Ian Powrie

Last updated

Ian Powrie (26 May 1923 - 5 October 2011) was a Scottish country dance musician and fiddle player best known for his performances on the BBC show the White Heather Club .

Contents

Early life

Ian Powrie was born at Bridge of Cally ( 56°38′53″N3°24′11″W / 56.648°N 3.403°W / 56.648; -3.403 near Blairgowrie), Perthshire. [1] At the age of five, he began playing the violin and had performed on Children's Hour on BBC radio at the age of twelve. [2] His father, Will Powrie, took up a farm at Bridge of Cally where Ian worked as a ploughman. Will Powrie was also a well known country dance musician (playing the melodian) and Ian played in his band. [1]

Wartime service

Powrie served as a pilot in the RAF during World War II. In 1946 he went back to work on his father's farm. [2]

Music career

Powrie did not immediately take up a career as a professional, playing only at dances at weekends, but by 1949 had reformed his father's band. In that same year he made his first recording. His brother Bill played button accordion and his sister Mary played piano. [1] His mainstream recording career began with the Beltona label, on 21 May 1951, in Glasgow. After a further session with Beltona in October, 1953, he transferred to the Parlophone label. Perhaps one of his most well-loved discs followed. This recording was produced by George Martin, Bothy Ballads for the Gay Gordons and was recorded in Dundee on 27 July 1957 (label number R 4386). In 1960 Powrie and his band turned fully professional and worked with Andy Stewart on the White Heather Club . However, he continued to own a farm where he worked as a hobby. [2]

Powrie toured Australia and New Zealand with Andy Stewart in the 1960s. He emigrated to Australia with his wife Leila and children in 1966 where he successfully continued his music career. The family returned to Scotland between 1984 and 1999 but then again emigrated to Australia. [2]

While in Scotland in 1994, a violin belonging to Powrie, made by the famous 18th century Scottish violin maker Matthew Hardie, was destroyed when a lorry rear-ended Powrie's car at Bridge of Cally. The tune The Matthew Hardie by Bert Murray is a reference to this violin. [3]

Death

Powrie died on 5 October 2011 in Perth, Australia. [2]

Related Research Articles

Fiddle String instrument

A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, the style of the music played may determine specific construction differences between fiddles and classical violins. For example, fiddles may optionally be set up with a bridge with a flatter arch to reduce the range of bow-arm motion needed for techniques such as the double shuffle, a form of bariolage involving rapid alternation between pairs of adjacent strings. To produce a "brighter" tone, compared to the deeper tones of gut or synthetic core strings, fiddlers often use steel strings. The fiddle is part of many traditional (folk) styles, which are typically aural traditions—taught "by ear" rather than via written music.

Ashley MacIsaac Musical artist

Ashley Dwayne MacIsaac is a Canadian fiddler, singer and songwriter from Cape Breton Island. He has received three Juno Awards, winning for Best New Solo Artist and Best Roots & Traditional Album – Solo at the Juno Awards of 1996, and for Best Instrumental Artist at the Juno Awards of 1997. His 1995 album Hi™ How Are You Today? was a double-platinum selling Canadian record. MacIsaac published an autobiography, Fiddling with Disaster in 2003.

Jimmy Shand Scottish musician (1908-2000)

Sir James Shand was a Scottish musician who played traditional Scottish dance music on the accordion. His signature tune was "The Bluebell Polka".

Niel Gow British musician

Niel Gow was the most famous Scottish fiddler of the eighteenth century.

Jeannie Robertson

Jeannie Robertson was a Scottish folk singer.

Andy Stewart (musician) Musical artist

Andrew Stewart MBE was a Scottish singer, entertainer, and songwriter. He presented the BBC TV variety show The White Heather Club throughout the 1960s, and his song "Donald Where's Your Troosers?" was a hit in both 1960 and 1989. Internationally, the song most closely associated with Stewart is "A Scottish Soldier".

Cape Breton fiddling

Cape Breton fiddling is a regional violin style which falls within the Celtic music idiom. Cape Breton Island's fiddle music was brought to North America by Scottish immigrants during the Highland Clearances. These Scottish immigrants were primarily from Gaelic-speaking regions in the Scottish Highlands and the Outer Hebrides. Although fiddling has changed considerably since this time in Scotland, it is widely held that the tradition of Scottish fiddle music has been better preserved in Cape Breton.

