Scotland's Music: Steall/Torrent from Ewen Henderson

Ewen Henderson has been part of many aspects of the music of Scotland, from playing with the Battlefield Band and Manran, to studying with Aongas Grant Sr to writing music for film to researching music in the archive at the School of Scottish Studies. He comes from Lochaber in the Highlands, growing up in a musical family and along the way picking up skills on fiddle, viola, piano, Highland pipes and small pipes, harmonium, whistles, and singing in both English and Gaelic.

When he set out to make what would become his album Steall/Torrent. , he thought to make a work that would offer a curated journey comprised of pieces carefully structured to reflect these many interests and experiences.

As he began, the music took him in a different direction.

It did have its origins in his first plan, but

“When that particular creative sluice is opened, one can quickly find such fine intentions overwhelmed and engulfed by the cascade of memories, impulses, and ideas released in its flow,” he writes in the sleeve notes. Hence his choice of title for the album: Steall, which means torrent in Gaelic.

The result is a journey worth the taking, moving from jigs to airs to song to waltz and back again, all the while allowing Henderson to create good stories with his mastery of numerous instruments. Keeping him company are Ewan MacPherson (who produced the project) on guitars and jaw harp, Jame Lindsay on bass, James MacKinstosh on percussion, and Thomas Gibbs on clarinet.

Through eleven tracks, music from traditional sources meets with with original compositions. The album opens that way, in fact, as the Melbourne Morning set sees the originals A Melbourne Morning and The Pneumatic Drills bookending a longtime favourite traditional jig Gillean a Drobhair/The Drover’s Lad.

Henderson points out that once he began working on the music from a different perspective than he had planned, he decided to, in keeping with the torrent idea -- dive in. “I respectfully suggest the listener do likewise,” he adds.

If you do that you will enjoy a line of melody and story which unite Henderson’s diverse musical skills. In recent years he has worked as a musical director for various projects and written music for film, both of which require a good ear for and knowledge of the stories told by sequencing music. That is a strength here as well, with those opening jigs followed by the Duncan Ban MacIntyre song Oran a’ Branndaidh, and later finds MSR, a set of fast paced pipe tunes played on the fiddle moving into the gentle Dileab na h-Aibhne.

Henderson also knows well how to evoke ideas of place and geography in his writing and playing as well. Have listen to that Dileab na h-Aibhne to discover many layers of music which do that. The title translates as The River’s Legacy. Henderson was living in Glasgow’s West End when he was asked to compose a soundtrack for documentary concerning a youth pipe band being established in the area. “It was inspired by thoughts of the River Clyde’s lasting influence on Glasgow, Scotland, and the wider world, but, in particular, the role it has played in the changing fortunes of the Gaels,” he writes. It is a piece of depth and imagination which well brings in the voice of the river and the people along it.

Camus Daraich evokes a different sort of landscape, although also a waterbound one. The title comes from a beach in the western Highlands overlooking Skye and the Small Isles, a place of childhood memories and more recent ones, as it was where Henderson’s sister Megan married Ewan Robertson. They are musicians as well: you will know them from their work with Breabach.

There is much more to explore on Steall. Henderson draws the journey to close with a tune he wrote for his wife, Maria, which was meant to be a surprise gift to her on their wedding day. That didn’t go quite as planned. I will leave you to find that amusing story in the sleeve notes (which are offered in both English and Gaelic). It’s a fine tune, though, which draws many threads of the music on Steall together and makes a closer at once spirited and gentle.

Follow the music straight through or dip in and out of Ewen Henderson’s Steall: either way, you will find engaging, thoughtful music in which to immerse yourself and emerge refreshed. A torrent indeed.

Ewen Henderson is one of the founding members of the top group Manran. Another place to hear his work, in a bit of a different context, is on their recording An Da La.

You may also wish to see
Scotland’s Music:Breabach: Frenzy of the Metting.
At Wandering Educators Music for Hope and Celebration, part of the Music for Shifting Times Series, including a song and video from Manran
Scotland’s Music:Hamish Napier: The Railway
Scotland’s Music: Julie Fowlis: Alterum.

