift but a storm had blown in that day and we found ourselves struggling through six inches of sleety snow – and that was before we got out of Aberdeen! Harry had left it till the last minute to get his keyboard repaired by someone in the highest part of Westhill and we had to pick it up on the way to Peterhead. As we were about to set off from the repairer’s I said, half-jokingly, “Did he remember to give you the power lead so that you can plug it in?” It was lucky I did – it saved a second journey to the highest part of Westhill!
When we got to Peterhead there was no snow but plenty of wind. When we left the car it needed all of our combined strength to prevent the keyboard from being blown into the North Sea! As we set up in the function room at the back of the hotel, we noticed the radiators were still cold and assumed the room would gradually heat up once they were switched on. But they never were – the room just got colder and colder. And as people went through to the hotel proper and discovered it was nice and warm there, they simply ‘forgot’ to come back to the ceilidh. We could have gone home early – but for two couples who were determined to get their money’s worth and stuck it out to the bitter end.
At another venue on Deeside the manager put the three of us – myself, Harry and Mark Lammas - in a small room behind closed doors and said those who wanted to dance would find us. The floor was barely big enough to dance on and it transpired that those sitting in the dozen or so chairs only wanted to be entertained. Luckily we had a big repertoire though not the one we had expected to use on Hogmanay! At some point the punters in the lounge opened the door to see what was going on – and hastily shut it again! Then, as we left at the end of the evening, the manager said, “I have a big room through the house where we could have had space for everyone and room for dancing.” Thanks for telling us!
We played a few Hogmanays at another Deeside venue where in contrast everyone was in the same village hall, picnicking and dancing. This venue had only a temporary stage, assembled for each occasion, and its stability left a lot to be desired. As it was a tight fit for a full ceilidh band, Harry pushed the back of his chair close against the wall – closer, in fact, than the section of stage under him. At the end of one dance there was a loud crash and no sign of Harry – apart from his feet sticking up behind the keyboard!
I find that having been a caller makes me appreciate the calling at other ceilidhs that I go to – whether good or bad. One instance of the latter was when a caller at a big event in the Beach Ballroom in Aberdeen announced the Swedish Masquerade and then asked a couple to demonstrate it – which they did, closely watched by all those who were keen to learn it. When they had finished, the caller said: “Thank you very much; that was an excellent demonstration. However, that’s not the way we’re going to do it tonight.” Talk about confusing people! The safest ploy, in my opinion, is for the caller to demonstrate the dance himself!
I enjoy singing to certain dances which do not need to be called; this was something I began after David Dow, who had introduced singing to the band, left. And at 11.55pm every Hogmanay, wherever I may be, I think of all the Fittiefolk Hogmanay gigs of the past and feel I should be singing He’ll Have to Go, as I did every time to get people in a romantic mood before the bells.
Another song I introduced was Lassie Come and Dance with Me – this was a result of my earliest dancing experiences, doing the Boston Two Step to Michael McKay’s Band, with this very song being sung by fiddler and guitarist Tommy McDonald. In more recent years I have done a few ceilidh dance calling jobs with Michael’s current band Country Edition and on one occasion I actually sang this song for a Boston Two Step. I later realised this had great significance: this was essentially the same legendary band that I had learned the song from nearly half-a-century earlier!
Musical Memories – Part 17 - November 2020 (Year 44 No 03)
by Denis Shepherd
Tuesday 21st June 2005 marked a significant turning point in my music and entertainment career. This was the date of a routine monthly TMSA session, but on this occasion I not only sang a song but also played a couple of tunes on the mouth-organ. These were Leaving Barra and Lochanside and this was the first time I had played the instrument in public (and these were probably the only tunes I could play!).
I now have a somewhat larger repertoire but this does not include Donald Ian Rankine, the first tune I could almost play on my plastic moothie as a youngster. I was familiar with lots of tunes from the radio and records but I did not know then that you have to suck and blow alternately to play the scale; so I just blew and the notes that came out happened to be the first line of that tune! Of course, I now realise this would be one of the more difficult tunes to play, unless you have a huge lung capacity.
But mouth-organ and other music had never been far away throughout my younger years. My dad Jimmy Shepherd, as well as being an accordionist, was also a proficient moothie player. When the cassette player became popular he was always happy to let me record him playing a tune. However, during the 1972 Olympics I had also recorded (I’ve no idea why) one of the star TV performances of Olga Korbut, the young Soviet gymnast. Dad was taken aback when I played back his tune: it was followed by a BBC voice saying excitedly, “My goodness! That was quite fantastic!” followed by several minutes of solid applause. He couldn’t stop laughing!
Later in life, after joining the Folk Club and TMSA, I got to know the top local moothie players of the time: Arthur Middleton, Tony Shearer and Betty Burnett. As neither Arthur nor Betty drove, I often gave one or other a lift to events and I got to know them and their music well; I later composed a tune called Betty and Arthur and Dad (see back page) which, written after both of them and my dad had all passed away, was dedicated to the three people who had inspired me to start playing the moothie seriously. Although this is a tune rather than a song, the last two bars of each measure lend themselves to the words of the title and it has been a thrill for me on occasions, whilst playing the tune, to hear whole rooms of people singing, “Betty and Arthur and Dad!” In his later years Dad did eventually hear my unique version of the Hen’s Mairch and I was quite chuffed when he said it was the only tune I could play better then he could.
Although Betty and Arthur never heard me playing in a competition, I often heard them do. In those days there was usually a large field of top-class moothie players and both Arthur and Betty took their competitions very seriously. Arthur was always proud of his trophies upon which his name was engraved. Little did I realise then, being a non-player, that many years later I would be lucky enough to have my name engraved under his.
