Articles

Near the Beach Boulevard the sand heaves with people. We find space for our towels and snacks on a less-crowded stretch beside the Beach Ballroom. The soundtrack for that day is The Beatles. Their new Revolver album plays endlessly to the sweltering crowds over the speaker system strung along the Esplanade… Taxman, Eleanor Rigby, Got To Get You Into My Life

In the 1960s a real estate company offered to demolish the Music Hall, suggesting a more modern concept. Fortunately, the public outcry that erupted secured the building for an impressive future.

Crathes Castle, boasts one of the finest painted ceilings in the country, and it is a ceiling of musicians.

A ballad called The Jolly Beggar, believed to be about King James V, tells of him seeking lodgings at ‘a hoose near Aiberdeen’ disguised as a beggar

Deceptively self-effacing, Frank Robb is unique in the North-East in having forged his livelihood since the Seventies as a folk musician, stand-up comedian and after-dinner speaker.

Alex Salmond – described by Andrew Marr as “one of the few technically excellent speakers left, like an exotic bird on the verge of extinction” – talks to Leopard and reveals the secret of his confident public persona.

The composer Sir Edward Elgar struck up an unlikely friendship with Charles Sanford Terry, Professor of History at Aberdeen University, and an enthusiastic amateur musician.

Two 18th century instruments from the same small workshop in Upperkirkgate, Aberdeen, survive today as unique examples of their type – and the oldest known. Now, through Leopard, a third has entered the ring.

The traditional music of an area reflects the dialect of the people. After an intensive two weeks listening to the Tarland locals talking, an American fiddler commented: ‘North-East people talk in Strathspeys’.

A little-known tradition of North-East violin making has existed alongside the playing tradition since the middle of the 18th century

Recognition for King of the Cornkisters Willie Kemp and – a bothy balled king in his own right – George Morris.

Early last century, Gavin Greig, the well-known song collector, warned that unless the whaling minstrelsy was recorded it was ‘likely to die out with the veteran army of Greenland heroes’. This is a background to some of the songs that survived.

Norman Kennedy, the Aberdeen-born traditional singer and handloom weaver, Norman Kennedy, has been awarded the prestigious National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts in the USA.

From rattling her first snare drum in Methlick, to being awarded an honorary degree by Edinburgh University, percussionist Evelyn Glennie has followed a singular path to world-wide admiration.

Tom McKean on Alan Lomax, a vital American link in our folk song chain.

Sandy Cheyne has a fresh dig in the roots of the traditional Aberdeenshire ballad.

Version recorded by James Madison Carpenter of Harvard from Mrs Watson Gray of Fochabers in 1931 (‘learned in Glenlivet over fifty years before’)