> Folk Music > Records > Willie Scott: The Shepherd's Song

Willie Scott: The Shepherd's Song

The Shepherd's Song (Topic 12T183)

The Shepherd's Song
Border Ballads
Willie Scott (1897-1989)

Topic Records 12T183 (LP, UK, 1968)
Greentrax Recordings CDTRAX 9054 (CD, UK, 1998)
Topic Records TSDL183 (digital download, UK, December 2009)

 The Shepherd's Song (Greentrax CDTRAX 9054)

Recorded by Bill Leader in his own home, Camden Town, London, November 3, 1967;
Remastered by Peter Haigh at Pier House Studios, Edinburgh in 1968;
Notes by Maurice Lindsay;
Photograph used with the permission of The Farmer's Weekly

Musicians

Willie Scott, vocals, melodeon

Tracks

Side 1Side 2
  1. The Shepherd’s Song (Roud 5124) (4.19)
  2. Piper MacNeil (Roud 5125) (2.52)
  3. The Kielder Hunt (Roud 5126) (4.39)
  4. Jamie Raeburn (Roud 600) (3.18)
  5. Bonnie Wee Trampin’ Lass (Roud 5129) (4.14)
  1. Bloody Waterloo (Roud 622; Laws N31) (4.10)
  2. Jock Geddes (Roud 5130) (4.26)
  3. The Dowie Dens of Yarrow (Roud 13; Child 214) (4.54)
  4. Herd Laddie o’ the Glen (Roud 5128) (3.40)
  5. The Lads That Were Reared Amang the Heather (Roud 5127) (1.60)

All tracks trad. except
Track 9 Willie Scott

Review

This review is from: D.K. Wilgus, Scots and Irish Tradition, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 85, No. 337 (Jul.-Sep. 1972), pp. 292-296:

Willie Scott, a septuagenerian Border shepherd, who has also been recorded by the School of Scottish Studies, is documented on a full album, The Shepherd's Song (Topic I2TI83). His songs encompass the tragic and the comic of the Border tradition, but the album title comes from a proud song recounting the shepherd's skills. The Dowie Dens of Yarrow (Child 214) is the “big ballad” of the group, and Jamie Raeburn is a Scots forebear of Canaday-I-O (Laws C17). Bloody Waterloo (Laws N31) is a member of the underinvestigated returned-disguised-lover group, this one containing the numbered “gaping wounds” known also in Continental tradition. The Kielder Hunt is an example of “catalogue songs” of hunts, quite popular in the late nineteenth century. Piper MacNeil celebrates the joys of whisky, while the Jock Geddes has the experiences of other tipplers in ending up in the company of a “lower” animal, this time a sow.

> Folk Music > Records > Willie Scott

Other records with Willie Scott

Various Artists, Festival at Blairgowrie, LP, Topic 12T181, 1967

Various Artists, My Ship Shall Sail the Ocean (The Voice of the People Vol. 2), CD, Topic TSCD652, 1998

Various Artists, Farewell, My Own Dear Native Land (The Voice of the People Vol. 4), CD, Topic TSCD654, 1998

Various Artists, Come All My Lads That Follow the Plough (The Voice of the People Vol. 5), CD, Topic TSCD655, 1998

Various Artists, A Story I'm Just About to Tell (The Voice of the People Vol. 8), CD, Topic TSCD658, 1998

Various Artists, Who's That at My Bed Window? (The Voice of the People Vol. 10), CD, Topic TSCD660, 1998

Various Artists, It Fell on a Day, a Bonny Summer Day (The Voice of the People Vol. 17), CD, Topic TSCD667, 1998

Various Artists, To Catch a Fine Buck Was My Delight (The Voice of the People Vol. 18), CD, Topic TSCD668, 1998

Various Artists, There Is a Man Upon the Farm (The Voice of the People Vol. 20), CD, Topic TSCD670, 1998

Various Artists, Three Score and Ten: 70 Years of Topic Records, 7 CD, Topic TOPIC70, 2009