At one event Betty took her competition slightly too seriously. At the now discontinued May Day weekend competitions at Cullerlie Farm Park, held mainly in marquees, she did not get the result she had expected and, when she went up to be presented with her certificate and score-sheet, she showed her displeasure with a display of violence - no, not by attacking the judge but by crumpling up these documents with all the strength she could muster in her hands! Of course, most people got to hear about this, as became evident a year later when I gave Betty a lift to Cullerlie. As we sat in the tearoom, she suddenly realised the time for the moothie competition was fast approaching and dashed off, saying, “I’d better go and brush my teeth.” Just loud enough for her not to hear, I said: “You’d better sharpen them as well!” This raised some knowing laughter from the others at the table.
Arthur told me many stories about competitions of the past, such as the time a bothy ballad singer was disqualified because he wore spectacles (“Faun did ye ivver see a bothy man weerin’ glaisses!” the judge had said). But his favourite was of the time the mouth-organ judge had forgotten his packed lunch and one of the competitors had given him a ham sandwich. The latter was placed second, and this led him to dream of what might have been – if only he had put mustard in the sandwich!
One of my own favourite stories is about a singing competition - again concerning the Cullerlie event, at which I was pleasantly surprised to be placed second in the traditional singing. I sang Drumallochie, a song I had learned many years earlier from the singing of Cullerlie legend Tam Reid. The judge, Tam’s wife Anne, said she had never heard me sing it so well. There was a logical explanation. Just as I started to sing a mighty hailstorm hit the tent, and I had to belt out the song with all my strength just to be able to hear myself!.
Musical Memories – Part 18 - February 2022 (Year 45 No 02)
by Denis Shepherd
ONE of the influences leading me to start playing the mouth organ in 2005 was Arthur Middleton, whom I used to meet at Aberdeen Accordion and Fiddle Club and Aberdeen Folk Club. I often acted as Arthur’s chauffeur and therefore attended many events with him before I had even thought of taking up the instrument myself. When he was asked to do a concert for pensioners or people in sheltered housing, he often asked my duo, Denis and the Menace, to support him; our singing, verse and piano complemented his playing, with Menace Harry Williamson providing accompaniment to him as well as me.
Arthur was one of the top in his field – not only in Aberdeen, Scotland and Britain but also in the world. This is official: when he competed in the world championships in Hamburg, he gained a ‘highly recommended’ certificate for being placed in the top ten. One of the guests there was Larry Adler, the world-famous American mouth-organ player and an acquaintance of Arthur, who said of his Hamburg experience: “At the evening concert, Larry Adler came on to play – and brought the house down. Then I came on to play, in my full highland outfit – and brought the house down again!”
I am proud to say that I played a small part in getting Arthur to Hamburg, by helping to raise funds for the trip. One of my innovations was an anagram competition in which the answers were the names of tunes or songs included in Arthur’s repertoire. Can you guess this one? - HOLY PIG-DUNG, EH, TOBY! (Answer at the bottom.) After this, any time that Arthur and I were at an event where someone started to sing or play this song, we would look at each other and say, “Holy pig-dung, eh, Toby!” and burst out laughing. People around us thought we had completely lost the plot!
Arthur’s repertoire of jokes was not nearly as big as his repertoire of tunes. He invariably talked about the time he announced a Burns tune and was met with the reaction, “Burns! That fine Jewish gentleman!” because the people concerned had thought his name was Rabbi Burns. And his performances invariably included a story about his childhood days in Whitehouse, near Alford, complete with sound effects (played on the mouth-organ) of the hens, the fire engine and the steam train. Of course, Arthur was also famous for inventing the ‘Bon-a-Chord Blasterdiddle’ – a hand-held vacuum cleaner with a mouth-organ taped on to it, which gave the impression of bagpipes droning while he played another mouth-organ held in his other hand. This was always preceded by a long story about wanting to play the bagpipes as a boy – but knowing the price of pipes, his dad had presented him instead with a vacuum cleaner.
Arthur never heard me play the mouth-organ but in more recent years I played at a concert organised by his widow, Eveline, and was surprised but delighted to receive a couple of Arthur’s mouth-organs from her. I think my moothie playing has gone down better than my limited bagpipe playing did in my younger days. As a student I spent part of my first charities week playing my pipes in Union Street, dressed in a Chinese hat, tie-dye shirt and grass skirt (fortunately I have no photos of this). On reflection it perhaps wasn’t a good idea to get them tuned up at 7.30am – especially as I lodged in a large boarding house. Doug, my late friend and room-mate, and I always used to recall the morning that a fellow boarder, a college lecturer, came into the room saying: “Look, boys, there are people asleep downstairs” – whilst all the time, long after I had stopped playing, my drones were groaning in a non-melodic fashion!
But I do have an unusual entry in my moothie CV. One of the duties I performed regularly as an athletics official was that of announcer at Scottish championships, including the indoor events which were then held in Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall. At one such meeting Isobel Dunkeld, a dedicated administration official for the past half-century, was celebrating her 88th birthday and I was asked to announce this as she was presented with a cake during a lull in proceedings. I was also to encourage the singing of Happy Birthday to You. But I went one better: I reached for my bag, which happened to have a mouth-organ in it, and played it through the PA as everyone sang. I don’t know if any other mouth-organ players can say they have performed in the Kelvin Hall!
Anagram solution: The Dying Ploughboy
Photos
Arthur and Denis
Larry Adler
Isobel Dunkeld
Arthur with Tam Reid and Madeline Miller
Musical Memories – Part 19 - March 2022 (Year 45 No 03)
by Denis Shepherd
IN the course of my various activities, I have met many top performers. This is partly because of my membership of the Aberdeen Folk Club and TMSA committees, including spells as entertainment organiser. I remember phoning John Ellis to ask his Highland Country Band to play for a Folk Club ceilidh dance during the Alternative Festival, and he was delighted to accept. The other committee members found it funny when I told them that he had said he would reduce his fee on account of its being part of the Festival. With most artists the opposite was the case! For another ceilidh I booked Wayne Robertson because I had heard him for the first time on Take the Floor and liked the sound of his band. Many years later, when he was a guest at Aberdeen Accordion and Fiddle Club, I was about to remind him about this ceilidh and to re-introduce myself when he spotted me and called, “Hello, Denis!”
