Immortal refrains: in praise of the singing shortbread tin

For as long as anyone can remember, Eddie Rose has promoted and fronted up his summer show in Pitlochry town hall. Accompanied by a piper, an accordionist, a dancer and a fiddle player, ‘A Scottish Night Out’ is a showcase for his singing, joking and frequent costume changes – he managed six in this year’s two-hour program.

The kilted 69-year old’s act draws on the tradition of Harry Lauder, Kenneth McKellar and Andy Stewart. And for as long as he has been Roaming In The Gloaming, and inquiring after Donald’s Troosers, his brand of entertainment has elicited sneers from a substantial portion of Scots. “Singing shortbread tins”, was Billy Connolly’s snub nearly 40 years ago.

If all one knew of Caledonian culture was the pipes, the plaid and Eddie’s patter, you would be selling yourself short, it’s true. But that deflects not one jot from A Scottish Night Out’s essential qualities.

Taking our seats on an August evening, its obvious that little about Pitlochry Town Hall has changed since its doors first opened in 1900. With space for 120 stackable chairs, the stage stands high above the board flooring and, like most of the interior, the proscenium arch would benefit from a lick of paint. Nonetheless, from Queen Victoria’s reign onwards, locals and visitors to the highland town have been enjoying entertainment based on song, dance and traditional musical skills to which Eddie’s show can trace direct stylistic lineage.

His show is resolutely local. Half a century ago, Eddie arrived in the Pitlochry from his native Speyside to work in the town’s distillery. Until retirement, he fitted his shows around his warehouse job. He is joined on stage by the brilliant 16-year-old fiddler, Liam Mannion – from Ballanluig, five miles down the road. Button accordionist Sandy Lindsay plays songs that his father wrote about hills in the mountain range that envelope Pitlochry and, pipe major Sharon Kelly leads the local marching band. Is there a regular show anywhere else in Britain so deeply rooted in its locality? I doubt it.

The music is entertainment, pure and simple – even if some of Eddie’s gags are period pieces. But as an enduring, living culture, its resonance is deeper. The costumes and performing conventions may owe a good deal to the Victorian music hall, but the melodies and the emotional pitches to which they give expression flow from a well-spring deep in Scotland’s past.

A month after Eddie’s closing number (after which he raced from the stage to shake the hand of each member of his audience) Keep Right On To The End Of The Road was still on my internal jukebox. Then I noticed https://onlinezolpidembuy.com that Roddy Frame was intending to tour performing, in its entirety, his band’s 1983 album, High Land Hard Rain.

The East Kilbride-born singer’s debut formed the soundtrack to my summer in the year of its release. Frame, only a year my senior, produced the collection of songs while still a teenager and recorded the album in a week. To my ears, at least, the intervening years have dimmed not one jot the striking poetry of his song-writing, nor his instrumental virtuosity.

Thirty years on, the idea of being in a packed hall of fellow enthusiasts enjoying Roddy reprising his masterpiece was tempting – at least until I noticed that the advert for his shows is just one in a sea of regurgitated musical acts from the past half century. Today you can not only dial up nearly any track ever recorded via a streamed music service – in most cases you can see the remnants of the original artists banging out their hits. Whenever you grew up, whatever was your listening pleasure, a momentary return ride to the carefree high times of adolescence is available, is their promise.

Alas, not only is the prospectus false, but by attempting relive teenage moments, we risk diminishing that which we originally loved. The bands and singers that I enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s live yet in my mind’s eye – in a half-remembered rush of youth, adrenalin and artistic brilliance. Falteringly, on the cusp of wakefulness and sleep, I can reconstruct, in some cases note for note, the swaggers and shrieks, the wails and the warbles that electrified my neophyte heart.

Gorge yourself today on the same artists reprising their triumphs, accompanied by session musicians and the baggage of advanced middle age, however, and the recently-pressed memories will inevitably displace the vintage tracks.

That’s not the only reason to stay away. The appeal of High Land Hard Rain was that it was an audacious and novel exploration of the human condition from the perspective of a sixties-born Scottish teenager – albeit one with prodigious talents. Speaking to The Tube in 1984 Frame explained that he had shied away from commercial success for a long time. “All I want is to make a great record”, was his credo, he said (a manifesto to which his recent outings hold true).

Thirty years ago Frame produced great art. When he takes to the stage later this week he will do so as an entertainer – however competently he works his audience’s happy buttons. His counterpart in Pitlochry has never displayed aspirations beyond shared good times – yet every repetition enhances his unpretentious routine.