Review by Malcolm Duff
Songs and music from the NE of Scotland from Jock Duncan, Stuart Samson, Shona Donaldson, Isla St Clair, Paul Anderson and Old Blind Dogs.
There was something not quite right about this concert, but it wasn’t the music. The Old Fruitmarket was a wonderful venue last week for Salsa Celtica, whose Celto-Cuban rhythms and high energy music got the feet tapping and the dancers moving. But this was an older audience and the cabaret seating in this cavernous space was barely half filled. And it was cold and draughty! The unaccompanied singing in particular would have been much better in a more intimate setting.
None the less, the audience came to enjoy the music of Aberdeenshire, Moray and Banff, an area that provided fully a third of the songs in the Compendium of English and Scottish Popular Ballads of US musicologist Francis James Child (1825-96). And they were not disappointed. The show was narrated by Isla St Clair, who shared songs from her own background in the fishing communities of the Moray coast, as well as providing valuable continuity and narration. Shona Donaldson, 2009 Scots singer of the year, sang a selection of songs from her Huntly roots, while Stuart Samson, retired from the Gordon Highlanders and now teaching at the National Piping Centre, reminded us of the fine piping tradition in the North East with a series of sets from a variety of composers. The show finished with songs and tunes from Old Blind Dogs, whose driving rhythms and tasteful arrangements have given them a cult following over the past 20 years, and whose infectious enthusiasm had a few dancers jigging at the front.
But for me there were two highlights, the fiddling of Tarland loon Paul Anderson, and the Doric singing of 86 year old Jock Duncan from New Deer. Anderson has recorded many albums of North East fiddle music, of which he is regarded as the finest contemporary exponent, though sadly I didn’t see any of his CDs for sale. In recent years he has collaborated with Aberdeen University on the Elphinstone Collection, a compilation of unavailable and unpublished music from Peter Milne, William Marshall and James Scott Skinner. His playing is full bodied and often heavily accented, and manages to combine technical brilliance when playing at speed with a mellow sweetness in his slow airs. It was immensely satisfying, and I would gladly travel to Tarland to hear more from him and his talented wife, Shona Donaldson. Unlike Anderson, Jock Duncan is hardly known outside the world of bothy ballads and muckle sangs, and didn’t record his first album till he was 72, but his interpretation of ballads such as The Battle of Harlaw and McGinty’s Meal and Ale explain why, now in his mid 80s, he continues to win competitions and plaudits, and was inducted into the Traditional Music Hall of Fame in 2006.
I thoroughly enjoyed the show, but Celtic Connections, next time you plan something like this, please set it in the Strathclyde Suite, or better still, in the wonderful acoustic of St Andrew’s in the Square.
- Malcolm Duff writes for The Living tradition magazine, which promotes traditional music in Scotland, the UK and Ireland. www.livingtradition.co.uk.
