The Scotsman, 21 January 2005

FOLK REVIEW

DAVID POLLOCK

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GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL

AS THE night progressed, Bruce MacGregor - Blazin’ Fiddles’ founder and the man Justin Currie calls "the Don Corleone of the Celtic Mafia" - developed a running joke about the fact the performers had not been provided with tea and scones in their dressing rooms.

In a spiritual sense, we knew how they felt - for MacGregor and Co’s intention with this show was to break down the image of tea-and-scones tweeness which exists around folk music for a more trend-inspired rock audience.

To this end, MacGregor and his Fiddles put together one of the most attractive bills of the Celtic Connections Festival. Alongside their own quintet of fiddlers, they inducted a horn section, backing musicians, and the co-ordinating influence of musical director Rick Taylor.

Absolutely central to the With Strings Attached project, however, were the contributions of pop-turned-country chanteuse Eddi Reader, Del Amatri front man Justin Currie, and Mull Historical Society fulcrum Colin MacIntyre.

Mixed and matched as appropriate, the experiment was an undoubted success. Some of those conscripted would have been more suited to the idea than others - for example, Reader these days marries her popular vocal style with a heavily folk-tinged influence (her last album was entirely composed of Rabbie Burns interpretations), while MacIntyre’s pop stylings took a whole lot more shoehorning into the programme.

That said, excesses of style were positively encouraged. Reader wasn’t allowed to sing any traditional material, while even MacIntyre’s Final Arrears was attempted, with bizarre but agreeable results. Currie, on the other hand, had previously expressed trepidation at entering a musical realm he knew nothing about, yet his gruff, barnstorming Celtic holler and impressive vocal sensitivity when required was perhaps the highlight of the show.

Certainly, a Reader-backed spin on the fine Nothing Ever Happens was its finest moment.

Despite mixing up MacIntyre eclecticism like Watching Xanadu, Currie’s no-nonsense professionalism, lovely, lilting balladry like Reader’s Galileo and occasional solo bursts from the Fiddles in no particular order, the overall affect was agreeably linear, and a whole load of fun for every audience concerned. Hopefully the experiment will be right for repetition this time next year.

The Scotsman, 20 January 2005

ANDREW EATON

BLAZIN Fiddles, it has been said, are "the Led Zeppelin of the folk world" or, alternatively, "the U2 of their genre". Oh yes, and they are also "doing for Scottish fiddle music what Trainspotting did for their film industry". If you’ve not seen Blazin Fiddles before, you may already be conjuring up images of leather-trousered rock and rollers. Mull Historical Society’s Colin MacIntyre, a genuine rock musician who is about to do a concert with them, is happy to help nudge you in this direction - albeit with tongue in cheek.

"I can smell the hangovers coming from the string section," he says, sitting in the group’s Glasgow rehearsal studio. "They come down to Glasgow and stay for the week and go berserk."

As much as this would make fantastic copy, available evidence suggests otherwise. M&S health food is liberally scattered. The air smells, if anything, of pastry. "I’m Bruce," says a polite man with a cheery smile and firm handshake. This is Bruce Macgregor, the group’s founder and spokesman. With his neat hair and tucked-in shirt, he is more Aled than Brian Jones, and is one of those cherub-faced men who will continue to look 17 when he’s well into middle age. That said, one of his favourite bands is AC/DC. "We’ve always had strange reviews in papers," he says. "I suppose," he adds, a little unconvincingly, "it’s traditional music with rock’n’roll attitude."

Indeed. It’s the music that counts and, with their latest project, the Led Zeppelin of folk are flirting with the rock world more closely than ever. Strings Attached, a Celtic Connections show which will tour Scotland after the festival, is an intriguing collaboration with three Scottish singers who have, between them, notched up an impressive list of hit singles, Brit awards and Top of the Pops appearances. The Scotsman is in the studio because, while preparations began six months ago, today is the first day that Eddi Reader, Del Amitri’s Justin Currie and Mull Historical Society’s Colin MacIntyre will rehearse together. It’s all quite exciting.

It’s also a good snapshot of where Celtic Connections is now - broad-minded (there is music this year from Canada, the USA, Spain and across Asia), and both experimental and accessible. It will certainly help break down any remaining prejudices remain about Scotland’s traditional music festival. "Scottish traditional music is probably the most experimental in the world at the moment," says Macgregor proudly.

But what are they creating here, exactly? Is it a supergroup? "No," is the firm verdict from Currie, who with his sideburns, big boots and unruly hair, still looks every inch the rock star. "It’s a folk orchestra. It’s only a supergroup if someone who has once played in Yes is involved." "Could you play Inverness and be called a supergroup?" wonders MacIntyre. "I don’t know."

Currie and MacIntyre have known each other for a while, and have been out drinking together in Glasgow. Currie and Reader have also previously met. "I’m not sure if she remembers, but we played a really horrible gig in a car park in Glasgow a couple of years ago," he says cheerfully. "A Hogmanay thing. I made the fatal mistake of doing a Daft Punk cover, which went down very badly indeed."

