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7825274 76969 John McCusker

Battlefield Band, 1977 - (L-R) Brian McNeill, aldauf; BB 1988: Stagefright Photography; 2002: Gary Glade Alan Reid, John Gahagan, and Jamie McMenamy

Dougie Pincock and Alistair Russell, late 80s

Iain MacDonald

The 1998 lineup - Alan Reid, Mike Katz, John McCusker, and Davy Steele (seated) Karine Polwart photos: BB1977: Temple Records; Pincock, Russell: Gloria M. Rosson; McCusker, Polwart: David Schofield; MacDonald: Nancy B

The Battlefield Band, 2002 - (left to right) Alasdair White, Alan Reid, Mike Katz, and Pat Kilbride

40 December ’02/January ’03 #103 he last time Dirty Linen published a idea of a Scottish folk band was a novelty at the feature on Scottish folk group the Battle- time, he explained. While there were vocal Tfield Band was issue #36, way back in Gary Glade groups like the Corries, adapting the Clancy 1991. At that time, the big story was the depar- Brothers’ sound to Scottish songs, there were ture of singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist very few bands doing instrumental music. It Brian McNeill and piper Dougie Pincock, and wasn’t until their early experiences on the road, their replacement by a teenage whiz kid named when English audiences expected a Scottish John McCusker and a lovable curmudgeon band to play Scottish music, that McNeill, Reid, named Iain MacDonald. and friends began to focus. Taking inspiration A lot has changed since then. Already from the 1970s experiments of Planxty and the known in the early nineties for a history of Bothy Band in Irish music, they set out to do many lineup changes involving such names as similar arrangements of Scottish music. Jamie McMenamy (Kornog), Ged Foley (The About that time, Battlefield started House Band) and Jim and Sylvia Barnes recording. With a vengeance. “We went (Kentigern), Battlefield has lost and gained recording crazy,” Reid admitted. “We did four members at an equally brisk pace since then. albums in 23 months, with no repeats. It was Consider this: After their 1991 lineup change, like 50 tracks.” Their first album, for the Breton the only original member of Battlefield left label Arfolk, was as a trio made up of McNeill, was singer/songwriter/keyboardist Alan Reid. Reid, and string player Ricky Starr. Titled Scot- Today, the only remaining member of the 1991 tish Folk (and re-titled for CD release as lineup is... singer/songwriter/keyboardist Alan Farewell to Nova Scotia), it came out in 1976. Reid. McCusker, MacDonald and singer/ Most of the music was Scottish, but there were guitarist Alistair Russell have all left the band, all, so he said, ‘You’re fired!’And that was the still Irish, Canadian, English, and Australian as have singer/guitarists Davy Steele and end of that lineup. I joined the band from then.” influences. Starr was soon replaced by singer/ Karine Polwart, who had joined up since those The new group was called Harvest, and bouzouki player Jamie McMenamy and days. They’ve been replaced by fiddler Alasdair eventually had its name changed to the Battle- whistle player John Gahagan, making Battle- White, piper Mike Katz, and singer/guitarist/ field Band. “We rehearsed once a week for field a quartet. bouzouki player Pat Kilbride. I caught up with about a year before we actually got a gig,” Reid Their discography gets murky at this point, Reid, White, Katz, and Kilbride after a concert recounted. “And we got a gig in a football club. and most publications get this next bit wrong. at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in July 2002. We played to — I would say it was at least Their two followup albums featured the same Reid set the stage, describing the band’s seven people! This was the kind of place where lineup and had the same title on the front cover prehistory. The Battlefield Band, he said, had they wanted country music, so four hairy guys (simply The Battlefield Band), but were its roots in a group that McNeill founded with dressed in t-shirts and jeans playing this weird released on different labels, in different coun- Jimmy Thomson and Sandra Laing in 1969. half-Irish stuff was not their cup of tea.” tries, and with no material in common. The first “They were all at the same university together,” The reaction of early audiences like this of these was their famous 1977 “white album” he remembered, “and that’s where I met them.” had a formative effect on the group. “In our for Topic, and hence their U.K. debut. The The trio had a Friday residency at a Glasgow first couple of years, the only gigs that we other, which was subtitled “Wae’s Me for pub called the Iron Horse. One day, fate opened could get were in bars,” Reid recounted. “The Prince Charlie,” was their second on a Breton the door for Reid to join. Typically, Reid audiences were very tough, and we found that Label (this time Escalibur), and was released explained, the members would bring their the only way to grab their attention was not later in 1977. At this time, Reid said, they were instruments to the university with them and only by playing music, but by telling jokes. So taking themselves very seriously as artists lock them up in a little room until it was time we got into a way of talking to the audience and “rather than happy-go-lucky folkies,” and their for their gig. “On this particular day,” he trying to get their attention. That kind of albums reflect that. Slightly studious, the remembered, “they were a bit slow in getting talking, involving the audience, was estab- “white album” was justly esteemed by Topic, to the room, and when they got there it was lished in the very early part of our career, and then Britain’s most serious folk label. It’s held locked, and the guy that had the key had gone I think it’s been a hallmark of our group.” up remarkably well, too, and is still a fresh and home. So they had to go down to this bar and The band didn’t do a Scottish folk repertoire interesting listen today. say, ‘We’re very sorry but we can’t do the gig until a few years after its founding. “We played But it was that second Breton release that tonight, we don’t have our instruments.’ The acoustic music, so we’d do any music that we pointed the way to Battlefield’s future. As a nod guy that owned the place wasn’t impressed at liked, from anywhere,” Reid said. The whole to Scotland’s favorite instrument, the members

