33 f The Fiddle Of Fame
Self-confessed ‘little chimp wearing silly trousers’ in Folk Awards longevity shock. John McCusker tells Colin Irwin where all those years went.
Mr John McCusker picked up his trusty fid- dle and set off on a magical history tour with the Battlefield Band.
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He was about three then, of course, and at a time when Scottish folk music was as trendy as a bar of Lifebuoy soap, the idea that he’d still be doing it a quarter of a cen- tury later was beyond conjecture. Indeed, he’s not just been doing it, he’s helped take it to a different galaxy.
After Battlefield there were the Kate Rusby years, endless collaborations with unspeakably famous people, Mark Knopfler’s band, solo albums, his own band, Heidi Talbot, numerous production credits, a whole raft of original tunes, a reputation as a would-be stand-up comedian with his interjections on stage and a groaning cabi- net full of awards, culminating this year in the BBC’s Good Tradition Award at London’s Royal Albert Hall. He celebrates with a brand new solo album Hello, Goodbye – his first for thirteen years – and a vast tour with an all-star cast of mates like Andy Cutting, Adam Holmes, Innes White and relative newcomer Toby Shaer.
“Are you sure it’s 25 years?” “Positive…” “But how?”
“I left school at sixteen, joined Battle- field Band when I was seventeen. The idea was to do it for a couple of years. It was my folks’ worst nightmare. It’s funny. I’ve got kids now and the thought of my little girls going to Germany in a smelly tour bus at that age… not a chance. No way!
“The manager of Battlefield Band saw me in a really young folk band, asked me to join and that was that. There was noth- ing else I was good at or wanted to do. The only other thing I thought about was music journalism because I thought I could be around music and get free CDs – but I was- n’t even very good at writing. Since the age of twelve, watching Battlefield and other bands like them on stage, that’s all I wanted to do.”
McCusker is a dream interview. He’s backstage at London’s Union Chapel playing a beautifully plaintive air with guitarist John Doyle (and later plays a lovely concert with Doyle and Mike McGoldrick), com- pletes it with affecting tenderness and then
ell, knock me down with a “Matty Groves Is Inno- cent” badge and bury my heart at Wounded Knee, it’s 25 big fat years since
bounces around offering tea, anecdotes and witty asides in equal abundance, occa- sionally lapsing into territory that can only be described as deliciously indiscreet.
“I was an excited monkey,” he’s saying
(he’s back on the Battlefield Band). “I took over from Brian McNeil. Iain MacDonald [bagpipes] was in the band. I didn’t know him at the time but he became like a men- tor to me. It’s amazing looking back, I was just so full of excitement. I don’t know what Iain thought. There he was, full of Gaelic traditions, with years of experience playing this beautiful music and you’ve got this lit- tle chimp wearing silly trousers jumping up and down, playing a hundred miles per hour. He taught me to calm down. And I toured the world for eleven years with them and never looked back.
“I’d never travelled in my life before and all of a sudden you go to America, meet John Doyle, meet Solas, meet Liz Carroll and your heroes become your pals. And the more I travelled and met younger people, the less I wanted to be in Battlefield Band. No slight on them, I just wanted to play with other people. People like Ian Carr. A lot of people I met then, we still play together. We sort of grew up together musically. And when we play together it’s so natural, like we’re sitting in Mike’s kitchen practising.
“Whether it’s playing on Jools Holland or on somebody’s record that you’ve never heard of before you hopefully learn some- thing and take it with you. I’ve been very lucky with the people I’ve played with who’ve taught me something. And when you think you have maybe learned it all, you join Mark Knopfler’s band and it’s like start- ing all over again. You think you know lots of stuff and then you meet other musicians and it’s like – shit, back to the drawing board. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing in a small folk club or the Hollywood Bowl, it’s the same learning experience.”
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