Scotland's Music: Two Down from Anna Massie

Anna Massie is a skilled backing musician on stage and in the recording studio, an ace collaborator at band work (she is a member of RANT and Blazin’ Fiddles), a gifted producer, and as the creator of The Black Isle Correspondent videos and presenter of BBC Scotland’s flagship folk radio show Travelling Folk, an award winning broadcaster.

Two Down is her recently released solo album

Indeed, Anna has a lot on her plate and many ways to share her musical gifts. So it makes sense that is has been some time -- since 2003 to be exact-- since she has recorded a solo album.

“I have been extremely lucky to work with a wide range of wonderful musicians over the years, but this is the first time I’ve recorded an entire Ot’album myself, playing all the musical roles,” Anna said.

“It’s ben a challenge, but a lot of fun. I’ve loved having complete creative control over the record and being able to explore my own individual sound.”

Anna is well known for her creative dexterity on guitar and her skill on fiddle. If you watched The Black Isle Correspondent you’ll know she is also a singer (if that’s new to you, this album is fine chance to hear her voice). Banjo, mandolin, tenor guitar, keyboards and mouth trumpet (“it’s exactly what you think, and it’s a real thing,” Anna points out in the sleeve notes) are instruments she brings into the mix as well.

A fine gathering of music it is, one that allows Anna space to show her creativity as a songwriter, arranger, and producer as well as a player. Her dry and wry wit comes out, too.

That wit is especially in evidence in her selection of songs to cover.

Among those are My Life Is Over Again from Cape Breton ’s JP Cormier which deftly pokes fun at a number of country music song tales, and Australian Tom Morgan’s The Outdoor Type, which finds the singer poking fun at herself for how much she’s not that.

On a bit of of a gentler note, Anna opens the album with her song Thanks for Writing, a light rhyming piece that yet contains some of that balance of connection and isolation found during lockdown times.

Dinner Medals is a lovely tune with a funny reason for its name (I will let you read the sleeve notes to find out about that).

The title tune of the Worth the Wait set is gentle, thoughtful, and lively, written to celebrate the marriage of Lauren MacColl and Ewan MacPherson (you have met both of them through their music here along the Music Road). It pairs with tunes written to honor a Black Isle naturalist and to mark the end of the first lockdown time in Scotland. ,

Tunes for friends’ weddings make up another set; there’s a tune written to mark one hundred days of the Black Isle Correspondent during lockdown, and a lovely arrangement of traditional tunes Battle of Waterloo and Out on the Ocean.

There’s also The Lovat Bar, a fine tune Anna wrote for her students in guitar class at the annual Blazin’ in Beauly music school that Blazin’ Fiddles members host each summer.

Two Down is almost a solo album -- but it seems only right that Anna invited her parents to join in.

Goren Berg’s Polka is a a tune her dad Bob Massie wrote and on which he plays mandolin. Her mum. Alison Massie, joins on spoons for that tune and also adds spoon percussion to that set of wedding tunes mentioned earlier.

There’s a tune inspired by Anna’ parents, too -- or at least their garden experiences. Anna spent the first pf Scotland’s lockdowns back in the Black Isle where she saw first hand how the veg growing was going. The tune is called The Pioneer Waltz. With that tune, and other songs and tunes on Two Down, you will have a fine time, whether you are exploring all the musical lines, laughing at the sound of the mouth trumpet, or taking the quieter tunes including The Pioneer Waltz, The Love Bar, and Out on the Ocean.

Anna has remarked that what she’d wish for Two Down is that it gives listeners a smile. That it does, on many levels.

You may also wish to see
Lauren MacColl’s album Haar, on which Anna plays guitars
About Blazin’ Fiddles
RANT’s album called Spin
From the Katie McNally Trio, the album Now More Than Ever. , which Anna produced

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