‘I’d never seen racism against Scotland from England until I did a Burns album’

This week: Eddi Reader Sings the Songs of Robert Burns: 2003 DJ and super-fan Billy Sloan brings you the stories behind some of Scotland’s favourite albums

EDDI Reader and I have something in common. We both once felt complete indifference for the works of Robert Burns. On the rare occasions it was taught at school, I stared out of the classroom window. I had posters of Pete Townshend and David Bowie on my bedroom wall. They were my poets. Meanwhile, Eddi was consumed by the cool jazz of greats such as Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington.

To me, Auld Lang Syne felt nothing more than a maudlin, drunken wail at Hogmanay parties. And My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose was strictly the domain of more traditional perfois todarmers like Kenneth McKellar or Moira Anderson.

In the maturity of our later years, we thankfully both discovered the real beauty of The Bard. Eddi’s belated passion for Burns led directly to my own appreciation of his music.

“Growing up my interest in Robert Burns was minimal, if not non-existent,” she confessed. “I thought his work was for the highbrow – something rich people celebrated at posh Burns suppers.

“It was not for the likes of me – the hardly educated, council estate, overspill girl. Burns wasn’t something which seemed part of my life. Now, I see that I was wrong. I am precisely the kind of person Burns wrote for.”

In 1975, the Reader family relocated to Irvine, as part of the Glasgow housing overspill. “At 16, I attended Greenwood Academy in Irvine – the same school Nicola Sturgeon later went to – and there was a female teacher, who was really into Burns,” said Eddi. “She didn’t seem to like me, but I didn’t take it personally, because the overspill was a massive influx into the town. A lot of people saw us as invaders. But it was thanks to that move that I was introduced to Robert Burns.”

Eddi became a regular at a local folk club and watched musicians like Dick Gaughan and Michael Marra celebrate his music. She said: “They were more rootsy and folky, and from a generation who were a little bit older than me. But they were much more intimate with Burns than I was. They knew all about his intellectual brilliance. My only exposure to his music was opera-style singers performing his songs on TV at New Year. So, I didn’t really understand it.”

Eddi soaked up the songs of Burns, while exploring her own musical path. She learned her craft as a busker in London and across Europe. A period singing with diverse acts like Eurythmics, Billy Mackenzie, Gang Of Four, John

Foxx and Alison Moyet proved an invaluable apprenticeship. In 1988, Eddi got her big break, forming the band Fairground Attraction with songwriter Mark E Nevin.

Their debut album, First Of A Million Kisses, was an enjoyable musical ragbag of pop, jazz, skiffle and country-flavoured songs. It produced three hit singles, most notably, Perfect, which topped the charts.

The band won two Brit Awards – Best Single and Best British Album. But Eddi was ill-suited to the glare of the spotlight. Growing friction within the band led to sessions for a second album being scrapped.

RCA Records rush-released Ay Fond Kiss, to capitalise on the band’s success. The album’s title song – misspelled by the label –

was Eddi’s first real recording of Burns, and a pointer for what lay ahead.

Two years later, Mirmama kicked off a run of impressive solo albums. Her seventh record, Eddi Reader Sings The Songs Of Robert Burns, was released by Rough Trade, on May 12, 2003.

The “does-as-it-says-on-the-tin” title belies the musical dexterity and sheer quality of what many now regard as her defining album.

However, she was warned that her decision to reinterpret Burns’s work was career suicide.

“I met resistance from my manager, Pete Jenner, who said you’re ruining your career. He felt so strongly that I was doing the wrong thing. To be fair to Pete, when he saw I was serious about it, he was fantastic. He got behind it 100 per cent.”

In August 2002, Eddi set up base in her Glasgow flat with folk musicians Phil Cunningham, Ewan Vernal, John McCusker and Boo Hewerdine to rehearse the songs.

She had also collaborated with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, with conductor/arranger Kevin McCrae. Eddi premiered the project the following January, playing two concerts with the orchestra as part of Celtic Connections. It paved the way for the album recording at CaVa Studios in Glasgow.

“I didn’t want it to be all po-faced, Kenneth McKellar-style music. When folk musicians go into the studio they tend to lose their sense of freedom. They feel they’ve got to pin it down a bit more professionally. That’s an anathema to me. What I wanted was the loose stuff you get when you play in the pub. So that was something I would push for and insist on, but in a gentle way.”

Eddi admits she did have a few reservations about reinterpreting Burns.

“On the first day, I remember walking in and seeing all the various musicians assembled,” she recalled. “Everyone was a little nervous. I know I was. In a situation like that, I’m an underconfident, nail-biting little girl. But somehow, it just felt special. The music took me by the hand and carried me.

“I was frightened to talk to the orchestral people, but only because I had such great respect for them. But Kevin McCrae was magnificent. He just got it. He had that romanticism, and there was something about the way he would hear what I was doing – and where I was going – with my voice.

“When I heard the rising strings of Jamie Come Try Me or Ae Fond Kiss, I knew I was in the company of musicians of amazing expertise. It was like a huge musical comfort blanket. All I had to do was show up and sing.”

Eddi put a modern spin on real jewels such as Charlie Is My Darling, Willie Stewart/Molly Rankin, Winter It Is Past and John Anderson My Jo, paying reverence to the original compositions.

Suddenly, what had seemed a risk, now felt completely natural. “There were a couple of songs where it was just me and the orchestra,” she said. “I stood in the vocal booth watching all their violin bows going up skywards. I felt I was being elevated. It’s embedded in my marrow. I did most of my vocals in straight takes. At times, there were maybe little flaws if I let go – but sometimes flaws are good. I’m very accepting of that.

“I am neurotic, but not so neurotic where I’d be doing 57 takes. I’d need to get it in the first two or three.”

Then Eddi faced what seemed like insurmountable obstacles from the London-focused media. She said: “Pete told me I’d never understood racism against Scotland – from England – until I tried to sell this album to The Guardian, The Independent and The Times. As one, they all said isn’t this just a Scottish thing?

“It was remarkable to get that from Pete because our relationship with the English media – and its ignorance of Scottish iconography or art – was almost an ignored part of our Anglo-Scot relationship, and gave me even more resolve to hold it up as valuable work.”

Despite that initial resistance, the album earned Eddi the best reviews of her career and credited her with taking Burns’s music to a whole new audience.

Or, as in my case, reintroducing people to work previously dismissed or ignored. “I don’t feel responsible for doing anything to Burns. But what happened was simply that people maybe got something out of it,” said Eddi.

“Some reviews said do we really need yet another version of Charlie Is My Darling? It was disrespectful, but I thought I’m doing it anyway.

“By making the album, I’ve ended up with something I’m very proud of because of the beauty it brought to me.

“It also gave me a bunch of songs I wasn’t going to get bored of. Every time I sing them, they change shape. They’re not stuck to a formula. It’s the most pulsating form of music.”

I felt Burns was not for the likes of me … the hardly educated, council estate, overspill girl

THE Billy Sloan Show is on BBC Radio Scotland every Saturday at 10pm.