In my early days at Aberdeen Folk Club, one of the regular guests was Irish singer Fil Campbell, who still tours with her husband Tom McFarland. It just happened that I was one of the ‘floor’ singers the first time she came to Aberdeen, and I sang one of my Doric songs. When she returned the following year, she asked me to sing that Doric song again and I was delighted that she had liked my rendition. It thus became a tradition that every time she was a guest, I did a floor spot in Doric for her. I even went to Montrose Folk Club to do so when she was a guest there! It was only many years later that I discovered the reason she had first asked me to sing that song again: she hadn’t understood a word of it the first time!
But Fil was not the only famous Campbell to visit Aberdeen Folk Club. On one occasion, we wondered who was responsible for the deep but melodic chorus singing which, coming from a certain table, was almost drowning out everyone else. It turned out this was Ian Campbell of the legendary Ian Campbell Folk Group of the 1960s, who had come along with some of his sons (who were to go on to form the band UB40). On a separate occasion I saw the former Ian Campbell fiddler, Dave Swarbrick, perform a solo concert in the Aberdeen Arts Centre. As many people will remember, Dave was a chain smoker and simply had to light up after each number (this was long before the banning of smoking in public buildings). I don’t know if he had been planning on any audience interaction; but, after finding his packet empty, he had to ask audience members to throw him cigarettes so that he could carry on playing!
Another performer who provided some amusing interaction was singer/guitarist John James. During his act at the Folk Club in the Three Poceros, a lady inadvertently went into the wrong toilet. On emerging she hoped for the error to go unnoticed; but John James stopped singing mid-song and announced: “She went into the gents!”
At another concert I attended, the interaction came purely from the audience – or rather one member of the audience. Mark Lammas, whistle player in my ceilidh band Fittiefolk, also played flute in the Grampian Concert Orchestra and had persuaded me to buy a ticket for their recital in Ferryhill Church. A fair proportion of the audience comprised spouses and children of the musicians on stage. At the end of the first piece of music the players gathered themselves for the start of the next and the conductor, on satisfying himself they were all ready, raised the baton high; but a split second before it was to drop to signal the first note, “Go!” rang out from a little girl in the front row. Everyone fell about laughing and the musicians had to compose themselves all over again.
In the case of Dave Berry, the veteran 1960s singer, the interaction from an audience member at one concert came after the show had finished. Dave tours regularly in the famous Sixties shows and his patter between songs inevitably includes something to the effect: “I always look back fondly on our visits to Aberdeen in the 60s and how you were all so good to us. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some of my sons and daughters in the audience here tonight!” Presumably he uses this gag at all relevant concert venues (I have heard him do so in Dundee) but at this event someone really thought he was demeaning the Aberdeen girls of the era. I had to wait for ages to talk to him at his stall in the Music Hall foyer because the woman in front of me was busy giving him a piece of her mind over this remark!
Photos
Wayne Robertson
Fil Campbell and Tom McFarland
Dave Berry
Dave Swarbrick (by Bryan Ledgard - https://www.flickr.com/photos/)
Musical Memories – Part 20 - April 2022 (Year 45 No 04)
by Denis Shepherd
I have told you about some of the musicians whom I have met for various reasons; but I have also had some encounters that could not have been foreseen.
In 1964 I used to watch the latest No.1 song, I’m Into Something Good, performed on Top of the Pops by Herman’s Hermits, who were fronted by 16-year-old Peter Noone – now, of course, a world-famous singer and actor. Little did I realise that 48 years later I would land up walking along the street and chatting with him! I had just come out at the back door of the Music Hall after a 60s show when a voice said, “Excuse me, can you tell me if this street takes me to Union Street?” In the dim lighting I could just make out the figure with the wheeled suitcase was none other than Peter Noone, who had been singing in the concert. I walked with him towards his hotel and found him very polite and unassuming: “My name is Peter,” he said! (I recently discovered one of the reasons we got on so well is that his middle name is Denis.) On the way he said he was fascinated by the Aberdeen architecture; I then pointed out the Boys’ Brigade HQ, the building where I competed in the annual TMSA competitions including Doric song and verse. He had never heard of Doric but he took a note of it in his phone so that he could look it up later. I don’t know if he did – he has never mentioned it in subsequent concerts!
Another weekly tea-time TV programme, which the whole family used to watch, was Strictly Scottish, featuring the Jack Sinclair Showband. One of the musicians was Alex Green, whose band Airs & Graces I was many years later to join as caller. And one evening, as Jack Sinclair and Frank Thomson played an accordion duet, my dad said, “That’s my banker!” Sure enough, Frank was a banker by profession and at that time was based in the Alford branch where Dad had his business account. And one night many years later, I followed in Dad’s footsteps by handing over a sum of money to Frank in Alford – I had hired him to play in my band Fittiefolk at Alford Academy!
I have never seen Arbroath’s Foundry Bar Band on TV but in their day I saw them play at several venues. One busy weekend, when I had engagements as an athletics official in Grangemouth and as caller with Airs & Graces at Glamis, my mum arranged for me to stay overnight with her cousin and her husband in Letham near Forfar, so that I would not lose sleep by driving to Aberdeen and then back to Grangemouth in the morning. This was perfectly logical – except that my host turned out to be Sandy Beattie, double bass player in the Foundry Bar Band. Sleep was lost anyway as we spent half the night exchanging musical memories, with Sandy telling me about all the musicians he had played with, including Sir Jimmy Shand.
