Founded in Thurso in 1970, the Caithness band Mirk established a reputation for strong singing – particularly from Margie Sinclair, regarded as one of the finest voices on the Scottish folk scene – as well as skilled instrumental arrangements. Their repertoire of largely traditional material was augmented by songs composed by Margie’s fiddle-playing husband, Ian, […]
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Peter Logue Services to Charity Presentation
We had a lovely time on Saturday in Helensburgh presenting accordion player Peter Logue with our first Services to Charity Award. Peter is a musician from Helensburgh who has enduring health problems but has never let it him getting out and busking to raise money for other people. Read about him here. Below is my […]
Peter Logue – Services To Charity
In circumstances that would defeat many, Peter Logue continues not only to be positive, but to devote his energy to playing music, in aid of others. Fighting cancer and nearly completely blind, he busks, playing his accordion to fundraise for charities such as the Glasgow City Mission Foodbank, the Salvation Army, Beatson West of Scotland […]
Violet Tulloch
UNARGUABLY Shetland’s best-known pianist, Violet Tulloch has long been regarded as the accompanist par excellence for some of the most celebrated musicians from the Northern Isles and further afield. She has provided considerate and intuitively musical accompaniment for late great musicians such as Tom Anderson (who wrote Violet Tulloch’s Hornpipe in her honour), Peerie Willie […]
Angus Fitchet (1910-1998)
IN his time one of the most celebrated Scottish country dance musicians in the country, Dundee-born fiddler, bandleader and composer Angus Fitchet was largely self-taught, yet became a highly versatile player, as comfortable in celebrity TV shows as he was at a village dance. Yet the composer of one of the most broadcast Scottish dance […]
Archie Grant
Archie Grant was a 1931 Mod Gold medallist and one of the best-known Gaelic singers during the pre- and post-war periods. While known through his recordings on Beltona and, latterly, Parlophone, and for his platform appearances and radio broadcasts, Grant was in his own way an example of the oral tradition, preferring to sing unaccompanied, […]
Ian Holmes
HIS innate musicality and innovative approach have made Ian Holmes a widely respected name, not just in the world of Scottish country dance music, but in the flourishing accordion scenes of Switzerland and Scandinavia, whose music and instruments he has adopted with characteristic enthusiasm. Expanding his accordion skills from the mainstream Scottish dance band instruments […]
Will Starr
Will Starr was a virtuoso accordionist and consummate showman, regarded as “the king” by the likes of the great Jimmy Shand. A button-row player whose prowess is still venerated among today’s accordion fraternity, Starr took the sound of Scotland to international audiences while remaining firmly rooted in his native mining village of Croy, Lanarkshire. Willie […]
Willie Hunter
The son of a fiddler, born into a family steeped in fiddle music, Willie Hunter was widely regarded as the finest Shetland fiddler of his generation. While he was an accomplished dance band player and a founder member of the legendary Hamefarers, it was as a composer and supreme interpreter of slow airs that he […]
Robbie Shepherd MBE
Robbie Shepherd is as much a part of Scottish broadcasting as the Hogmanay Bells. As the presenter of BBC Radio Scotland’s Take the Floor and The Reel Blend, Robbie’s strong Doric tones have made him welcome in homes throughout Scotland. And with the advent of internet broadcasting, his audience now stretches across the world. Robbie […]