1: Oban High School

IT’S interesting to look at this in today’s context, where not only is music and the arts the first to go when there are budget cuts, but it has also become more difficult for teachers to take on voluntary projects outside school.

When I was at Oban High School, there were teachers clearly working outside paid hours, taking on projects to help pupils.

My music teacher there was Norman Nicholson. He was an incredibly talented organist, pianist, and composer and my way into understanding the beauty and simplicity of baroque music. He’s a big part of how I’ve managed to cross over musical styles.

Dave Mason ran the school orchestra and bands and helped me jump into deep water, musically.

It can be daunting to look at a page of dots but he helped me get rid of that barrier – fear, which is the only barrier to doing anything in the arts.

I studied classical accordion, first with my dad then a local teacher called Neil Sinclair, but like all good teachers he knew it was time for me to move on and I had lessons with world champion Silvia Wilson who not only taught me the kind of techniques that made life so much easier for me but also helped me understand how people pass on their passion.

2: Learning my history

THERE was also a Gaelic teacher called Norman MacLean (pictured), who was something of a celebrity in the Gaelic world as a stand-up comedian, actor, singer and piper. Even though I didn’t play the pipes I went along to his lunchtime tutorials to hear him talk about music.

Being a Gaelic teacher, he used that subject to connect us with Scottish history. At that time, and I don’t think it’s changed much, history teaching was restricted to whatever was on the curriculum – the Russian Revolution and the world wars. I had learned nothing about my own culture until Norman’s Gaelic class. He became pivotal later too when Capercaillie (pictured below and right) started recording Gaelic songs. He was our go-to encyclopaedia.

3: The family that stays together ...

FROM an early age I played music with my family. My dad plays accordion, my mother plays piano, and they had a ceilidh band that would play locally around Taynuilt – they still do a bit. My first experience of being on stage was tagging along with them.

Even though they didn’t play music for a living, they were extremely proactive in encouraging me and my three sisters. My mum, who worked as a teacher, would drive from Oban to Perth every Friday to take me to the lessons with Silvia Wilson.

My dad passed on an incredible work ethic. He would work 12 hours as a blacksmith, out building cattle grids in freezing conditions, but still pick up his accordion when he got home.

The house became something of a drop-in for musicians and it was a great way not just to be part of the culture but to understand it. For such a small place, Taynuilt had an incredible amount of talent. The writer Iain Crichton Smith would also visit.

Doing something as a family was important, and we’ve passed that on to our son Hector, who has just started at Edinburgh University. Of course my wife Karen (Matheson, pictured) sings with Capercaillie. We were at school together and she came from a musical family too. Hector plays piano and guitar, and writes his own songs.

4: Touring the world

YOU could call this from Taynuilt to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Capercaillie played in more than 40 countries and at one point we drove a van and a small car from Taynuilt to Venice to play some shows.

Back then you would get a letter from an Italian promoter saying, “I have your records and would love you to do some shows here. Can we come on April 1 to this particular theatre in Milan at 3pm.” And you would go on that basis – no real contracts.

We did a lot of what you would call conventional touring, where we were building up a reputation as a live act in the UK and Europe.

Of course we played the United States and Canada many times as well as Australia and New Zealand.

There were some incredibly unusual places, however, particularly for the British Council. There was a month in the Middle East, and that’s what I mean about playing the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

We were in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war (pictured), we played the West Bank, Jordan, and Egypt. We also played all over Brazil, Northern Africa and went deep into Eastern Europe – it was an eye-opening kind of life to find yourself in the midst of a completely alien culture.

In folk music you meet what you might term “ordinary” people so you get a real sense of what the country is like.

5: Celtic Connections

THIS splits into before and after. Before my role as artistic director, we played the festival many times because when it started in 1994 Capercaillie was well established. I think it was becoming evident to a lot of us in Scotland that we could connect with other cultures and indigenous languages.

