Scotland's music: Light is in the Horizon from Eddi Reader

Eddi Reader is a Scot through and through.

Her work in the songs of Scotland’s national bard, Robert Burns, is some of the best you’ll hear.

Reader is also an artist sure in her own creativity, sure enough to explore and put her own stamp on music from whatever source draws her interest.

As her performing background has included the top charting rock hit Perfect (when she was with Fairground Attraction), busking many sorts of music on the streets of France as well as in her native Glasgow, performing with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and performing the songs of Burns with classical orchestral backing, yes, she has the skill and adventurous spirit to take on a wide range of music.

She also has the voice, and focus, to make her own contributions, as a songwriter and as an arranger of folk songs, as well as the insight to make interesting choices from known and lesser known music across many styles and eras.

Light is in the Horizon is a gathering of twelve tracks in which you will find all this.

There are songs you are sure to know. Fools Rush In is one of those.

There are others that you will know, or not, depending on your listening tastes and to some extent where you live or grew up. Mary Skeffington, written by Gerry Rafferty, is one of those.

There are songs from the 1940s -- Beneath the Lights of Home for example -- and recent music including a song from Reader’s longtime musical collaborator Boo Hewerdine, called I Thought It Was You.

Reader’s own songs stand well in such company. She shows a fine, thoughtful, and varied touch with both word and melody in songs including Auld House and Argyll. For the title track, Light is in the Horizon, she drew inspiration and adapted language from a short poem by Thomas Moore.

Reader has a clear way of making music her own, adding to the sprit of a piece whilst staying true to it.

If there’s a theme through the songs on Light is in the Horizon it is ideas of hope, and of connection.

A collection of fine songs, indeed. it is.

Eddi Reader’s voice, and her way of inhabiting character and story with it, are also throughlines in this collection, and indeed all of her music.

That there are such throughlines and connections is all the more interesting when you learn that these twelve songs were not thought of as a collection at first. They were out-takes, outliers if you will, from other projects.

Though they are not named with individual songs, you will find that Reader is backed by many musicians who've joined her in the past, among them John McCusker,Charlie Bessa-Reader, Ewen Vernal, John Douglas, Ian Carr, Alison Freegard, and Phil Cunningham.

Here is what Eddi writes about how Light is in the Horizon came to be:

“These songs were left behind from the recording sessions of my last two albums. While they didn’t find their way onto those collections, they have been insisting on being heard by you.

“Gathering them together has been a joy, and now I have the opportunity to share them with you.

”Hope and light is in the horizon always...”

You may also wish to see
Eddi Reader’s website
Eddi Reader’s album Cavalier
Eddi Reader Sings the Songs of Robert Burns
Uam from Julie Fowlis,, on which Eddi joins Julie for the song Wind and Rain, sung in both Gaelic and English

Photograph of Eddi Reader in performance at Celtic Connections in Glasgow by Kery Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

You can also