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Scotland's Music: Hamish Napier: The Railway

Trains.

Perhaps you ride one every day on your way to work or school. Maybe you take a lighthearted ride at holiday time. Perhaps you know trains mainly from children’s toys or pictures in books.

Trains hold a combination of grit and romance. They pass through landscapes, and are part of them. Trains help create community, and communities. Trains and train tracks are of the present, and evoke stories of other times.

Whatever way you’ve come to know trains, you will find much to enjoy in Hamish Napier’s recording The Railway.

He draws from the stories of one specific railway line in one specific place and time, the Great North of Scotland Railway in the Speyside region of Scotland’s Highlands. To research ideas that would inspire his music, he read accounts of the railway’s history. He interviewed three men who had worked the railway, all now in their nineties and with many stories to tell. He walked the landscapes the trains had traversed, and drew on his own memories of growing up in the Speyside area.

That grounding in specifics allows the tunes and songs to reach beyond the Great North Railway’s story and draw in the imagination of anyone who has ever taken a train journey, or dreamed of taking one.

Hamish Napier is a composer, performer, and music tutor who grew up in the northeast Highlands of Scotland. His main instruments are the piano and the flute. He has supported musicians including Gary Innes, Eddi Reader, Karen Matheson, and Donald Shaw, appearing often in concert and on more than forty recordings. His own recording The River explores and celebrates landscapes, experiences, and people along the River Spey.

When he was performing music from that recording in a series of concerts across Scotland, the new owners of Grantown East: Highland Heritage and Cultural Centre came to one of the shows and knew that Napier was just the person to compose the soundtrack to go along with their project, the restoration of the Grantown East Railway Station into a place marking this history of this Highland railway line, which had ceased operation in the 1960s.

The music on The Railway indeed takes listeners on a journey -- several journeys, rather. The opener, The Speyside Line, draws one in to a musical journey with cadences which suggest Highland landscape. The Firebox, as lively and flickering as its title may suggest, draws on the history of the steam powered trains and the stories told to Hamish by driver Jimmy Gray, driver Jocky Hay, and signalman James Telfer. So does a tale of races between trains back in the day called Jocky the Mole, which is a song with lyrics Hamish’s brother, Findlay Napier.

Fire and water, smoke and steam
A train is like a living thing
Driver, engine, fireman
It takes us three to make her sing

Findlay sings in the chorus as the story unfolds.

The lighthearted tune Cheery Groove pays tribute to Hamish and Findlay’s parents and their home at Number 2 Cherry Grove, where it’s said many great house ceilidhs were to be had.

Mixing respect for history with love for the land and its people and regret for some changes seen, there’s another song with lyrics from Findlay called The World Came In by Rail...

We walk along the railway line
Among birch and wild rose
And all that’s left are outposts
Of an empire no one knows

A different look at a related idea is found in the tune The Old Ways, a slow march written to honour those who respect and keep up the traditional crafts, stories, language -- and music -- of, Napier writes in the sleeve notes “what is unique and special about our culture.”

Those joining Hamish Napier on the recording include Fraser Stone on percussion, Gillian Frame on backing vocals, James Lindsay on double bass, and Patsy Reid on fiddle. There are also cameo appearances by the sounds of a fireplace, Broomhill sheep, and whistle, brakes, wheels, and other railway sounds. Andrea Gobbi co-produced the album with Napier and recorded and mixed it. You will also enjoy the album artwork and design, which are by Somhairle MacDonald.

There are many more gems among the music -- every track is a keeper, and the journeys of history, music, landscape, and reflection are well worth the taking as Hamish Napier has organized them. He draws things to a close with The Railwayman, and three part suite inspired by the story of driver Jimmy Gray’s career on the railway.

Take the journey on The Railway. Take all of the journeys offered through this music. You’ll come away with much to reflect on and much to enjoy.

Also of note: at this writing word comes that Hamish Napier is at work on his third album, to be called The Woods.

