The Alexander Brothers are Scottish music legends who for fifty years have taken their talent, professionalism and musicianship to adoring audiences in theatres and concert halls across the world. Their record sales are phenomenal – at one point in the 1960s they even outsold the Beatles in Scotland – and their longevity has made them familiar figures to generations of television viewers.
Tom and Jack Alexander grew up in Cambusnethan, near Wishaw in Lanarkshire. Their father, Jimmy, was a steelworker, their mother, Helen, was a singer and pianist, and the family often gathered round the piano for singsongs. Despite not having much money, their parents sent Tom and Jack to music lessons and their sister, Betty, to dancing lessons, and the Alexander Trio, with Betty dancing to classical music by Tom (accordion) and Jack (piano) performed regularly at church concerts and socials.
When the boys struck out on their own, classical music still formed the bulk of their repertoire. Tom had won the 1952 Scottish Open Accordion Championship, playing Bats at Sunset by Sicilian accordionist-composer Pietro Frosini, and it was with pieces such as this, Carnival of Venice and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto, that they began to enjoy conspicuous success in talent competitions.
On leaving school, Tom and Jack both served apprenticeships as painters and decorators, continuing to play concerts in the evenings and at weekends and becoming popular with audiences in holiday resorts including Stonehaven, Leven and Dunbar. In 1958 they turned full-time with their first summer season at the Webster Theatre in Arbroath. The Angus fishing town was to play a significant part in their career. It was during this first season that they were persuaded to switch to Scottish material and it was in an Arbroath hotel on a night off a few years later that they heard the song that would become their calling card, Nobody’s Child.
The now thoroughly Scottish Alexander Brothers, with tartan tuxedos and then kilts replacing their suits, quickly became hot property, although not before, having spent all their money looking for work in Dublin, they’d had to busk for beer and cigarettes on the ferry back from Ireland.
They released their first album, Highland Fling, in 1961, under the direction of a young Tony Hatch, and after making only occasional television appearances due to their busy concert schedule, they were given their own show in 1965. The Scottish Television switchboard was inundated with callers demanding more and soon the boys were filming on location on Arran in between appearances at the Carnegie Hall, New York and on Sunday Night at the London Palladium and tours of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
They’ve hardly stopped since, joining Sir Jimmy Shand on his farewell tour of Australia, working with Andy Stewart, Shirley Bassey and Dave Allen and appearing on Shindig and Northern Nights and as the essential ingredients of Hogmanay shows. In 2005 Tom and Jack were awarded the MBE for services to the entertainment industry by Her Majesty the Queen, a fitting reward for a lifetime of work and achievement.
Jack Alexander passed away in 2013.
More information on their webpage.
Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame is run by
Hands Up for Trad.