Thoughts on an all-Scottish music show: (not) putting a kilt on it

Full playlist at the end of this essay

Almost a quarter of a century ago, I was involved in an unholy row which made the front page of The Herald, still a power in the land at that time. It was my fault, sparked by an unguarded comment in what I thought was a private email.

At the time I had just started presenting the daily afternoon show on BBC Radio Scotland, then a mixture of generally lightsome, arty and literary chat plus music “with a Celtic twist”. This veered from traditional Scottish and Irish folk through rock’n’reel to Americana with fiddles and bouzoukis. Someone wrote to me demanding more Scottish music. I replied to the effect that we’d love to, but there wasn’t enough of it that we felt was good enough. A careless remark, and made in the pre-social media days when we didn’t expect our communications to go viral. 

Viruses, of course, hadn’t been invented.

I really meant that there wasn’t enough Scottish music I thought was good enough. Or that I liked. As a writer and critic, I’d never pulled my punches, and why should I start? And I loved traditional Scottish music. Well, some of it. Notably the fiddle playing of Aly Bain. I lived and breathed the stuff in Shetland, though too much first-position deedly-deedling and drunken session sawing by Aly-acolytes drove me to distraction, or Led Zeppelin.

How was I to know my correspondent, one Dougal Carnegie, was a prominent member of the Holyrood lobbying group for ‘Scottish Traditional Arts’?

All hell broke loose, as you can read here (no paywall). If I hadn’t been in the first few weeks of a new show, and if Radio Scotland’s chief hadn’t been the great Maggie Cunningham, I might have been sacked. Aly Bain went berserk. Today, I’d have been Kay-Adamsed in a flurry of pixels.

As it was, the fuss faded as newsprint tended to do back then, and the show moved inexorably toward more mainstream rock and pop. I survived, following the Partridge route into late night niche broadcasting and, via illness, towards books, cookery, whisky, local politics and funerals. As you do.

Music returned, as a passion, after so many years as a profession. I found daily broadcasting blunted my ability to fall in love with new music and continue enjoying the old. I’d stopped being a proper listener.

But things change. These days I can listen with and for pleasure, though the truth is I rarely have Radio Scotland on. As in, never. Seduced by podcasts, vinyl, Apple Music and by the esoteric speech-only glories still to be found on Radio 4, the recent controversy over changes at Radio Scotland (actually six months ago; it has rumbled loudly on) was of pretty much academic and journalistic interest. While generally sympathetic to the aggrieved musicians who felt deprived of national exposure, and heart-sorry for the presenters and producers cast into the hardscrabble world of self-funded podcasts and streaming, the vilification of the incoming DJs and show runners felt unpleasant and rather familiar. I wrote about it here last year.

The stramash did make me wonder, though. Could you sustain a – let’s say weekly – show of nothing but Scottish music? Well, probably, but more to the point could I do it playing music I personally liked or for that matter, loved? If it was my own choice I could range from Willie Hunter and Blazin’ Fiddles (always hated that apostrophe) to AC/DC, The Primevals, Thrum and the Brontes. Expats and second generation Scots would be allowed, so Richard Thompson, Linda, Teddy and Jami. Qualification strictures would be far more severe than those exercised by our Scottish international football team or in rugby, where you can play for Scotland if you once drank a pint of Tennents.

And so, the Pollokshaws Cadillac. Ninety minutes (yes, I know; sorry) of tunes that appeal to me, and all from people who are or were Scots by residence, birth or parental/grandparental status. Sort of like qualifying for Irish citizenship…

Will it work? Is it worthwhile?

Let’s see….

Pollokshaws Cadillac, volume one: playlist

Adam Holmes – Jock O’ Hazeldean

Admiral Fallow – Headstrong

Frightened Rabbit – I Wish I Was Sober

Deacon Blue – The Great Western Road

The Pearlfishers – Making Tapes for Girls

Nyah Fearties – Lugton Calling / Rantin’ Robbie

Trashcan Sinatras – Best Days on Earth

Steve Mason – People to the River! 

Pictish Trail – I Don’t Know Where To Begin

Vivien Scotson – The Lights Go Out

Lucky Jim – You’re Lovely to Me 

Spoothawk – It’s Getting Hot

Richard Thompson – Trust

John Martyn & Danny Thompson – Solid Air (live in Germany, 1986)

Danny Wilson – Knowing Me Knowing You (Live at the Town and Country Club, 1989)

The Big Dish – Shipwrecked

Lola in Slacks – Trocchi’s Canal

David Heavenor – Change Me Like Snow