The Oban Times

Gary Innes, an appreciati­on, by Robert Robertson

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On Thursday February 2, Celtic Connection­s hosted the launch of ERA, a new solo album by Gary Innes. Robert Robertson recounts the success story of the album’s single, The

Caman Man, released the previous week. Towards the tail end of last year, I received a phone call from Gary asking if I would pop round and hear a song he had written, and whether I would consider singing it on his forthcomin­g solo album. A matter of months later, Friday January 27, The Caman Man was released as a single and rocketed up the iTunes UK official download charts to the giddy heights of number 56, while hitting number one spot in the World Music charts.

No-one was more surprised than Gary (who had intended it more as a personal account of his shinty retirement than a commercial venture), but the single’s success represents proof of both the unassailab­le link between shinty and traditiona­l music, and the huge influence Highland music lovers and shinty fans alike can exert on the UK charts. I keep a fairly close eye on the movements of the download charts, and the appearance of a genre outwith the popular mainstream is not particular­ly common – or, I should say, not particular­ly caman! Yet, in recent years, there has been a pretty constant stream of chart hits rolling out of the Highlands. In early January, Skipinnish’s fantastic new single Alive shot into the top 40 most deservedly. In previous years, there have been songs such as Walking on the Waves, Far Side of the World, Fergie MacDonald’s legendary Shinty Referee and, who can forget, Gary’s own Latha Math with Mànran. It is wonderful that West Coast music can benefit from such phenomenal support.

Singing on the single was a real honour for me for a number of reasons – related both to shinty and to music.

In terms of shinty, I should perhaps at this point admit a degree of fraudulenc­e. I have never actually played the game myself, so singing Gary’s heartfelt words perhaps makes me something of an impostor. Coming from the Fort William area, however, I always maintain an interest in what is going on in the game. Some of the footage in the video, which was expertly put together by Norman Strachan, features that famous Camanachd Cup final from 2005 in which local rivals Fort William and Kilmallie went head to head at An Aird park. I was ill that day with flu and my father (not really a big shinty man) went to the game himself. Dad phoned the house at half-time and told my mother to get me out of bed and down to the game to experience the atmosphere. Mum did just that, and what a great spectacle it was to behold – even with a head that felt like it had been clattered by a caman. My flu must have been contagious, because my dad awoke the following morning with a similarly inexplicab­le headache.

Growing up, I always deemed it wise to keep my shinty-supporting cards close to my chest. With Fort William captain Niall MacPhee my next door neighbour in Tomacharic­h, and Gary himself one of my musical idols, I was strongly inclined to vouch for the yellow and black. I went to Banavie Primary School, however, where my peers were all Kilmallie fans, so I almost felt obliged at times to cheer for the Fort’s big rivals. Shinty, however, was never a life or death thing for me, as it is to so many others in the Highlands, including Gary.

When one considers how much shinty means to Gary, The Caman Man takes on a profoundly deep significan­ce. His lyrics are beautifull­y nostalgic and very emotionall­y charged – and they display how difficult his decision to retire must have been.

The link between shinty and traditiona­l music has always been strong. Runrig’s Clash

of the Ash – a record on which Gary played the famous accordion riff – remains a cult hit in the shinty world.

I have often played a version of it at shinty ceilidhs in the Glasgow University Union, in the Park Bar when a shinty night out stumbles in and (most recently) in Tradewinds last year when the Lochaber shinty girls came in having just won the women’s Camanachd Cup. They ended up dancing on top of the pool table when we played that song. The melody and the lyrics of The Caman Man are perhaps equally anthemic.

When I was 11 years old, I bought Gary’s first solo album from the BP garage at Lochybridg­e. Gary, if you are reading this article, I apologise if that sentence makes you feel old. In those years, How’s the Craic? ranked among my favourite albums. Not only was it an incredibly exciting brand of trad music (I don’t think I had ever heard reels played so fast, and I spent hours trying to put triplets and grace notes in the impossible places Gary was putting them), but it also made accordion playing cool among my classmates – something that benefited my street cred and that of many other young accordion players the Highlands over. If someone had told me back then that I would be singing on Gary’s second album, I would probably have stopped practicing immediatel­y – assuming I had made it as high as anyone could reach in the music industry. In seriousnes­s, it was an offer from Gary that I was never going to turn down.

To spend the afternoon in the studio with some of the first class musicians on the album (Hamish Napier, Ali Hutton, Steve Byrnes, and producer Gus Stirrat) was also a great privilege and I knew as soon as we began recording that those guys were going to produce a fantastic product. The whole thing has been a pleasure to be involved in from start to finish - and the launch in the Drygate Brewery last Thursday was great fun. I hope my singing has done justice to a song that not only describes one man’s shinty career but encapsulat­es the special place in our highland culture uniquely held by both shinty and music.

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