Dundee Folk Club founder and illustrator Russ Paterson

Musician Russ Paterson, who founded the highly successful Dundee Folk Club alongside a 40-year career illustrating comic characters in The Beano and The Dandy, has died.

Russ, 81, was surrounded by his family at his home in Downfield when he passed away peacefully on Wednesday March 6, after a lengthy illness.

Born in St Cyrus, Russ was educated at the local primary school and then Montrose Academy.

His first job was as an apprentice projectionist at the local cinema, but he soon changed career and became an apprentice painter and decorator.

When his dad got a job with Fife County Council the family moved to Tayport and Russ was able to continue his apprenticeship with a company there.

When one day his dad brought home an old battered guitar he told Russ he had found it floating in the harbour, and so began his guitar-playing career.

National service was spent with the catering corps in Cyprus, where he also joined a skiffle group and entertained the troops during his twoyear stint there.

Back home he met his future wife Jean at a Valentine’s dance in Tayport and he changed jobs again, getting a job in Draffens store.

The couple were married in Tayport United Free Church in 1962.

Russ was always on the lookout for a better job and he applied for a position which required somebody with fine brush-work skills, leading to him spending the next 40 years with DC Thomson, firstly in the process department in Lindsay Street then as a colourist in the art department, painting Desperate Dan, among a myriad of other comic characters.

On his first day there, a fellow employee popped his head around the corner where he was sitting and asked if he played guitar.

He was invited up to Willie Whyte’s house the following night and that began a lifelong friendship between the pair.

Together they started Dundee Folk Club in the early 1960s, enjoying a 10year run and building it into one of the top folk clubs in Scotland.

As part of the resident group called the Inn Folk, they went on to organise many a memorable night at various venues in the city, most notably at the Woodlands Hotel in Broughty Ferry.

Among the well-known artists he helped bring to Dundee were Billy Connolly and the Humblebums (along with Gerry Rafferty), Bert Jansch, Archie Fisher, John Martyn, Ewan Mccoll and Peggy Seeger, Barbara Dickson, Incredible String Band, Christy Moore and Rab Noakes.

As well as playing the local clubs, Russ also performed at the Caird Hall quite a few times, sharing the stage with the likes of Tom Paxton, Hamish Imlach, the Corries and Archie Fisher to name just a few.

In the late 1970s he joined the Cameron Kerr Three and gigged with them for a couple of years.

From the 1980s onwards he performed mostly as a solo artist but occasionally found time to sit in as guest with other acts, including a few jam sessions with his sons Don and Stevie.

He also created and contributed to an online blog, also called The Dundee Folk Club.

His friend, renowned Scottish musician Rab Noakes, who was initially brought to the club by Russ and Willie, said: “It was a marvellous weekly event where I and others progressed through the ranks, so to speak, before being able – and invited – to headline a night there, in my case somewhere about 1970.

“Russ was a great singer and guitar player himself, who was always very encouraging to younger performers whilst maintaining a quality control which ensure consistently good, successful, well-attended Sunday nights at the Woodlands.

“If there’s a watchword for Russ there it is – quality, through and through.

“He’ll be greatly missed and I, for one, will never forget him.”

Russ is survived by Jean, sons Don and Stevie, daughter Louise and his five grandchildren.

Music played a big part in Russ Paterson’s life.