(1971) The Clutha – Scotia!

Argo issue number: ZFB 18

Producer:
Engineer:

Availability: long deleted, never issued on CD

Performed by:
Gordeanna McCulloch – vocals
Ronnie Alexander – vocals, guitar
John Eaglesham – vocals, concertina
Callum Allan – fiddle
Erlend Voy – fiddle, concertina, vocals

Tracks

Side One
The John McLean March (Hamish Henderson)
The Border Widow’s Lament
Captain Ward and the Reindeer
Bride’s March/Foula Reel/The Merry Boys o’ Greenland
The Gauger
We’re Geylie Yet
The Shearin’s No For You
The Magdalene’s Lament
The Forfar Sodger
Tail Toddle

Side Two
Highland Division at Akarit (Piper W McDonald)/The Pibroch o’ Donal Dubh
John Anderson
Jock Hawk’s Adventures in Glasgow
Jenny’s Bawbee
Cauld Kail in Aberdeen
Doon in the Wee Room
The Banks o’ Red Roses
Bannocks of Barley Meal/Farewell to the Creeks
Harlaw

All tracks traditional unless otherwise indicated

Notes
The Clutha were formed in 1964 by four colleagues who worked at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow: Eaglesham, Voy, Alexander and Don Martin. By the time they made their first recordings (for the Topic compilation album The Streets of Glasgow in 1965), Martin had left and fiddler Callum Allan had joined.

Gordeanna McCulloch, who also appeared on the Streets of Glasgow album, joined the group not long after, at the age of 19, having also recorded for Topic for another 1965 compilation album, New Voices From Scotland. She’d got involved in traditional song as a schoolgirl at the Rutherglen Academy in Glasgow, where Norman Buchan ran a Ballads Club. As a teenager, she had been invited down to London by Ewan MacColl to join in his Singers Club seminars.

They were only with Argo for this, their first solo album. In 1974, they were back on Topic for The Clutha – Scots Ballads, Songs & Dance Tunes. By the time of their 1977 release, The Bonnie Mill Dams, Eaglesham had left and Jimmy Anderson had joined the group on chamber pipes and bagpipes.

More as and when…

~ by folkcatalogue on October 22, 2009.