duggup

Artist: Brian McNeill
Website: www.brianmcneill.co.uk
Track Name: Hamlet
Playback: wav
Download?: Yes

This guy is Scottish and he is a mean (and I don’t mean penny pinching) songwriter. He played fiddle with the Battlefield Band from 1969 until 1990. Battlefield were one of the best damn Scottish traditional folk bands that ever there was. Brian McNeill was brought to my mind after reviewing Off Kilter last week when that band sang a Brian McNeill song “The Roving Dies Hard”.

This in turn led my thoughts back to the Battlefield Band that was originally Alan Reid, Brian McNeill’, Jamie McMenemy and John Gahagan although the first album that I own with their name on it was their 9th and is the 1984 Anthem for the Common Man. You can download a sample from this and other albums from the present incarnation of the Battlefield Band’s website.

There is a track from each album in the discography and in particular I think you should listen to The Yew Tree – one of my favourite Brian McNeill songs. The band continues to this day except that only Alan Reid remains of the four original members. The sound of the current lineup is more contemporary.

Brian is still performing and writing thirty years later and you can download his very funny version of the story of the Danish prince Hamlet. No longer content to confine his talents to songwriting and the fiddle, he has become a multi-instrumentalist, producer, author and more. He has performed together with Clan Alba and Dick Gaughan as well as many others.

There is precious little music available on Brian’s website and only samples available on the Battlefield site via Temple Records but worth a trip to your local record store for a rummage in the folk section.

jools is a graphic designer who used to front a band on vocals and bass. All evidence of which have mercifully been obliterated or otherwise lost.
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