Eilean a Cheo

It means “Island of Mist” and is the name given to the Isle of Skye in Gaelic.

I wrote recently about meeting up with Donald Black the harmonica player. I mentioned to Donald that my favourite track of the many he has recorded with Malcolm Jones of Runrig, is one entitled “Eilean a Cheo” with Donald evoking a haunting harmonica sound and Malcolm providing a superb slide guitar accompaniment.

Donald said “Oh that’s interesting – hardly anyone remarks on that but it is one of my favourites”. He then went on to explain how Eilean a Cheo was written by an activist, Mary McPherson, at the time of the ‘Crofters War’

Thank you to this site for the following information.

After the Highland Clearances life became almost totally impossible for those who remained. The collection of seaweed from the shore was forbidden and crofters were not permitted to keep dogs. Other impositions included the right of the landlord to demand free labour and crofters were not allowed to remove marauding deer from their land.

By the mid 1870′s crofters were harbouring thoughts of revolt and a new newspaper called The Highlander focused attention on their plight. Public opinion had galvanised against landlordism and crofters began to resist eviction orders. Soon there was chaos and near riot. On Lord MacDonald’s estate at Braes, an old grievance was revived when crofters demanded grazings taken over by the landlord’s sheep be handed back. They refused to pay rent until their demands were met and a Sheriff’s Officer was sent out with summonses of ejection on 7th April 1882. A band of crofters forced him to bum his papers so fifty policemen were sent from Glasgow to Skye to help settle the uprising. One hundred men, women and children with sticks or stones met the policemen and charged at them and, in the scuffle that followed, a number of crofters were taken prisoner. Small fines were imposed but it was clear that law and order had broken down.

An outburst of crofter rebellion then took place at Glendale when crofters who allowed their stock to wander over a neighbouring farm were arrested and imprisoned for two months. Scottish MPs promoted a petition to set up a Royal Commission on Highland distress and the result was a formidable indictment of the Highland land-owning class. However, the Commission did not recommend any official revision of rents and islanders were not content with proposals that did not include security of tenure and fair rents. In 1884 there was again unrest in Glendale and the Government sent in marines with gunboats to intimidate the crofters. This brought the crofters’ cause again to the forefront of public attention.

The Highland Land League nominated crofter candidates to stand as independent members of parliament and this Crofters’ Party became the first Labour Party in Britain. The four new crofter MPs succeeded in introducing the Crofters’ Holdings (Scotland) Act in 1886 which gave security of tenure to the crofter and compensation for improvement. However, landlords continued to ignore the new legislation or made attempts to evict crofters before cases could be heard. Encounters took place later in 1886 when writs were served at bayonet point and it was not until the 1920s that land tribunals were introduced.

You can read about the formation of the Highland Land LeagueHERE

Although Donald and Malcolm’s performance is an instrumental, it is very powerful. The original lyrics of the song with the translation is HERE

And without further ado, this is the magnificent rendition of Eilean a Cheo by Donald Black and Malcolm Jones:

You can buy the album Close to Home, from which that track comes, HERE. There is more info about Donald Black HERE

How to alienate one’s readership?

The Black Keys

I mentioned that my daughter and I were at a concert in Edinburgh on Saturday night. The tickets came as a gift from a friend of mine (cheers Stevie) who had bought them but couldn’t go.

The gig was The Black Keys at Edinburgh’s Corn Exchange.

The “band” originally consisted only of  Dan Auerbach (guitar/vocal) and Patrick Carney on drums indeed on Saturday night the two of them did three numbers by themselves. However they are now augmented by bass and keyboards.

I wasn’t all that au fait with their material although Hannah suggested several albums and tracks to listen to beforehand so I had a working knowledge of their blues based rock tunes.

I thought they were great. As tight as an Aberdonian’s wallet on a flag day (sorry Ken!) they played a superb set of driving songs underpinned by catchy hook lines and riffs.

Carney’s energetic drumming combined with Auerbach’s very full guitar sound and bluesy vocals had the place rocking. The Corn Exchange is a standing only venue and in our eagerness to get a good view, we only realised that we were in fact in the “mosh pit” when the band appeared – result? complete mayhem with bodies and beer flying everywhere.

I’m too old for that stuff and Hannah too young, so we moved!