You may also wish to see
Hamish Napier: The River
Eddi Reader: Cavalier
Scotland’s music: Sarah-Jane Summers: Solo

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Two from Scotland: Highland Journey and Barbara Dickson

Music rises from and frames the land throughout the Highlands of Scotland.


Musical expressions of love for the land, memories, and connections found across it hold a strong place in the traditional music of the Highlands. That’s what Jack Evans, Marc Duff, and Pete Clark explore in their recording Highland Journey: Music in the Glen. Both meditative and lively pieces find place in their choices for this instrumental album. In addition to their guitars, fiddles, whistles, and other instruments you may hear sounds of the waters, birdsong, and other sounds of nature from the Highlands woven into the music. Glen Lyon, The Forests Where the Deer Resort, and a set comprising The Lass of Glenshee, Lochnagar, and Cairngorm are but three of the baker’s dozen of fine tracks on Highland Journey: Music in the Glen. All in all it is a lovely album which you will want to listen to again and again as you recall or imagine or look out over the Highlands.



Barbara Dickson began her career in her native Scotland as a folk singer, touring folk clubs and among other things recording with with well known folk musician Archie Fisher. Though she hadn’t exactly planned on it, connections made through her touring in England led to opportunities in music theater. As it happened, she excelled on the London stage, and in television acting as well. Barbara never lost her love folk music or for Scotland, however, and in recent years her recordings have tended back toward that vein. For her recording Words Unspoken she chose to work with the renown Scottish label Greentrax.

Words Unspoken opens with The Magical West, which Dickson co-wrote with the album’s producer, Troy Donockley. It is song which manages to be both intricate and straightforward at the same time. It proves a fitting beginning to an album which winds through a varied gathering of mainly tradtional songs including Jamie Raeburn, The Trees They Do Grow High, Presonent Hodie, and Ca’ the Yowes. The collection draws to its close with what may be called a modern day folk song, Bridge Over Troubled Waters. Dickson brings her own distinctive voice and thoughtful interpretation to each, and the arrangements support her well. This too is an album which well repays more than one listen, and will likely bring back and add to memories of Scotland.


Barbara Dickson sings the traditional piece Skye Boat Song


you may also wish to see
eddi reader, willie stewart, and the search for haggis
Julie Fowlis:Uam
Eddi Reader sings more of the songs of Robert Burns

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History into song: Capercaillie: Glenfinnan

Putting history into song is a long tradition. It makes sense that they should intertwine: both hold the capability for vivid storytelling, and of connecting people across time, space, and country.

The Scotland based band Capercaillie is known for connecting the music of Scotland with that of other countries and continents. For the film Glenfinnan, though, they focused on the stories surrounding a major event in the history of Scotland: the raising of the standard by Highlanders who would follow Charles Edward Stuart -- Bonnie Prince Charlie -- into battle in attempt to restore the house of Stuart to the monarchy. The first raising of the standard took place at Glenfinnan, in 1745. The program, from which this video was taken, was shot there.



It’s also instructive in the making of visual statements with music. Sure, it took some production values to get the fire and the flames and the night lighting and the stage on the water, but compared to many music videos common today, this one is quite straightforward, and lets the visual aspect enhance the music rather than compete with it. It was made in 1995, and still holds impact.



I was fortunate to see the whole film during a Gaelic Film Festival which was part of Celtic Connections several years back, and the whole thing is equally powerful. As far as I can tell, the film isn’t available. The music Capercaillie made for it is, though, and it is certainly powerful enough for you to create your own images while listening.
Glenfinnan: Songs of the 45

you may also wish to see
Capercaillie: Roses & Tears
Scott-Land at Celtic Connections
Celtic Connections 2012: the music begins

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Scotland's Highlands in music: Duncan Chisholm

Whatever your view or knowledge of the highlands of Scotland, you will most likely find your ideas expanded when you listen to Duncan Chisholm’s recording Canaich. “With instrumental music, go can go any place you choose, paint any landscape you like,” Chisholm says.

