Blazin’ new trails in Scottish fiddle music

The Arts Journal profiles BLAZIN’ FIDDLES, a major force on the Scottish folk scene.

The Facts:
Blazin’ Fiddles are a seven-piece band with five top fiddlers from the Highlands and Islands, supported by guitar and keyboards. The band have released two albums on their own label, and are preparing a new disc for release in the summer of 2004.
 

The players are:

Bruce MacGregor (fiddle)
Iain MacFarlane (fiddle)
Catriona MacDonald (fiddle)
Allan Henderson (fiddle)
Aidan O’Rourke (fiddle)
Marc Clement (guitar)
Andy Thorburn (piano)
 

Top Highland band Blazin’ Fiddles are a major attraction these days, and the high-octane excitement of their live gigs has won them a following well beyond their native turf. The band will have a third album out on their own Blazin’ Fiddles Records to follow the earlier Blazin’ Fiddles and The Old Style, but the label has also released discs by Bruce MacGregor, and plans are underway to expand that to other members of the group, most of whom have previously made their own CDs on a variety of other labels.

“We initially thought we would just do the Blazin’ Fiddles albums on the label,” Bruce MacGregor explained, “but we were all doing solo projects as well, and we began to think that if we centralised all of that under our own company, it would give us a bit more control over the whole thing. We see the label as specifically for fiddle music, and initially just for the members of the band, although we would hope one day to extend beyond that. Everyone is free to do stuff elsewhere if they prefer, but I think if we have a half-dozen albums it also becomes easier to work with distributors and so on.”

Blazin’ Fiddles trace their origins as a group back to a series of concerts in the Highland Festival in 1997 that attempted to provide a showcase for Scottish fiddle styles and the contemporary fiddle scene.

“Iain MacFarlane and myself were teaching at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college up in Skye, a few years ago,” Bruce said, “and we talked then about trying to get Scottish fiddle players together as a kind of showcase, but nothing really came of it. Then I went over to Alasdair Fraser’s Valley of the Moon fiddle school in California. I was doing a programme for Radio Scotland on why these Americans were so keen on our music.

“They were incredibly knowledgeable about the history, but it amazed me that very few of them knew anything about what was happening now – in fact, there was a definite myth that nothing was happening here! I spoke to Alastair McDonald at the Highland Festival, and he was very enthusiastic, so I made a few calls. The idea was that it would mostly be solo stuff, with just a wee bit of ensemble at the end of the night, but the group material got a fantastic reaction.”

Blazin’ Fiddles quickly became an entity. The original line-up also included Duncan Chisholm, but when he left to concentrate on the demands of Wolfstone, they decided to carry on with just five rather than six fiddles. Duncan will rejoin the band temporarily for a tour down south this summer, but as a stand in for Allan Henderson, who cannot make the dates.

A typical Blazers show will still feature solo spots for the various players, which gives audiences the chance to hear characteristics of the various regional roots within in the band, with the west coast represented by Aidan, Iain and Allan, the east coast by Bruce, and Shetland by Catriona.

The band are very popular south of the border as well as north, and are touring in Wales and England this month, although they do have a gig at Farr Hall on 6 March as a prelude to that latest expedition.

“The interest in England has been phenomenal,” Bruce confirmed. “I think our name captures the imagination, and the fiddle is very popular right through the UK just now. Nobody really knew anything about us when we first started playing down there, but we tour two or three times a year now, and a lot of those gigs are sold out.”

The band have a robust sense of humour. The photography (by Fin MacRae of the Brora-based Pictii agency) for The Old Style disc showed the group done up in Victorian garb on the cover, while on the inside, the men have all donned opera dresses.

“We thought that would be a laugh,” Bruce admitted. “The whole thing came about because Iain and Allan are always going on about how things were in the old style of whatever we happened to be talking about – I think Allan was born in the wrong era entirely. Fin took up that idea for the photo shoot.”

The band launched their own fiddle school, Blazin’ in Beauly, in 2001, and that has also grown into a very popular event in October, with places on the course being snapped up fast, and tickets for the associated public concerts generally following suit.

Related Links

• Blazin’ Fiddles
• Blazin’ in Beauly