James Graham, Drumbeg Village Hall, 12 November 2011

It was standing room only in Drumbeg Village Hall on Saturday night, as people crushed in to hear James Graham performing songs from Assynt. It was an intimate performance, giving what James called ‘an airing’ to a crucial aspect of the local area’s heritage.

When James studied Gaelic song at the RSAMD (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) in Glasgow, he pulled together a collection of songs from Assynt, trawling the archives and quizzing local Gaelic speakers. A former BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year, he takes his custodianship of the song tradition seriously, and one of the delights of the evening was the way he wrapped stories around the songs, bringing their creators back to life.

James Graham

Most extraordinary was the story of a song written some 300 years ago by the daughter of the laird of the time, expressing her love for a sea captain, Black Curry of the Ropes. The legend has it that he was up from Gairloch to Kylesku, where he ran his boat onto rocks. While waiting for repairs, he and the laird’s daughter fell in love, but Sir John Mackenzie of Achmore had his eye on her, and had her father’s favour.

When the sea captain returned a few months later, she had been married off to Sir John. The lovers managed a secret tryst, but when Sir John found out he shot first the sea captain, then his wife and finally turned the gun upon himself.

There are inevitably grey areas in determining who, in an oral culture, was the true originator of a song. One example is ‘Cathair a’ Chùl-Chinn’, which means the Seat at Culkein. The first five verses, James believes, were written by John ‘The Professor’ Macleod, but not published before he died.

He lived at Culkein, and had a particular rock, his seat, which he liked to sit on to look out over the bay. The final verse was then added in a quite different style, and published by and credited to Donald Macleod.

The Professor was responsible for a great wealth of songs and poetry. He was an actual Professor of English Literature in England, before returning home to Culkein in retirement. James sang two other songs of his: a hauntingly beautiful love song to his wife Janet (Seònaid) and the famous shieling song, Àirigh a’ Chùl-Chinn, which includes a plea to the Parliament to return the land to the people.

James excels at songs of longing, and began with ‘Mullaichean Rudha Stòir’ by Alasdair Macleod, an Assynt man exiled in Glasgow, missing the landscape of home. He followed it with a beautiful lament, by Donald Macleod from Drumbeg, to Alasdair Munro, killed in the first world war. There was light relief in a comic song in the form of a conversation between the composer and a stag on the hill.

And there was a chance for everyone to join in with ‘Cuir Culaibh Ri Asainte’, one of the Assynt songs that is known throughout the Gaelic-singing world, reminding us that, as James said, these songs are “as good as any you will get anywhere”.

At one point James described himself as “preaching to the converted” and with characteristic modesty, asked the audience to “help him out”. As voices joined in with ‘Àirigh a’ Chùl-Chinn’, words and tune familiar to local people from ceilidhs over the years, some nice harmonies blending in, there was a real sense of pride in the culture of this place.

How moving to reflect that the shielings the Professor was lamenting do indeed now belong to the local crofters. The clearances swept people away, for a time, but perhaps the community will, in the long term, prove resilient enough to restore what was lost. James Graham’s impeccable and heartfelt renditions of the local songs are proof that the treasures of the Assynt bards of old are in safe hands.

© Mandy Haggith, 2011

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