WHEN it comes to naming Scottish fiddlers, there is probably very few people who wouldn’t name Shetland’s Aly Bain at the top of the list.
70-years old this coming April, Aly has been a constant feature of the Scottish music scene as a solo performer and with bands such as The Boys of the Lough and as a duet with box player Phil Cunningham.
Growing up on an island 110 miles from the Scottish mainland meant that people had to make their own entertainment and where Aly lived, the fiddle was the instrument of choice.
“On Shetland, the fiddle was THE instrument, like it is in Donegal, and my father’s generation would all have played but in my generation, the post-war generation, people started looking for what was new and that tradition almost died out,” says Aly.
However, during the later 1950s and 1960s there was a revival and the Shetland style of fiddling made a comeback.
“It’s like all kinds of traditional music, its main function was to facilitate dancing but in Shetland we had three influences, Scandinavian influence, a Scottish influence and also an Irish influence because Irish fishermen would come to the fishing grounds here and they brought lots of music with them, so the Shetland style is a mixture of all these cultures with our own and we would use the music for wedding and funerals and this and that,” explains Aly.
I admit to being one of those silly people who thought of Shetland as a place where people put two cans and a battery together to listen to the radio, á la Dancing at Lughnasa but Aly already had a wide knowledge of all kinds of music before he moved to the metropolis of Edinburgh.
“The guy who taught me, Tom Anderson, was musically very influential on the island,” recalls the master fiddler. “He would exchange records with people from all over and he knew guys who would bring back records from America and from all over the world so I listened to a lot of different music when I was growing up so when I went to America for the first time, in 1969, I already knew lots of the tunes already. It as quite an international background although we were living on a small island.”
"The two best loved singers were Hank Williams and before him, it was Jimmie Rodgers,” he laughs.
That of course stood in Aly’s stead and he has spent a great part of this musical life playing the four corners of the globe, famously teaming up with musicians in Aly Meets the Cajuns but one of the most enduring contributions is Transatlantic Sessions, the TV series which brings US and Irish musicians to Scotland to explore their common musical roots.
The idea came about, as do many great ideas, in a pub. programme-makers Doug Eadie, Mike Alexander and Aly were sitting in a pub in Glasgow, had “far too much to drink” and the idea for Transatlantic Sessions grew from that. Aly came up with the idea of bringing the US/Canadian and other international talent to Scotland rather than them going abroad.
After “50,000 meetings” funding became available and the first Transatlantic Sessions was made in 1995. Yes, it’s hard to believe it’s been around for that long!
In the 21 years, hundreds of well-known musicians have appeared on the programme and a good while later, the live shows came about so I know it’s invidious to ask Mr Bain if he has a favourite.
After some himming and hawing, John Martin, Iris de Ment comes to mind as does James Taylor “who is a lovely, lovely man.”
“When he sat down you knew you were in the presence of someone who is quite extraordinary.” says Aly.
Tonight at the Millennium Forum in Derry, I have no doubt there will be another extraordinary evening in store with three exceptional singers taken the Transatlantic Sessions stage – Cara Dillon, Karen Matheson and Rhiannon Giddens.
They will be backed by a house-band that includes Aly himself and long-time collaborator, Jerry Douglas as well as Phil Cunningham, John Doyle, Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker and Donald Shaw. Aly promises a lot of diversity in the show.
“On top of the music from both sides of the Atlantic, the singing in the show is out of this word,” he says “but there is also a great sense of humour. If they weren’t musicians these guys could definitely make it in stand-up!”
Transatlantic Sessions in on at the Millennium Forum in Derry tonight at 7.30pm. The box office number is 028 7126 4455.