Much earlier in life (early primary school, to be precise) I met three performers without knowing who they were! Victor Davidson, Sandy Michie and George Smith were well-known local entertainers in upper Donside and they had come to do a spot at a Burns supper for the pupils of Kildrummy School. Their act included the Burns song Willie Brew’d a Peck O’ Maut, during which they sat with a whisky bottle round the teacher’s table, dressed in woollen ‘touries,’ and later in the song slipped to the floor, apparently in a drunken stupor. Owing to my inferior stature and the layout of the classroom desks they at this point disappeared from my view – and I missed what my sister thought was the funniest part (she was older and closer to the action). Sandy Michie was known for his distinctive nose, and when his ‘tourie,’ whether by accident or by design, slipped down over his face as he lay on the floor, all that could be seen was his nose sticking through a hole at the top! Several years later, on Bothy Nichts on TV, I heard Sandy singing a song about an Alford farmer’s potato harvest. I stole his chorus (“Fa’ll gither this dreel, fa’ll gither noo ...”) and wrote my own verses about my dad’s tatties, featuring some of the local characters as well as Dad’s rather worse-for-wear tattie-digger. Jimmy Shepherd’s Tatties still features in my repertoire – and the digger is still alive and residing at Birkenhill near Elgin.
Victor Davidson still features in my memories too. I am occasionally asked to address
the haggis; and when I come to the last line, ‘Gi’e her a haggis!’ I always visualise Victor, whilst performing the task many years ago in The Wee Kildrummy Inn, at this point tossing the haggis to the ceiling and catching it again on the plate, before it is taken away by the proprietor to be cut up. I have always had to resist the temptation to do the same – partly because I have already cut the haggis open by then.
Photos
Peter Noone
Foundry Bar Band with Sandy Beattie (back row, centre)
Messrs Smith, Davidson and Michie (acknowledge sources as http://www.alfordimages.com and Alford Heritage Centre)
Tattie digger immortalised in song by Ian Law
Frank Thomson
Musical Memories – Part 21 - May 2022 (Year 45 No 05)
by Denis Shepherd
AT the start of Musical Memories, I told you about my early interest in the 78rpm records. My favourite song was Ye Canna Pit It On Tae Sandy by Willie Kemp, and I knew all the words before I could read – apart from the first four lines. As far as I was concerned the song began with “their mither” – the first words you heard when you lifted the needle arm past the broken bit on the edge of the record. Many years later I found out what the missing part was, the fourth line being “But they’ve mair need o’ their mither.” So when I sing the song nowadays, I automatically change tone at “their mither.” For the same reason, when I sing the other song on that record (where there was a scratch which made the needle jump), I have to stop myself at one point from singing, “At the bottom o’ oor stair ..stair ..stair ...stair...”
And so to the present day. I often take part in Scottish variety concerts with one or two other artists and a lot of my items, whether consciously or not, are based on my musical memories, including those of the aforementioned ‘78s.’ Another of these records was The Auldest Aiberdonian by Harry Gordon; and years later I sang this at a Grampian Health Board Christmas party cabaret (complete with white beard and walking stick, and with the lyrics doctored to cover Health Board matters). The lines, “I can mind afore there wis a helicopter pad;/For patients wi’ a parachute it wisna quite sae bad!” raised quite a few laughs, but not as many as the part which went: “I can mind Buff Hardie actin’ in a travellin’ show;/He charged ye for admission so of coorse I didna go!” – because the late Buff Hardie, well known for his acting in the Scotland The What sketches, also happened to be Secretary to the Health Board and therefore our senior boss! The downside of being one of the ‘GHB Thespians’ was that I was obliged to take part in other musical items definitely not emanating from my memories, such as a song-and-dance routine purported to be a commercial for ‘elasticated nappies’ (again in the appropriate dress!).
I was also a fan of the traditional dance music records, mainly those of the Jim Cameron and Jimmy Shand bands, and it was a big day for me when the family procured (at a cost of 6/8 – 33 pence nowadays) a new record titled simply Irish Jigs by Jimmy Shand. I don’t recall our having a record of Ian Powrie and his Band, so the first time I heard them was at a concert in the Lonach Hall in Strathdon. As the band launched into its opening set, I noticed a seemingly spare accordion on the left side of the stage; but half-way through the number, Mickie Ainsworth calmly sauntered on stage, strapped on this box and joined in. A few numbers later, other band members were having great fun at his expense. At my tender age this was a bit much and I was glad when a much less boisterous lady singer came on! When I eventually saw the band on The White Heather Club on TV, I wondered why they did nothing but play music. So if you ever see anything funny, unusual or frightening during my musical items, you can probably blame it on seeing the Ian Powrie Band live! However, there was one item in The White Heather Club that I found amusing enough to include in my repertoire in later years, and it was always performed in the Hogmanay edition (this was the only night of the year I was allowed to stay up until midnight). As Duncan MacRae sang The Wee Cock Sparra, my dad (being a farmer) once made the remark: “Ye could drive a tractor and cairt through that moo o’ his!” Another Lonach concert, quite a few years later, featured pianist Annie Shand-Scott, whom I had known as Annie Shand on another of my favourite ‘78s,’ Merrily Dance the Quaker’s Wife. She had not lost her unique rhythmic style and as I listened, I could re-live my distant childhood for a few minutes.
I again witnessed a blend of music and comedy in the 1962 Calum Kennedy Show in the Tivoli Theatre, when Calum forcibly persuaded the Irish comedian Sammy Short to reveal what he wore under his kilt – and Short took great delight in showing us a tiny pleated kilt. Shortly after this, Calum used the same sketch on his TV show; but as Sammy Short was not in the show, the part fell to accordionist Will Starr. But his ‘underkilt’ was not nearly as short as Short’s – and he did not appear to display it with the same relish!
