I
first met Battlefield Band in the early 70s at the Durham Folk Festival when they opened for Boys of the Lough, the band I had helped to form in the mid 60s with Cathal McConnell and Tommy Gunn. I liked Battlefield Band’s attitude and their music and suggested I might produce an album with them for Topic Records. I ended up doing several LPs with them, and they eventually asked me to manage them when I parted with Boys of the Lough at the end of 1979. Today I still manage the band & produce their recordings and at this point have completely lost count of the number of albums we’ve worked on together! The line-up has changed many times over the years, but over four decades this is hardly surprising and in fact, has been crucial to their development & success: keeping a vibrancy & vitality to the music as the band evolves. Every musician to have passed through has left their mark and influenced the direction, and hopefully they have gained as much as they have given to the band. It has been suggested more than once that the Battlefield Band ‘institution’ can be looked on as a ‘University of Excellence for Scottish Music’ and that never mind Arts Council funding; they should be getting a grant as a further education establishment! (Any advice on achieving this would be gratefully accepted!)
E T
wen’s now been touring & recording with the group for almost a year, but it became obvious very early on that he was fitting in perfectly as he fulfilled a few of the most important criteria for band membership. He’s a superb musician; a multi-talented
fiddler, piper, piano player & singer, and undoubtedly one of the finest to have joined the ranks (and that’s some statement considering the past & present personnel – see the list below!). He’s got a full driving licence without too many points (NB – keep it that way Ewen). He’s also a highly personable character who immediately fitted in socially and has proved excellent & affable company - critical for those long tours & recording sessions.
he final evidence that Ewen was the right man for the job was the fact that on his first US tour with the band in January, more specifically while enjoying a post-gig evening on the town in New York City, he managed to lose his fiddle in the back of a taxi. Maybe the excitement of ‘the Big Apple’ got to him or perhaps that last pint at Doc Watson’s hostelry on the Upper East Side. Unfortunately there was no happy reunion with the fiddle but, as various Battlefield Band members through the years have found themselves in similar(and worse) situations, he was in good company and this calamity cemented his status as a fully paid up member of the club!
Robin Morton, June 2011 Manager & Producer, Battlefield Band
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100