![\"Davie](\"http:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/files\/2014\/10\/Davie-Henderson-purserEM.jpg\")
<\/a>WHILE not in himself a musician, the late Davie Henderson was so committed to the music of his home islands, and so bound up with their cultural life, that he became widely acknowledged as Shetland music\u2019s \u201cultimate ambassador\u201d. He bore the torch for that music at festivals as far apart as Celtic Connections in Glasgow, T\u00f8nder in Denmark and Cape Breton\u2019s Celtic Colours, while, back at home, he was the longest-running member of the committee behind the renowned Shetland Folk Festival.<\/p>\nAs well as working tirelessly for the festival, booking visiting artists, often after seeing them perform at international festivals to which he travelled at his own expense, he invariably made it his priority to ensure that festival visitors \u2013 both performers and audiences \u2013 were made to feel relaxed and at home.<\/p>\n
Davie was just 63 when he died suddenly in January 2014 \u2013 just as he was due to fly to Glasgow for yet another Celtic Connections \u2013 and his passing prompted an outpouring of tributes from the islands and well beyond. As his friend and fellow festival committee member, Davie Gardner, wrote in his obituary for Henderson in the Shetland Times: \u201cDavie and the Shetland Folk festival were literally made for each other and his name will always be synonymous with it. His passion for the festival and music literally knew no bounds.\u201d
\nJoella Foulds, co-founder and chief executive of the Celtic Colours Festival in Cape Breton, described Davie as \u201ca great friend of the festival … He was just a fine, fine guy who had a passion for the music and for what he did.\u201d
\nJames David Henderson was born at North Lighthouse on Fair Isle on 5 March 1950, the second of four sons to John and Ella Henderson. His father worked with the Northern Lighthouse Board and the family lived at the lighthouse until 1959, with Davie attending Fair Isle Primary School. That year the family moved to Dunrossness on the Shetland mainland, then to Little Rissington in Gloucestershire as John had joined the RAF. There were further service-related moves and Davie finally finished his peripatetic schooling in Vikrath, West Germany.<\/p>\n
When the family finally returned to Scotland, a 19-year-old Davie joined the Gordon Highlanders and saw service in Germany and Cyprus. Returning to Fair Isle in 1972, he trained as a plant fitter and worked for several years with Shetland Islands Council then with Sullom Quarries, before moving into the oil industry with the services company Schlumberger and latterly working in jetty operations and pollution control with BP until he retired in 2011. Post-retiral, he continued to act as a volunteer operator at the hyperbaric chamber in Lerwick and as a consultant in operator training and jetty inspection.<\/p>\n
Over the years, however, Davie also pursued his great love of music, first instilled during his childhood. His father played the bagpipes and the organ and his mother had a fine singing voice, and he used to recall that the singing in the Fair Isle kirk was something to hear. At an early age he learned the pipes from his father, became a member of the Army Highland dance team, and in later life had a few accordion lessons from the great Shetland accordionist and band leader Jim Halcrow. The music has passed on through his family \u2013 one of his three children, Kevin, has carved out an international reputation for himself as a fiddler, both as a soloist and with Fiddler\u2019s Bid, the Boys of the Lough, Session A9 and Nordic Fiddlers\u2019 Bloc, among others.<\/p>\n
Joining the committee of the Shetland Folk Festival in 1990 \u2013 nine years after the event was established, Davie would go on to become its longest serving committee member. He may not have been a performer himself but, as his friend Davie Gardner, a local arts activist and promoter, said after Henderson\u2019s death, \u201che probably did as much and more for Shetland and its music (both home-grown and imported) than anyone else I know\u201d.<\/p>\n
He was particularly passionate about giving emerging young musicians the chance to perform on stage. He had a particular love of the Scottish diaspora culture of Cape Breton, visiting many times and often working a Cape Breton act into the Shetland festival\u2019s bill. Similarly he became very fond of Denmark and its T\u00f8nder Festival (to such an extent that he timed his second hip replacement operation so that he\u2019d be sufficiently recovered to attend the event).<\/p>\n
In the process, Davie, a formidable party animal wherever he went, established a truly international network of friends as well as music business contacts.<\/p>\n
He and Gardner became known as \u201cthe two Davies\u201d, as they travelled together to conferences, festivals and other music events, with Henderson always on the lookout for fresh talent to bring back to Shetland. \u201cI watched Davie in industry-related action many times over the years,\u201d Gardner recalled, \u201cat music conventions, trade fairs, music industry panels or whatever. Throughout, he was an unfailing champion not only of the Shetland Folk festival, of course, but equally so of Shetland itself.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Hamish Henderson Award for Services to Traditional Music Davie Henderson WHILE not in himself a musician, the late Davie Henderson was so committed to the music of his home islands, and so bound up with their cultural life, that he became widely acknowledged as Shetland music\u2019s \u201cultimate ambassador\u201d. He bore the torch for that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1285,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-1307","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1308,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1307\/revisions\/1308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}