Rob asked:
> There's a chance I will be doing my History of the Guitar in Scotland
> project either as a book or as a PhD. However it turns out, I have to start
> by confessing that I have an embarrassing ignorance of the 'unique' (I am
> informed) style of Shetland guitar playing in this, sorry, last century. Can
> anyone help me out with this? I need players names, recordings (with codes
> and labels if poss), and contacts for further info. Any present-day
> practitioners? What IS the Shetland style? Thanks in advance.
I had a wee tilt at regional styles just recently here, so I'll take this
chance to do it again. If someone says 'Shetland style' guitar, I, and lots
of others, know what they mean. But you'd be hard put to say it's a Shetland
thing.
The character who comes to mind instantly is 'Peerie' Willie Johnston who
became well known (outside Shetland) in the instrumental revival of the 70s
because he accompanied the well-known fiddlers on recordings- Tom Anderson,
Willie Hunter, Aly Bain. He was (is) a hell of a character- 'The North Sea
Chinaman' in Jim Sutherland's tune). He holds the guitar very flat on his
lap, and plays in a style that's out of 20s/30s jazz- shifting chromatic runs
round the tune. He gave the impression that he had a chord for every note of
the tune.
Given that most 'folk' guitarists who came out of the 60s were notorious for
strumming at most 3 chords behind a song/tune, this was dynamite, and he
spawned a generation of great young guitarists.
For a good current example, Hazel Wrigley from Orkney, living in Edinburgh,
would be worth listening/talking to.
Willie is still alive, but frail and doesn't play, I'm told. Hazel would know
the score.
So why's it not a Shetland thing? Because the same thing happened in
Edinburgh, and probably other places too. In Edinburgh we had Jimmy Elliot.
He was like Peerie Willie, and based his style on earlier jazz guitarists,
especially Eddie Lang. Jimmy played in big bands over the 30/40s, and in
later life found himself a regular in Sandy Bells bar where a folk revival was
taking place (Hamish Henderson and a million others were always in there).
At that time, jazz and folk seemed to go together. A session could switch
between the two quite comfortably- songs and tunes.
Anyway, Jimmy had the same effect on younger guys round about, and the
Shetland mob would visit regularly and mighty music would result.
There was a whole squad of great guitarists about then: eg Neil Munro, Davy
(?), Denis Cairns (who was a mate of Dick Gaughan, and had a similar but more
jazzy style)- maybe Gaughan himself?
You could also speak to Jack Evans in Edinburgh about that.
Jimmy also stimulated a lot of non-guitarists. He had a huge collection of
music that he picked up over the years, and he would always appear in the pub
and slip you something. He had a huge effect on the music- imagine what it's
like as a young guy learning fiddle to wander into a local pub and have
someone like that backing your attempts at a tune.
I think in these days of Radio Toby, and such incredible access to stuff, it's
hard to imagine the importance of local sources who acted as receivers for
music from all over, then re-transmitted to the local musicians.
Someone, somewhere has Jimmy's collection, so you could probably get access to
that.
Jimmy didn't record, except maybe on an old album of Sandy Bells' folk, which
Nigel will have :) So he never became so well known abroad. He died in the
80s. Just went out like a light on the bus to Bells with his guitar under his
arm. There's a wee statue of him behind the bar still.
Last, this style of guitar became the basis for much of what we hear in
'celtic' music these days. Listening to it now, it's easy to think that it's
come from Ireland, Donal Lunny etc., but the Irish bands didn't use guitars
like this, and the bouzouki thing came from eastern Europe. What we hear now
is some sort of fusion, and I think you could trace a line back through the
Scottish bands of the 70s to the two heroes described above, and maybe Clapton
too. :)
Derek
Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To
subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