We got some not bad photos:

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And here is the band on Jools Holland’s show performing Tighten Up

 

 

 

The Pictures

This is the magnificent fountain outside the Peoples Palace. The corners of the British Empire are symbolised by the various stone sculptures. That’s old Queen Vic on the top. The facility opened in 1896 during her reign.

After we left the Alex Harvey event and before proceeding to Edinburgh, we dropped into Glasgow city centre and had something to eat. I saw this lawyers office en route. It’s clear from the sign in just what niche of the Legal process they operate in.

Maybe I was thinking of Alex Harvey’s legendary shows at the Glasgow Apollo Theatre, because I took this photo of what stands on the site now. As modern high rise buildings go, it’s not bad I suppose:

N-E-X-T

“I swear on the……wet head of my first kiss of ghonorrhea!…..

Is it forever his ugly voice I hear? NEXT!…………

So the recently purchased (colour) telly belted out in our house as the Sensational Alex Harvey Band graced the studios of the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1974.

My parents watched squirming wondering if a 14 year old should be exposed to such stuff. My dad had laughed nervously at the line “The queer lieutenant slapped our arses thinking we were fags!” but as the song progressed to sexually transmitted diseases and the naked and the dead, my mother sat in a state of shock and seemed to be willing my father to say “Well that’s enough of that!” and switch it off.

He didn’t.

As it was it was allowed to go to the end when all my mother could say was “That was awful! who WAS that?”. My father I think was half caught between a feeling of “What the hell is the world coming to?” and “Actually you know, that really had something!”

This weekend marks the thirtieth anniversary of the passing of Alex Harvey and to mark the occasion, there has been an exhibition of memorabilia at the Peoples Palace on Glasgow Green . En route to a concert in Edinburgh, I called in yesterday afternoon:

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And here is the footage of NEXT. The band reminisce about members of the Johnny Dankworth orchestra being the violinists in the studio performance. They were bemused to be issued with stockings to be pulled over their heads bank robber style.

This photo, which I have found on the web credited to Ronnie Anderson, was also in the exhibition yesterday and surely captures the 1970s Scottish zeitgeist:

Jimmy Dewar (Stone the Crows) Alex Harvey, Billy Connolly, Hamish Stuart (Average White Band) Billy Connolly, Jimmy Reid and Frankie Miller attending an after show party at the Dorchester in London. Connolly had been in concert at the Palladium.

I heard Zal Cleminson and Ted McKenna describing the band on radio the other day. “We weren’t produced and polished enough to be glam-rock. If anything what we did was akin to street theatre”

Whatever it was, the fourteen year old boy is still enjoying it thirty eight years later.

To a friend……

The Quitter

When you’re lost in the Wild, and you’re scared as a child,
And Death looks you bang in the eye,
And you’re sore as a boil, it’s according to Hoyle
To cock your revolver and . . . die.
But the Code of a Man says: “Fight all you can,”
And self-dissolution is barred.
In hunger and woe, oh, it’s easy to blow . . .
It’s the hell-served-for-breakfast that’s hard.

“You’re sick of the game!” Well, now, that’s a shame.
You’re young and you’re brave and you’re bright.
“You’ve had a raw deal!” I know — but don’t squeal,
Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight.
It’s the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don’t be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit; it’s so easy to quit:
It’s the keeping-your-chin-up that’s hard.

It’s easy to cry that you’re beaten — and die;
It’s easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of sight –
Why, that’s the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each gruelling bout,
All broken and beaten and scarred,
Just have one more try — it’s dead easy to die,
It’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.

Robert William Service

Thanks Janice

For two decades on a Saturday morning, Janice Forsyth has hosted a wonderful magazine style music show on BBC Radio Scotland.

It’s not just the music that makes it special, although quite where else one would hear such an eclectic mix presented in a seamless and relaxed style I don’t know.

It’s not just the guests or the quizzes or the chat.

It is a radio show which is greater than the sum of its parts.

Now BBC bosses have decided to axe the show in favour of……….more sport!

Christ! there is wall to wall sport on Radio Scotland. Tune in at random and you’ll probably hear some eejit (broadcaster or member of the public) sounding off about it.

Usually it’s football.

Usually it’s about Celgers or Rantic (see what I did there?)

Shame on the BBC bosses who have made this decision.

I have a feeling they have underestimated what the public’s reaction will be.

Wonderful Picture

But I don’t know why….

Thank you fluff and nonsense

It’s been A Hard Day’s Night

Sheridan – New Shock!