Aros Centre, Portree, Saturday 7 August 2004

Cathy Ann MacPhee © Cailean MacLean

OUTSIDE, THE evening was balmy and midge-choked. Inside the theatre was close and sticky throughout Cathy Ann’s performance. She wondered aloud whether the heat might get to her, but she was consoled by the fact that if anything untoward did happen to her as a result she would be well looked after since a priest and a doctor were in the audience. In fact, the doctor, local GP Angus MacDonald, was called upon, but only to play a couple of sets of pipe tunes to open the second half of the concert.

The Aros performance was Cathy Ann’s only solo concert during her brief sojourn back in Scotland from her home in Ottawa. Because it was an all to rare opportunity to hear her live, the concert was a sell-out. Given the quality of her performance and the enthusiastic audience response, perhaps an opportunity was lost in not having arranged a few other concerts throughout the Highlands & Islands while she was over here.

Cathy Ann is from Barra, and from an early age was exposed to and involved in that island’s strong Gaelic singing tradition. As a teenager she joined the Gaelic theatre company Fir Chlis. Later she was a member of 7:84. Appearances on radio and television abounded thereafter, CDs were made, and she became one of the best-known female Gaelic voices.

Having married and settled in South Uist, her public performances tended to become fewer. They became rarer still when her husband Angus’s work took the family firstly to Preston in north west England (in fact, not to far from Blackpool where she was in school from ages ten to fifteen – if she did pick up any Lancashire nuances in her accent while she was there, they have long since gone) and subsequently to Ottawa in Canada.

One can only hope that the enthusiasm of the Aros audience’s response to her performance might encourage Cathy Ann to return more frequently for concert tours on this side of the Atlantic.

For the concert, Cathy Ann was joined by Billy Ross (now resident near Portree), fiddler Louise MacKenzie and Glenuig’s Iain MacDonald. They provided accompaniment for most of her songs and also interspersed the evening with a number of sets of tunes, delightfully delivered as would be expected from such consummate musicians.

Cathy Ann’s set included two English songs, ‘Hard Times’ and ‘Maggie’. The rest was a mix of traditional and modern Gaelic songs, the latter being largely from the pens of the Runrig MacDonalds. If I had to pick highlights from the concert they would be from the range of traditional songs she sang. Among them, I particularly liked ‘Bith Clann Ulaidh’, ‘Am Buachaille Bàn’ and the set of puirt-a-beul.

For her first encore Cathy Ann sang a song with which she has become closely associated, Murdo MacFarlane’s ‘Cànan nan Gàidheal’. The audience demanded a second encore – this time she sang ‘Na h-Uain air an Tulaich’, a beautiful Irish song translated into Scots Gaelic by Seonaidh Ailig MacPherson.

Altogether it was a great night of songs and music enhanced in no small measure by the warmth of Cathy Ann’s personality.

Catherine Ann MacPhee’s latest recording, ‘Sùil Air Is – Looking Back’, is out now on Greentrax Recordings.

© Cailean MacLean, 2004