Hands Up for Trad’s Women in Music and Culture 2024 list has been announced to celebrate just some of the women working in Scotland.
Launched as part of International Women’s Day 2023, we shine the spotlight on 12 women who all contribute towards Scotland’s cultural landscape through their work. Read the 2024 list here.
We asked Eddi Reader to tell us more about there work, influences and ambitions for the future.
How did you first get involved in the arts and who were your early influences?
I’ve been singing since I was four years old and at eight I learned love me Tender and sang to my surprised primary school class aged eight. My mother & Father bought me an acoustic guitar in the Barras for Christmas and I took advantage of the free school guitar lessons.
As a teen I formed singing groups in our closes to practice harmony. (GREAT acoustics!). I trained my vibrato by holding notes in the back of my dad’s car as he drove all the forestry roads in Scotland on sunny weekends.
I taught (bullied) my six younger siblings to harmonise.
I answered adverts for singers in the Glasgow Evening Times newspaper while still at school.
My mother had a very sweet singing voice and my father loved singing Elvis Presley songs. At family parties I learned the power of song to change atmosphere.
When I was 16 -18 | discovered I could play John Denver songs on my guitar. I liked all of his early music except “Annies Song”.
Paul simon was also a great influence at that time.
Learning to accompany myself was a massive breakthrough for me.
Also learning different ways to tune the guitar to a chord
On leaving home I began visiting folk clubs locally in Irvine and Ayrshire. Eventually hitchhiking with my music loving friends to Cambridge Folk festival which was Mecca to Cambridge Folk festival which was Mecca to US.
The 14th Cambridge folk festival was the 1st folk festival l visited and sung round the camp fire.
After that I embedded myself in the folk scene in Scotland.
April was the 1st folk festival of the year. It was held in Aberdeen.
My mentors then were people like Hamish Imlach, Danny Kyle and his Vinscreen Vipers,.
Singers I was influenced by, beyond my mum and her favourite singers from the 1950’s, and my teenage obsession with early John Denver were; Joanna Carlin (aka Melenie Harrold), Heather Haywood (of Kilmarnock Folk club).
Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Billy Ross of Ossian.
We followed Ossian wherever they played.
By 1980 the folk scene was dying and I left Scotland for Paris, then I lived by busking all the way down to the Mediterranean Sea and back.
I came home in 1981 and got a job singing with The Gang of Four, The Eurythmics, Alison Moyet. I settled in London and sung my way throughout the 1980’s until forming Fairground Attraction in 1987…..
And the rest is history…
At a time which has been very challenging for many people working in the arts, how did you use the last 3 years to develop your creativity?
After extensively touring and recording in 2022, with my solo work and guesting with Jools Hollands big band, I decided to throw myself into a play in the west end of London as a “Balladeer”. The play was called “Brokeback Mountain”. I did work on that from early 2023 to the summer of that year. This inspired me to revisit my old band Fairground Attraction in London and record some new music with them.
This is an on-going project.
Who or what interests you creatively?
I love to paint, create song, crochet, write poetry / prose, tell stories, visit my mum and her friends and listen to their stories of old Glasgow.
What are your plans for the next year or so and/or what are your longer term creative ambitions?
I plan to finish an album with Fairground Attraction and an album with my husband John Douglas of the Trashcan Sinatras.
Find out more about Eddi Reader here.
Read the Hands Up for Trad’s Women in Music and Culture 2024 List
Hands Up for Trad are an organisation who work with Scottish traditional music, language and culture. If you would like to support our work you can donate here.
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