Top folk band heads for Oban

A QUARTET of Scotland’s best folk musicians are coming to the Corran Halls.

Auld Hat – New Heids will play the Oban venue on Saturday April 1, a date that promises to be a real treat for folk fans.

The four musicians – brothers Fraser and Ian Bruce, Pete Clark and Gregor Lowrey – have built up enviable individual reputations over decades, but have now united to form a band.

The material they perform provides ‘ a show of Scottish songs now seldom heard but which were once the basis of the folk revival of the 1960s and 1970s, when Scottish folk music was at its peak’.

Fraser said: ‘ Hamish Imlach, Matt McGinn, Archie Fisher, Ewan MacColl and Jimmy McGregor are just a few of the names who starred in the folk scene in those heady days. That time might have passed but the songs are still there. It’s just that there are fewer people singing them.

‘ We formed our group with the intention of producing a show featuring a selection of these songs from the folk revival but incorporating the developed musical skills of the current era.

‘ We want to create a feelgood factor at our shows with audience participation and humour. It’s also, for many, a reminiscence of the good old days of folk.’

Between them, the four musicians have more than 30 albums, as well as extensive radio and TV experience.

Such has been their rapid success following on from a Scottish tour last year, they were accorded the honour of a concert at this year’s Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, which earned rave reviews.

One reviewer wrote: ‘ Throughout the years that Celtic Connections have been running, there have been many memorable concerts. This will go down as one of them. It was a truly memorable night and is up there with the best concerts over the years.

‘Seasoned performers Fraser and Ian Bruce, accompanied by Gregor Lowrey (accordion) and Pete Clark (fiddle) put on the show of their lives.’