The landscape Chisholm chooses for his inspiration here is the Strathglass and Glen Affric area of the Scottish highlands. These are landscapes he has known since childhood, and ancestral lands where his family has long lived, as well. As the journey unfolds, Chisholm's fiddle leads the way from a quiet opening that suggests nothing so much as the mists that often cover those mountains. Theh there is Camhanaich air Machair, a good companion for a reflective walk, while Isaac's Welcome to the World is a lively and joyous tune in celebration of the musician’s son. It leads into Phil Cunningham’s lovely tune, The Gentle Light that Wakes Me. The other parts of the journey are just as varied and interesting, with just as much space for you to paint your own pictures. There’s a graceful connection among tunes from composers including Donal Shaw, Michael McGoldrick, and Niall Vallely with Chisholm’s own tunes.

It’s a journey well worth the taking, and one which will reveal new aspects with each return visit.

Canaich is the second of three recordings Chisholm has in mind to explore highland landscape through instrumental music. The first is the award winning album Farrar.



you may also wish to see Update: Learn about Duncan Chisholm's recent album Sandwood

Music Road: Julie Fowlis:Uam
Duncan Chisholm often appears with Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis
Music Road: Sarah-Jane Summers: Nesta
Scottish musician Sarah-Jane Summers shares the best of the Highlands

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Perthshire Amber

A castle, a cathedral, an ancient crannog: these, and a range of equally interesting venues, will host music during the Perthshire Amber Festival, which is coming up 29 October through 7 November. It’s not so much about the venue, though, inviting as those may be, as it is about the music and the connections formed between musicians and those who come to hear them. Dougie MacLean, who is a native of Perthshire, is host of the festival. One of his reasons for starting the event several years back was that he wanted to play his music in a situation connect with audiences over time, to revisit old favorites and lesser often played material from his musical history without having to stop at the end of a two hours concert.. At first this was a weekend event, as Dougie drew from his decades long catalogue of wide ranging songs. As friends came to listen and to sit in, and as Dougie met more musical friends in his touring, a longer festival came to bel. Perthshire Amber always includes a number of musicians you’ve met here along the music road, and this year that is true as well. Irish band Grada will bring their lively band of boundary crossing trad along, while old friends guitarist Kris Drever and banjo player Eamonn Coyne will offer what's sure to be energetic and creative collaboration, Crooked Still, the US based progressive bluegrass band who has been delighting audiences worldwide, will be on hand, and top notch singer Julie Fowlis will bring her engaging style with Gaelic song. Songs in Scottish Gaelic will likely be part of Karen Matheson’s set, as well, and Michael McGoldrick will be on hand with flutes and whistles, Aly Bain, Ale Moller, and Bruce Molsky will form an international fiddler’s trio, and Fred Morrison will bring along his pipes. There will be other international and Scottish artists, as well. Artists and visitors to Perthshire Amber will be giving back, too. While touring in the United States, Dougie was asked to play a benefit for a food bank, with audience members bringing along non perishable goods to be passed along to organizations which help those in need. He was struck by the idea, and now people coming to the festival in Perthshire are able to do the same by participating in Amber Harvest, with goods going to Cyrenians FareShare Project, who help feed Scotland’s homeless. There’s also The Big Knit, a program spearheaded by Dougie’s mother Dolly. All during the year, knitters from near and far make squares which are made into warm blankets and other items. These are then auctioned off at the festival, with proceeds going to benefit Shelter Scotland. Some of those knitters might be catching a ride on one of the song bus excursions offered, as visitors travel to highlights of Perthshire along with musicians who bring the scenes alive for them. They might be talking workshops and talks and sessions as well, as the festival unfolds. Autumn is a lovely time to be in highland Perthshire, and the music and craic on offer during Perthshire Amber are sure to be grand. There is more information about all this at the festival’s web site.. Can’t make it to the festival? Last year you could buy a ticket to watch some of the concerts live online, and word is that may be a possibility this year as well. Check out Perthshireamber.com for developments Photographs courtesy of the festival and the artists. the photograph of Dougie MacLean was taken by Calum MacIntosh you may also wish to see more on Dougie MacLean photographing music: Celtic Colours Music Road: Grada: Natural Angle

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