Chris Leslie (musician) British folk rock musician from Banbury, Oxfordshire, England

Christopher Julian Leslie is a British folk rock musician. He joined The Fairport Convention in 1997.

Alasdair Fraser Musical artist

Alasdair Fraser is a Scottish fiddler, composer, performer and recording artist.

Old Blind Dogs

Old Blind Dogs is a Scottish musical group which plays traditional Scottish folk music and Celtic music, with influences from rock, reggae, jazz, blues, and Middle Eastern music rhythms.

Kevin Burke (musician) Irish fiddler

Kevin Burke is an Irish master fiddler considered one of the finest living Irish fiddlers. For nearly five decades he has been at the forefront of Irish traditional music and Celtic music, performing and recording with the groups The Bothy Band, Patrick Street, and the Celtic Fiddle Festival. He is a 2002 recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Johnny Frigo American jazz musician

Johnny Frigo was an American jazz violinist and bassist. He appeared in the 1940s as a violinist before working as a bassist. He returned to the violin in the 1980s and enjoyed a comeback, recording several albums as a leader.

Pádraig O'Keeffe was a noted Irish traditional musician.

Brian McNeill Musical artist

Brian McNeill is a Scottish folk multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, record producer and musical director. He was a founding member of Battlefield Band which combined traditional Celtic melodies and new material.

Colyn C. Fischer is an American violinist that has played the violin since the age of three and has been Scottish fiddling since the age of five. As a teenager, he studied with a number of the great fiddlers of Scotland, such as Ian Powrie and Alasdair Hardy, and of the United States, including John Turner and Bonnie Rideout. He holds a Bachelor of Music Performance in Violin from Wheaton College, Illinois, and has recorded with various ensembles in genres including jazz, classical, rock and Scottish.

The White Heather Club was a BBC TV Scottish variety show that ran on and off from 7 May 1958 to 11 April 1968

American fiddle

American fiddle-playing began with the early settlers who found that the small viol family instruments were portable and rugged. According to Ron Yule, "John Utie, a 1620 immigrant, settled in the North and is credited as being the first known fiddler on American soil". Early influences were Irish fiddle styles as well as Scottish and the more refined traditions of classical violin playing. Popular tunes included "Soldier's Joy", for which Robert Burns had written lyrics, and other such tunes as "Flowers of Edinburgh" and "Tamlin," which were claimed by both Scottish and Irish lineages.

Hector MacAndrew (1903–1980) was the foremost Scottish fiddler of the second half of the 20th century. He was born in 1903, in a cottage on the Fyvie Castle Estate in Aberdeenshire, where his father was head gardener and piper to Lord Leith. The family was musical – Peter, his father, was a good fiddler as well as a piper and Hector's brother Pat was also a fine, prize-winning piper. No surprise, then, that he began playing very early in life. As a young man he received some classical training in Edinburgh, which may help to account for the full and generous sound he made, particularly in slow airs; but valuable as this experience was, it never blurred or diluted his awareness of the aural tradition going back to the Gows which he venerated and came to embody. Like his father, he became an estate gardener, eventually at Keithhall House, Inverurie, the residence of the Earl of Kintore. By this time (1933) he was much in demand as a player at social occasions and eventually on Radio Aberdeen. During the War he served in the Royal Artillery and was with the Eighth Army from El Alamein to Trieste when the War ended. He talked little of his wartime experiences, but was at this time that he determined that, should he survive, he would devote himself as far as possible to keeping the tradition of Scottish fiddle playing alive.

Geoff Dugmore is a Scottish drummer, musical director and producer. He was a member of the bands The Europeans, and Wildlife.

Muriel Johnstone

Muriel Johnstone is a Scottish pianist and composer. She was raised and schooled in Ardrossan, Ayrshire, Scotland.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Ian Powrie Archived 2013-01-03 at the Wayback Machine Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Alison Shaw, "Obituary: Ian Powrie, fiddler who became bandleader, famed for his White Heather Club appearances", The Scotsman, 15 October 2011.
  3. ↑ J. Murray Neil, The Scots Fiddle: Tunes, Tales & Traditions of the North-East & Central Highlands, Neil Wilson Publishing, 2013 ISBN   1906476977.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.