20 years later, I re-enacted this sketch in my own act – but the first occasion was not a concert but Glenurquhart Highland Games, after I had run in the ‘Auld Scottish’ kilted race. I did go on to perform this revelation sometimes on stage, when I recited my poem My First Auld Scottish. But from Short’s short kilt to short shorts: I once watched the resurrected 60s group, Freddie and the Dreamers, perform Who Wears Short Shorts in the Music Hall in Aberdeen, and during the instrumental interlude Freddie went round the band pulling down their trousers to reveal their brightly coloured boxer shorts. When he came to the lead guitarist he got it slightly wrong and pulled his boxer shorts down too; the guitarist had no option but to carry on playing, but with a less than contented expression. This is definitely one item I have no intention of introducing to my concerts!
Photos
Buff Hardie
The Auldest Aiberdonian
Elasticated Nappies
Mickie Ainsworth or Powrie Band– Pia?
Calum Kennedy – Pia?
Glenurquhart Games
Musical Memories – Part 22 - October 2022 (Year 46 No 01)
by Denis Shepherd
As a child I never missed an opportunity to impersonate artists – or anyone else for that matter. Nowadays young people sometimes play ‘air guitar;’ but, after seeing Will Starr as a youngster, I used to play ‘air accordion’! Adopting the Starr scowl, I used to turn and kick one leg behind me, as Starr always did. At one concert, I remember one bright spark shouting, “Both at once please!”
When Freddie and the Dreamers sang their hit, You Were Made for Me, on TV, Freddie Garrity used to leap about or kneel non-stop. Now this was something for me to impersonate! While in primary 7 I used to spend ‘play-times’ leaping about in the street and attempting to sing this song. Unfortunately, the only girl who took the slightest interest was not one of those I had hoped would be awed. I attempted to impersonate other artists by looking like them; for instance, I got a crew cut in 1962 to emulate Joe Brown. A few years on I wore the woollen hat and side-swept hairstyle of Mike Nesmith of the Monkees – and I was chuffed when a girl at school told me I looked like a Monkee (at least that’s what I hope she meant!).
Many of the tunes I play now on the moothie can be linked to certain performers. One which always goes down well is the Hen’s Mairch Ower the Midden which I once saw fiddler Ron Kerr play on TV. After taking up the mouth-organ I wondered if I could make as good chicken-clucking noises as he could, and over the years I think I have just about managed it. Similarly, when playing the Charlie Hunter tune The Hills of Lorne I automatically think of Jimmy MacFarlane playing it on the Jim MacLeod Band Show, while Harvest Home Hornpipe evokes memories of Scotch Corner and Jimmy Blue.
The family used to have an annual outing to the Lonach Games in Strathdon. When the Lonach Pipe Band led the Highlanders round the arena at 3pm their anthem was, and still is, The Pibroch o’ Donald Dhu. Even now I can’t play the tune without visualising the Lonach Games in days of old!
My most vivid memory of my first visit to Aberdeen Folk Club in 1985 is of Huntly bothy ballad singer Frank McNally reciting a poem called The New Tractor. Mimicking the actions of someone sitting on a runaway tractor, he accidentally knocked the microphone loose and as it sank to the floor he simply lowered his body accordingly, with no interruption to his delivery. The tractor salesman in the poem was known by his initials, WPDI, to which I attached no significance – until several years later when it transpired this was my cousin Sheena’s father-in-law, William Innes, who had co-written the poem. Thanks to Sheena, and to Robbie Shepherd who had given her the words which she passed to me, the poem is now firmly in my repertoire. It was very satisfying to be told by a lady at a recent concert: “Thanks for doing that poem – my dad used to recite it!”
However, I have always enjoyed a wide variety of performances without necessarily looking for something to perform myself. In 1962 I started to pay attention to the Top 20 and I started to be interested in the 45rpm records. Eventually the long-awaited Dansette record-player arrived, by which time the family already had our first ‘45s’ waiting to be played – mine including the Shadows’ Guitar Tango. The B-side, titled What a Lovely Tune, consisted of a one-sided posh conversation with the music in the background (the speaker was trying to woo a girl he had taken aside during a dance) and I used to impersonate parts of this when helping my mum to entertain visitors: “Would you like a cup of tea? Milk? Sugar? No you don’t, do you! Never mind.” At the age of 10 I tipped an unknown group, the Beatles, for stardom after hearing their first release, Love Me Do; and later in life I correctly identified Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by obscure Scottish band Scottish band Middle of the Road as a future No.1.
My dad, being a dance band accordionist and moothie player, did not have a universal admiration of modern songs. He changed the name of American singer Tommy Roe to Tommy Rot, and referred to Alan Price, who sang Hi-Lili Hi-Lo, as “yon affa’ roarin’ manny.” However, when he heard Edelweiss (from The Sound of Music) sung by Vince Hill on Top of the Pops, it became one of his favourite tunes to play on the moothie. In the 1970s, with my resurged interest in Scottish dance music coinciding with the acquisition of my first cassette player, I regularly taped the Scottish Dance Music (later Take the Floor) programmes. These recordings were frequently of low sound quality, owing to a combination of bad radio reception, poor microphone pickup and failing batteries; therefore, when Dad heard my recording of Alastair Hunter’s band playing The Banjo Breakdown, he remarked: “That soonds jist like a thrashin’ mill bummin’.”
In 1974 Will Clark, of the previously mentioned James Hay Trio, and I ventured to the prize-winners’ concert at the Perth Accordion Festival. It was the first time I had seen some of the broadcasting players of that era. Because of the harvest, my parents had to decline their tickets and we gave them to friends of theirs, Jim and Annie, from Abernethy near Perth. The first artist featured was 13-year-old junior winner Gordon Pattullo playing Edgefold House, which we heard several times that night – and every time I hear this tune I still think of Perth and Gordon Pattullo. The senior winner was James Lindsay and I remember Will commenting on his light touch on the keys, but the special guest was the Norwegian Toralf Tollefsen. Afterwards, we asked our guests if they had enjoyed the concert.
