Ross-shire Journal: “To tie in with their 25th anniversary celebrations this year at Bught Park later in the summer, a few members of Skipinnish will be playing some classic tunes from 1:30pm on Saturday, May 11 in the heart of the Eastgate Shopping Centre.”
Time for another auld tune. Jack Lattin was once popular all across these islands. Composed in Ireland sometime in the early 1700s it quickly spread across the Irish Sea and appears in many music collections of the 18th century.
Always like stopping at Hamish Henderson's childhood home in Glenshee, which backs right onto the kirkyard.
Henderson was a major organiser of the Scottish Folk Revival in the 1950s-70s. Some of his interest in folk culture came from his upbringing here and around
Blairgowrie, where he heard his mother
and their neighbours singing traditional songs.
Sad news for Scottish folk music, to hear Ian Green has died.
So much of Scottish folk from the past four decades (and before) is on Greentrax, from Shooglenifty to Dick Gaughan to archives from the School of Scottish Studies - Ian's label surely is the 'undisputed leader in its field'.
And now the last of my 40 settings from the manuscript. I enjoyed creating pipe friendly settings, I can't say I enjoyed recording them. I don't think recording tunes that I am unfamiliar with does the tunes or my piping justice.
A quick play through of my setting of Unfortunate Jock from The Drummond Castle Manuscript, Book 1, dated 1737.
@simonvarwell Haven’t found any information on the origin of the title. Often tunes from this era are connected to songs but didn’t see any mention of that here. It must have been pretty popular as it appears in loads of manuscripts and publications through the 1700s and 1800s
@Wen One thing that becomes really clear after spending years delving into this stuff is that we have so much shared repertoire with Ireland, North of England etc. I think the styles have become more distinct over the centuries but I suspect they were once closer than we imagine.
@bagpie@Wen have either of you been to the biannual bagpipe festival in the Czech Republic? I went with Sallyport Sword Dancers in 1996 and it was brilliant. Never realised just how many sorts of bagpipes there are.
The pipers who I found most impressive was a band from Galicia which not only played Galician music, but also Scottish Highland pipe tunes just like a very very good Highland pipe band.