In 2004 I was commissioned to deliver a project called Harvest. For a year I worked with young musicians around Scotland, usually teenagers. We put on a concert on the opening night. It was incredible to see the power of 100 young people taking up the mantle and playing at that level. Now for 2019 part of that will be featured in Syne Of The Times, this year’s opening concert.

To me it was a strange request when I was approached to work for Celtic Connections because I didn’t think I had much experience of organising something of that stature. The festival had something of a daunting reputation by that time, so I didn’t want to be the person who came in and mucked it up. Originally I said no, but I came in as an adviser and eventually took on the artistic director role for 2007.

The journey of that festival is the story of a resurgence. I think it’s about young people having confidence in their own culture and finding a respect for it.

6: Vertical Records

IN 2000, Capercaillie had been with Survival Records for a number of years, but I felt it was time to engage in more of a crossover label. We were beginning to see music becoming less pigeonholed.

People could be working across folk, roots, electronica, jazz, orchestral and needed a home. It was also the point when I tried to dissect the industry and see how it worked. That relationship between a label and publishers and shops and PR and everything else that goes along with it.

It became a big part of my life. It’s still running but I’m not so proactive in seeking out new music. We released our own albums but also those of James Grant, Michael McGoldrick, Roddy Hart, Siobhan Miller, Shooglenifty and others.

I thought it was time for me to try and give something back. However, the old joke is true. If you want to make £100,000 as a record company, start with £1 million. There were some dark times where we really struggled financially. The industry is littered with bad deals for musicians and I wanted to do it differently, but you do have to be careful about letting your passion take over from reality. That was certainly the period with most sleepless nights and coinciding with the birth of Hector didn’t help that!

7: Mull Music Festival 1983

TOWARDS the end of high school I was developing an interest in traditional music and sought out like-minded souls. My friend Mark Dawson and I went over to the Mull Music Festival in Tobermory and roamed around the bars listening to tunes.

Towards the end we did sessions and met people from our school there. We played together for hours, about five or six of us, before someone asked us the name of our band. That was the beginnings of Capercaillie.

I was about to go to Napier to study engineering, even though my love was music. But who could make living doing that? However, we were asked to tour Canada and then signed a record deal. I never did go to Napier.

8: A Week in Malawi

MAGNUS MacFarlane-Barrow, the founder of Mary’s Meals, is a great friend of mine and he invited me to go to Malawi and see how the charity worked. I took along Colin MacIntyre of Mull Historical Society to play some songs when we were out there.

We bought huge bags of sweets for the children, but the night before Colin said he fancied one: “Would that be bad?”. But we had a couple each. The next day the teacher lined the children up to get a sweet and as going down the line we were sweating that we would be a couple short. There was genuine fear in our eyes but we just made it.

It was an amazing, humbling experience to witness how one simple idea has had such a massive effect.

9: Cycling the Camino

I HAVE always loved cycling but for my 40th birthday a couple of friends and I packed up our bikes and flew out to Spain to cycle part of the Camino de Santiago. That week, perhaps more than any other, I experienced the freedom that cycling can give you.

First thing in the morning the legs can be a bit stiff, especially heading through the mountains of Galicia, but then that incredible thing that happens, where you don’t notice your legs going round, you don’t notice the energy that you’re expending, your mind just starts freeing itself up to think. I came back a week later with all these ideas. Obviously the cycling itself is enjoyable, but it was more about the mind rebooting itself.

10: The Blood is Strong

AS part of Capercaillie I composed the music for The Blood Is Strong, a 1988 Channel 4 documentary series about Gaelic Scots emigrating to America. It was my introduction to working to picture and I loved it. It opened up a lot of scenarios for me musically, to the point where I’m involved in a lot of film and TV composition now.

For The Blood Is Strong I wrote a song called Calum’s Road about Calum MacLeod from Raasay, who, after repeated requests to have a road to the ferry were ignored, borrowed a digger and did it himself – about two miles of road. I was on Raasay recently and it was the first time I had a chance to travel Calum’s Road.