“Well, tae tell you the truth,” said Jim in his thick Fife accent, “nae really. I had a sair back and a sair backside – and fit’s mair, I think Tollefsen overstayed his welcome!”
No accounting for taste then, eh?
Photos
Freddie Garritty
Will Starr – Pia?
Joe Brown fan
Gordon Pattullo – Pia?
Toralf Tollefsen
Musical Memories – Part 23 - November 2022 (Year 46 No 02)
by Denis Shepherd
In recent Box & Fiddle magazines I have extracted from my memories a variety of musical experiences from records, TV and live shows – and last time I hinted that the best bits were sometimes what could be seen only at the live performances.
I have seen several concerts over many years featuring Richard Thompson, the legendary English folk singer/songwriter/guitarist. The first was a one-man show at the Metro Hotel in Aberdeen, and it literally was only one man: the singer and his equipment, with not a roadie, sound man or technician in sight. This could have spelt disaster for a lesser performer when, at the end of one song, a string snapped. But the show didn’t stop, even though Thompson had only one guitar with him. Without flinching he changed the string himself, and while doing so he sang an unaccompanied song - not a folk ballad, but the Beatles song Twist and Shout! Later in his career he had a much bigger audience in the Music Hall, where one of his most popular numbers was Don’t Sit on my Jimmy Shands, a song about the joys of dancing to the Shand music at a party whilst mindful of the fragility of the 78rpm records. As he finished the song on one occasion a man from the audience dashed up to the stage and presented him with a Jimmy Shand ‘78.’ Perhaps he thought that Thompson had never seen one of these ‘Jimmy Shands’ that he’d written the song about!
Another musician who seemed to have no problem in ‘double tasking’ was dance band leader Michael McKay, whom I got to know when my friend John Crossman used to book him for local ceilidh dances he used to promote. Before one dance started, a piano was being moved from the hall to another room to make space for the band. Michael managed to side-step at exactly the same speed as the piano was being pushed, whilst expertly playing a set of reels on the keys.
One of the best musicians I have come across personally is the late James Lobban, our music teacher in senior school at Inverurie Academy, who was also a highly respected examiner, performer and conductor. But during a sixth-year class we witnessed a type of performance that few other people may have seen from him, as he gave a professional analysis of some of the latest top 20 records. Towards the end of the summer term we were encouraged to bring in some of our favourites for this purpose, and one of these stretched even Mr Lobban: the unusual vocal and instrumental sound of up-and-coming band Tyrannosaurus Rex (who were soon to become T Rex). But the one I remember best was the current No.1, Something in the Air by the group Thunderclap Newman, which featured an upbeat instrumental passage by pianist Newman. Mr Lobban’s immediately proffered opinion was, “There’s only one thing wrong with this record,” and he left us to guess what this was. A classmate suggested, “The piano bit in the middle,” to which he replied, “Oh no – that bit was good!” Eventually he gave us his answer – the singing. Of course, none of us teenagers shared his opinion; but nowadays, looking back, most of us would probably agree!
Music and singing aside, there are some performers who are physically entertaining and some still have a fitness that belies their age. But this is nothing new: I remember as a youngster seeing on TV the veteran Aberdeen dancer Bobby Watson doing a highland dance whilst playing the pipes! But this was probably matched in later years by American singer Chris Montez. When I saw him perform in Dundee, when in his mid-70s, he sang his 1962 Hit Let’s Dance whilst all the time dancing and stooping down to shake hands with some people dancing in front of the stage. When the instrumental interlude came, he ran to the side of the stage and down the steps to join in the dancing; he then had to run back up again to resume his singing, which he did without a hint of breathlessness.
I used to think I was doing well to do a 360-degree turn with one leap when singing The Weddin’ o’ McGinnis, at the line “They jing-a-ringed roon aboot” – but this has been put to shame by the performances of Alan Holmes of the Scottish 1960s group Marmalade (of Ob-la-Di Ob-la-Da fame). I have seen the band perform several times and on the last occasion I had almost convinced myself that Holmes had settled down to being just a musician as he quietly concentrated on his guitar and keyboard playing and chorus singing. But then, towards the end of their set, there came a massive somersault across the stage culminating in Holmes landing on his hip with a thump and pretending to have done himself a mischief – but 10 seconds later he was back up playing again as if nothing had happened. It is no wonder a newspaper review once called him, “Marmalade’s multi instrumentalist and failed acrobat Alan Holmes.”
Sadly, my memories of concerts featuring Marmalade also bring to mind the mortality of performers whom we regard as immortal. I remember enjoying watching legendary singers Del Shannon and Dave Dee give rousing performances while backed by Marmalade – only for both of them to depart this world shortly afterwards, and in the case of Del Shannon only a few weeks later.
Photos
Richard Thompson
Michael McKay (see Nov.2018, P24 – he is the left hand half of the Salter Duo)
James Lobban
Thunderclap Newman
Chris Montez
Marmalade
Musical Memories – Part 24 - February 2023 (Year 46 No 05)
by Denis Shepherd
Formed in 1959 and eventually retiring in 2019, The Searchers were one of the few groups who performed non-stop during this time with some original members There are probably not many Scottish dance bands that have achieved this! I have seen them play live many times, the first time being at a dance in Inverurie Town Hall in the early 1970s. Their live performances have influenced the things I do on stage today, including at one of my accordion and fiddle club spots. When they performed in Scotland, they always included Loch Lomond in their act – but as you will hear, that is not one of the songs I chose to introduce to my Scottish concerts!
One of my favourite songs that I do is Ian Tyson’s Canadian country song Four Strong Winds which I first heard at a Searchers concert in 1986. The version I sing is based on their arrangement (albeit with the addition of mouth-organ). At a more recent show in Glenrothes, front man Frank Allen unusually missed his cue to start singing one of his verses – but I was all ready and, had I been in the front row rather than the fourth, I would probably have been up there singing the missing bit!