While Reader is a folk singer at heart, and has moved back in that direction in recent years with her renditions of Burns songs, this is the first time either MacIntyre or Currie have played Celtic Connections. "When Celtic Connections started, I hated it because I thought it was really narrow-minded," Currie says. "But it’s become a much broader church than it was; there’s only so far you can go with traditional music from Scotland." He grins. "Maybe I’m being obnoxious." If so, it may be the result of insults he received from folk purists at the height of Del Amitri’s success. "If you dare to use accordions and tin whistles, but not in the right traditional way, you tend to get abused."

Ironically, it was the "folky" quality of early Del Amitri records - Currie is a big Bob Dylan fan - that inspired Blazin Fiddles to approach him. "His songs are brilliant social commentary, and really tell a story," enthuses Macgregor. "They could be folk songs. People love to put things in pigeon holes all the time and say, ‘that’s a folk song, that isn’t. We’d like to get rid of the distinction."

Reader endorses that particular philosophy. Given her folk background, she was invited to join the project on the proviso that she didn’t sing traditional Scottish songs, which left her slightly bemused. "People call them these things, but I hear a lot of Iraqi sounds in an Irish jig or Scottish reel, or Hindi singing reminds me of an old Shetland song. I don’t really understand what the difference is."

Into the tiny rehearsal room, then, for a flavour of what With Strings Attached will offer. Once Blazin Fiddles’ string section, brass section, keyboard player, two guitarists, bass player and drummer are packed in, there’s barely room to breathe. It sounds, as Reader neatly puts it, "like a herd of elephants".

Actually it sounds like all sorts of things, many completely unexpected. One of Reader’s songs, Galileo, is a slow jazz number with a saxophone solo and no fiddles at all, blazin or otherwise. Another kicks off like an old Dolly Parton hit, with yips and yeehahs attached, before an oompah oompah brass arrangement kicks in and suddenly it’s a ragtime stomp. A bold experiment, even if, one week before showtime, it’s still a bit all over the shop. "You just scared the shit out of us," says Rick Taylor, the chief oompah. Ten minutes later, the problem seems to have been sorted. "That’s f***ing brilliant," says Taylor. And it is.

Taylor is the genial, if potty-mouthed, musical director of the project. A trombonist who has done musical arrangements for Elton John and the Spice Girls, he is a big bear of a man with a wry sense of humour and a thick mop of grey hair. His job, he says, is "like herding cats". Taking a quick break, he frets when the music stops for too long. "They’re not making any f***ing noise," he harumphs, and is already marching back when a fiddle melody belatedly strikes up. "Oh, there you go."

Reader’s set, I can reveal, will include some lovely harmonising with Currie. She will return the favour by adding her voice to a galloping, brass-fuelled version of Del Amitri’s big hit, Nothing Ever Happens. I tell Currie they should sing together more often. "Ha!" he snorts. "You write the song, we’ll do a duet."

With Strings Attached began with Currie. To be exact, it began with Currie and Aidan O’Rourke of Blazin Fiddles’ sharing a taxi after a gig, and ending up back at O’Rourke’s house. A night of drunken musical bonding later, phone numbers were exchanged. "In any world, whether it’s in rock, traditional music or jazz, there are a lot of chancers," says Currie. "These guys aren’t chancers. They’re really into what they do and do it well. And they’ve got the attitude of a band, which is quite rare among string players. They hang out, and they’ll improvise and knock out ideas on the hoof."

And besides, Currie was at a loose end. "There’s no reason to do more Del Amitri because nobody wants it, quite rightly." Despite a string of hits in the late-1980s and early-90s, Del Amitri’s last album, 2002’s Can You Do Me Good?, sold "really badly". "If we needed the money we would flog that dead horse," he says, with refreshing candour, "but we don’t." Instead, much to my surprise, he’s making what sounds like an electronic pop album with Del Amitri’s Iain Harvie. "I don’t think anybody will like it apart from us."

It’s Currie’s turn. When rehearsals began, he says, "the first thing I thought was, ‘folk equals protest songs.’ I only managed to keep two in there. The other ones got quietly pushed." Of those two, new song No Surrender is likely to be the highlight of his set, a slow-building, vividly described list of British political woes. Hearing it is a reminder both of what an underrated lyricist he is, and of what a remarkable singer he is, his voice understated yet full of passion, crisply articulate yet achingly sad. "I think he’s one of the best singers in Scotland," enthuses Macgregor.

Outside I grab a few minutes with MacIntyre. Younger, and more readily associated with the NME than Celtic Connections, he’s perhaps the least obvious choice for this gig - although this makes Blazin Fiddles’ transformations of his singles The Final Arrears and Watching Xanadu all the more attention-grabbing. Although he grew up in Mull (hence his band’s witty if rather misleading name) he was more interested in learning Beatles songs than traditional music, even though his choice of gigs amounted to "Celtic stuff, or some Eagles covers band from Oban". "But people are always asking about the Celtic influence in my music," he says, "so it’s quite interesting to bring that out. This is really going to confuse those few people who still think I’m a folk group." Then again, that’s kind of the point. It should be a good night.

• With Strings Attached is at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall tonight; Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 3 February; Aberdeen Music Hall, 4 February; Eden Court, Inverness, 5 February.