Adopted by good Scottish folk

In the last issue we looked at some of the best venues for folk music. Here Kathleen Spiessbach sets out in search of Scotland's best folk music

It all started in Peebles. We had just arrived in this small Borders town on the banks of the Tweed, a sundry group of Yanks under the wing of folklorist Ed Miller.

As we watched the setting June sun ignite the Border hills that first night, the air seemed charged with promise. For the next two weeks, we would experience Scotland as few Americans could: not only would we meet her spectacular landscapes on intimate terms, but also hear them sing. We'd just embarked on Scotland's first and only traditional music tour.

City and village jaunts, pastoral walks, mountain hikes and museum forays flavoured with folksong by day, cozy exclusive sessions with Scotland's leading folk musicians and singers by night, have made Miller's unique ‘Songs of Scotland' project an extraordinary pilgrimage.

“The idea came to me one evening as I sang one of my favorite Border songs, The Broom o' the Cowdenknowes, to a group of Texans,” Miller told me.

“That song always takes me back to a hillside in the Borders, a particular place where that song ‘lives',” he explained. “Then I wondered, what could Texans possibly be thinking when they hear it? I knew that I had to bring people here… to the landscape that inspires the songs.” Miller's degrees in both geography and folklore, together with what one critic called his “decidedly not run-of-the-Miller” way with a song, make him a natural. A dry Scottish wit and a disarming humility match his rapport with the music, turning liste...

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• By : Kathleen Spiessbach
• In : Travel
• Issue : 21
• Page : 50
• Words : 1,412