A more recent addition to my repertoire is the self-penned The Girl in Front of the Stage, inspired by a Glenrothes concert where a young girl of 6 threw herself into the Searchers’ music as she danced below the stage. To me this meant that the 60s music will live for ever if there are youngsters today who are so keen on it. And this wasn’t a one-off: I later saw her at a 60s show in Dundee, where Brian Poole and the Tremeloes admired her dancing so much they invited her up on stage to join in their finale! I hope she is still dancing: she would be an asset to any Scottish country dance team!
Also in Dundee, I once attended a Searchers in which Frank sang a solo acoustic song called The Wheelbarrow Song – one of those in which the chorus gets longer and longer as the audience tries to keep up. I decided, naturally, that this was a song I would like to sing. Several years later I took action to realise this dream and, although the tune was easy to pick up online, I had to contact their publicist to get the words. And one of the audiences that have had to endure me singing it is that at Turriff Accordion and Fiddle Club on 7th December 2019 – the date being carefully selected as it was the 10th anniversary of the day I first heard the song!
But the banter between Frank Allen and legendary founder member and guitarist John McNally has also been transported (with slight adjustments) to my Scottish concerts – and Mhairi Shand, the latter-day accordionist in my ceilidh band Fittiefolk, has twice been the butt of ‘their’ jokes! Frank always used to reveal his age, adding: “But I don’t mind – I know that no matter how old I get, there will always be someone older than me,” pointing surreptitiously at John. I once found myself the second oldest in my concert party, and could not resist using this quotation to highlight Mhairi’s chronological status! However, that is not the cruellest joke I have directed at her regarding her age. John McNally always used to show his admiration of the late 1950s rocker Buddy Holly and was invariably asked by Frank if he had ever actually met Buddy Holly – and when he answered in the negative, Frank retorted: “Ah, but it won’t be long now!” So when I was introducing Mhairi one night I pointed out that she had the same surname as many of Scotland’s top accordionists, most notably of course Sir Jimmy Shand, and asked if she had ever met the great man himself. She hadn’t! Her reaction was to announce that she was going to let down my car tyres. I was glad I was getting a lift that night because we were 35 miles from home!
But I once directed a joke of my own at the late Jake Simpson, the former TMSA Aberdeen Branch chairman, who was best known for his Doric recitations and story-telling. The joke was told in private but, rather than being offended, he later related it himself on stage! He had previously attempted some singing, but his self-confessed flaw was that he seemed to change key at every second word. The TMSA sessions have a monthly theme and he once asked me the theme for the next session. I replied: “Tragedy and disaster. That should be easy for you – all you need to do is sing something!”
Musical Memories – Part 25 - April 2023 (Year 46 No 07)
by Denis Shepherd
In January I attended the funeral of Sandy Rennie, my original “Denis and the Menace” partner who had sadly passed away at 88. My early parts of Musical Memories featured many funny stories about Sandy, so it is fitting that this latest part finishes with another.
I recently told you about some of the cheeky jokes I have directed at certain performers, sometimes on stage. However, I have learned that it is not safe to make jokes about someone in public if you don’t want them to find out – no matter how far away they are. Charles Coutts, for instance, relocated to work in Reading having spent his student years as accordionist in my band Fittiefolk - so I thought he would make a suitable character to feature in one of my favourite stories, The Gold-Plated Lavatory, a joke about a student’s adventures at a drunken party (although, to be fair, I never knew Charles to be under the influence in real life). And when I told the story at a concert in Towie, not far from his home village of Bellabeg, all the locals knew whom I was speaking about. But three days later, at a TMSA event in Garlogie, who should sit down beside me but ... bu Charles! He just happened to be home on a few days’ leave and the first thing he said to me was: “I heard ye wis tellin’ stories aboot me!”
At another concert in Methlick I told a story about Charlie Allan, the singer, writer and broadcaster, as again I knew everyone there would know him. This was a true story I had recently been told by Alex Green and concerned the time Charlie had been booked to entertain a women’s group some distance from his home. On hearing Charlie had no transport, the president of the organisation had phoned to ask if he would require a lift there and home again. “Yes, that is correct,” he had said, the woman’s response being: “Ach well, we winna bother!” At the end of the concert, I got a shock to see none other than Charlie Allan making his way to the stage! He admitted the story was true but corrected me on some of the details which either Alex or I had got wrong.
When I made a joke about Robbie Shepherd just before doing my moothie spot at Aberdeen Accordion and Fiddle Club, I knew full well that Robbie would find out: his wife Esma was accompanying me on keyboard! This was the first time I had played Graeme Mitchell’s popular tune Robbie Shepherd MBE, and I explained to the audience that it had taken me some time to learn, adding: “It’s a difficult tune aboot a difficult manny.” As I played it I was wondering whether my remark might offend anyone, so when I finished, I said, “I was just jokin’ aboot the difficult manny.” I needn’t have worried. Esma responded immediately by saying: “You should try bidin’ wi’ him!”
I sometimes tell people the above joke of Esma’s (well, I think it was a joke!) but I tell another story about Esma, based on an innocent remark she had made. After my one and only win in a bothy ballad competition with the Willie Clark song Brose at the Strichen Festival, Esma congratulated me at the next club night and asked what song I had sung. In the bustle of the Aberdeen club Esma misheard my reply and exclaimed: “What! You sang The Rose?”
