CHIC HENDERSON

I just got a call from Chic Henderson from Auchtermuchty.  It was good to catch up with the auld rascal.  He’s 66 now, so he is not motorcycling as much any more — but he still seems pretty active in the Scottish and Irish folk music scene; his bands (The Randan Ceilidh Band) have several CDs, and he’s working on a new one right now.

He tells me that he toured Germany and the Baltic states again this year as a duo called Ardbeg — and that this will be his tenth year going out to South Korea for Saint Andrews at the Caledonia Society!

I met Chic in the late 1990s at the same place where I met my wife!  He was a draughtsman for one of our sub-contractors on site.  When I returned from my Swedish sojourn, Chic and I used to play Scottish folk music in Glasgow and Fife pubs.  It wasn’t what I was used to — it wasn’t my usual scene, but it was great fun!  We used to mess about with Toni Wood back then as well.  Chic had a project to photograph every Scottish castle when he wasn’t moonlighting as a weekend wedding photographer! Chic got up to 2000 Scottish castles — check out his site at www.scottishcastles.org.uk

Chic has posted some videos on YouTube under the name ChicChanter — check them out at www.youtube.com/user/ChicChanter. Check out The Randan Ceilidh Band too — www.randanceilidhband.com. Muchty Music is still selling the CDs by the way — www.muchtymusic.co.uk.

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BAL MUSETTE

It must be something to do with getting old, but I don’t mind the accordion! I guess a lot of people would say that it was typically French — but that’s not how I see it.

Remember, I am Scottish — and I guess I have always taken the instrument first as the core of a traditional ceilidh (no, you don’t dance about to bagpipes)! Then I got into guaguancó and son for a while, and in my mind this extended the accordion to Latin America — Cuba,  Mexico, Argentina and the rest over there. Wonderful music!

It really was only after all this that I became conscious of the accordion in any European sense!   Even at that it probably began with Austrian or German Bier Keller music, and as far as I know, it was the Italians who brought it to Paris (just like they did with their cooking years before)!

I know my father was introduced to the button accordion by an Italian ex-Prisoner-of-War, and I spent a very long and rather wonderful summer in Paris a great many years ago — which is where I came across Bal-Musette for the first time.  Heck, I even busked and blagged with a band for nearly a month, doing weddings and baptisms.  But then again,  I have always been up for a challenge! LOL! Dangerous Dave indeed!

Anyway, cutting to the chase, I came across some Bal-Musette on youtube and HAD to share this wonderful music!

Now, come ON, isn’t that just sooo good.  Just be there — a warm evening, just after sunset and dinner with a good bottle of red… perfect music for families.  You can always hit the clubs for your raves later!