That bothy ballad win led me to the Champion of Champions event in Elgin where I was careful not to direct any jokes at my opponents. But I did manage to tell a story about brose that my dad had told me many years ago – although I don’t think I was meant to hold up the competition by telling jokes! (I suspect this is why I heard a subsequent competitor being told, “Just sing your ballad! Nothing else!”) But the reporter covering the event for the Northern Scot also appeared to be something of a joke. Not being a Scot himself, he obviously had never heard of nicky tams: he spent half the evening trying to find out why the male competitors were wearing pieces of string round their shins. So I don’t know how much attention he was paying to the competition itself: when writing about me he referred only to the song I had sung in the non-competition first half. Nevertheless I was proud that he called me “my personal favourite” and I was also proud to be part of history, having taken part in the first Championship ever to be won by a woman - Shona Donaldson.
It is often a true story that is the funniest, especially if it is about something that has just happened. Former Aberdeen Accordion & Fiddle Club chairman Stanley Flett, who has often accompanied me on keyboard, is registered partly blind and plays expertly by ear (this often saves time between items!). At a concert in Mintlaw that we did with fiddler Lesley Edmond, a regular player at the Turriff & District Club who also knows Stanley well, we made sure she told the audience what she had done whilst making preparations that very day and why her mum had called her a “feal gype”: she had photocopied all her music sheets for Stanley’s benefit!
There was an amusing incident during an early TMSA concert in Monymusk, which included the Grieve and Gordon poem performed in our full attire by Sandy Rennie and me. Throughout the evening many of the artists were making trips from the hall to the nearby pub, through an old churchyard – just a short though rather eerie walk in the dark and foggy night! A certain woman singer, who had obviously made several such trips, let her imagination run riot when she came round the corner of the graveyard to see the ghostly figure of a Gordon Highlander (Sandy) disappear into the fog. Despite her intemperance, she was intent on driving home after the concert, and was equally intent on giving Sandy a lift – which made it his turn to get a shock!
Musical Memories – Part 26 - June/July 2023 (Year 46 No 09/10)
by Denis Shepherd
As I have told you before, I adapt some jokes to suit the occasion; but, although I do sing some
of my own original songs when performing, I am not averse to adapting other people’s songs
too!
English singer-songwriter Ralph McTell got to No.2 in the charts with Streets of London; some
60 years after recording it, he is still touring and singing it and in fact performed at Portsoy in
2019. In 1974 I changed the words to Streets of Lumsden and wrote my own verses, about
people and places I knew in Lumsden. I tucked it away in a drawer – and found it again many
years later, adding it to my repertoire. Maybe it is just as well I forgot about it at the time
because some of the lyrics are not very complimentary: for instance, they suggest that a certain
well-known local singing and keyboard duo was the reason that people used to nod off in the
Lumsden Arms lounge.
I haven’t had the opportunity to sing Streets of Lumsden to Ralph McTell himself but it did
make an impression on another top musician who had played with McTell on Streets of London.
Rod Clements, an original member of the Tyneside band Lindisfarne and writer of their big hit
Meet Me on the Corner, was a guest at Stonehaven Folk Club. Before he came on stage we were
told that he had also played bass on the famous Ralph McTell hit. I was asked to do a floor spot,
and couldn’t resist the temptation to sing my version (making sure that Rod was in the room).
During the second half, he was changing instruments between songs and made the remark,
“Streets of Lumsden, eh!” Of course, he didn’t say if it had made a good or a bad impression.
But someone at Aberdeen Folk Club once said, after hearing my version, “I’ll never again listen
to Streets of London without thinking of Lumsden!”
Some of my other songs also make impressions on people, often unexpectedly. One of these is
The Strathdon Bus Song which tells of my daily journey to Alford School in the 1960s and
which has a reference to the conductress, Ethel, who was affectionately known as “Esh.” When I
sang this in a recent concert a woman came up and said: “I used to go to school in the Strathdon
bus too – and I never thought I would ever hear a song about Esh!”
My uncle John once had an incident which might have gone unreported but for the fact my dad
happened to call in as he was cleaning up the mess. Upon hearing of the incident I of course
made it the subject of a song! Recently widowed, John was learning how to cook for himself and
in an attempt to minimise the washing up he tried to cook his porridge, on the electric hob, in the
same Pyrex bowl that he was to eat it from – with disastrous consequences. For many years after
hearing The Porridge Song sung by Denis and the Menace at Aberdeen Folk Club, people used
to ask: “Do you still sing that song about the exploding porridge?”
I have also been known to adapt unlikely songs to play as instrumentals, and by chance the same
uncle John was the indirect cause of one of these. He was re-married on his 65 th birthday and the
band at the reception in Stewart’s Hall, Huntly, was that of Kemnay accordionist Sandy Milne.
Sandy was obviously a fan of the latest Status Quo hit, Burning Bridges, because every time
there was a break in the dancing, he played his cassette of the song through the speakers. It was
only when searching through my musical memories for this series that I realised Burning
Bridges, with a little tweaking, would have been a good tune to play for the Boston Two Step;
hence its fairly recent inclusion in my repertoire. The first time I played it on stage, a couple of
guitar connoisseurs got quite a shock to hear Status Quo played on the mouth-organ – as did
audience members at North-East Accordion and Fiddle Club last year! I also think I am the only
musician to have had people dancing the Gay Gordons to a Bonnie Tyler song. Several years
after her 1977 hit Lost in France, it resurfaced from my memories for some reason, begging for
4/4 tempo treatment; it is now played in an unlikely combination alongside Kelvingrove and
Corriehollie’s Welcome to the Northern Meeting!
One of my own songs, Jimmy (The Gollanfield Horseman), is a character sketch - written about
a man I had never met before writing it! My cousin Billy was one of his neighbours at
Gollanfield, near Nairn, and every time I visited Billy I had to listen to his antidotes about the
latest antics of this retired farm worker. Billy persuaded me to write a song about Jimmy and,
when I eventually did meet him, he turned out to be the colourful character exactly as described
in my song!
Further to this song, I have gone on to produce several completely original works, when I have
felt there is something I want to say – but mainly because I wouldn’t want to be classed as a
parasite in the musical world!