BY STEVE WINICK

Dirty Linen 41 Kilbride’s departure precipitated a rapid- write songs. I hadn’t thought about it before, but fire series of lineup changes that stabilized in when I saw that he was writing songs, I thought, the quartet of McNeill, Reid, Foley, and piper ‘Well, maybe I can do this, as well.’ ” By the

Gloria M. Rosson Duncan MacGillivray. During these changes, mid 1980s, the band’s repertoire contained a the Battlefield Band developed musically in wealth of newly composed songs by both several new directions. First, they incorpo- McNeill and Reid, and classics like “The Lads rated new instruments, most notably the High- O’ the Fair,” “The Rovin’ Dies Hard,” “Island land bagpipes and the keyboards. The pipes Earth No More,” and “The Snows of France were the fruition of the ideas started on their and Holland” became a trademark of the group. second Breton album. Battlefield’s first two The 1980s passed as the band members pipers, MacGillivray and Dougie Pincock, cemented their signature sound and honed their were early pioneers in using the pipes in a folk songwriting skills. Though MacGillivray was band context, providing lowland and border replaced by Pincock and Foley by Russell, the pipes for song accompaniments and Highland band’s music was remarkably consistent. pipes for rousing marches and dance tunes. McNeill was both the primary instrumentalist Combined with the fiddle, guitar, and and the primary songwriter, and many began to keyboards, they were a forceful sound indeed. think of it as his band. “Brian is a very big Foley brought his Northumbrian smallpipes to personality,” Reid explained. “He’s a large guy Founding member Brian McNeill, 1991 the group, another variation on the piping physically, so he’s always been hard to ignore on a stage. He’s got a big presence.” By contrast, asked three different pipers, who played three Reid stays off to one side. “I was always quite different kinds of bagpipes, to join them. In so content to not be quite center stage, but a little doing, they became one of the first formations to the side of it,” he agreed. “I’ve been quite ever to mix an acoustic folk band with Highland happy playing second string to other front guys.” Gloria M. Rosson bagpipes; Alba was performing the same exper- In fact, Reid fooled the world with his iment at around the same time, and the Tannahill second-string act. When McNeill and Pincock Weavers would soon make the pipes integral to announced their plans to leave in 1990, many their act. Though it would take a couple more expected the band would die, underestimating years, the pipes would become a mainstay of the both Reid’s commitment and his talent. Battle- Battlefield Band’s sound, as well. Sadly, this field hadn’t changed lineups for seven years. album, despite its excellent material and its The members were thoroughly comfortable historical importance, is the only Battlefield with the material, and indeed with each other. Band album never reissued on CD. It could have been demoralizing for Reid and Throughout the late 1970s, the band was Russell to start all over. Instead, they used the making quite a reputation in folk clubs all over departures as an opportunity to remake the Britain. “England was pretty wide open,” Reid band. “We plucked out of nowhere a very recalled, “because Scottish groups like young guy that no one had heard of, plus a ourselves were pretty much a novelty, and there Future bandmates Davy Steele and John McCusker, 1991 well-respected piper from a piping family,” was no equivalent in England.” Reid remembered. In so doing, they changed Kilbride remembers his sister enthusing theme, but it is the Highland bagpipe that will the band’s direction, eliminating the flaccid about the Battlefield Band in 1976 or 1977. forever define the Battlefield sound. “The rock ’n’ roll covers like “Bad Moon Rising” Soon, as the bookings manager for his univer- Warpipes,” Kilbride commented. “It’s a pretty (which Reid called “a millstone around our sity’s folk club in Bolton, he booked the band strong corporate identity, isn’t it?” necks”) and the novelty songs like “After The keyboards, too, were a new idea, and — at that time still a quartet featuring Reid, Reid reckoned they were the first Scottish folk McNeill, Gahagan, and McMenamy. But the group with a full-time keyboard player. Their band that arrived was short a member; first was an American-made pedal organ that Gahagan had just quit to pursue a career in the band members found in a junk shop in Gloria M. Rosson graphic arts. So on the spur of the moment, Glasgow. After they went through that and Kilbride jumped in the van and went off on tour several other instruments, they decided some- as the band’s first and only Irish member. “It thing had to change. “It came to a point where was a gas!” he enthused. “We were very young. the pedal organs were just falling to bits,” Reid I’d just grown my first beard.” Restless always, explained, “because they couldn’t stand the Kilbride lasted with the band only a year. rigors of four guys throwing them in the back During that time, he participated in Battle- of a van in various states of inebriation.” field’s fourth album, At the Front. It was issued Luckily, at about that time synthesizers became in early 1978, less than two years after its first affordable; Reid has bantered with the audi- had come out. A classic offering, this album ence from behind a synthesizer rack ever since. featured McMenamy’s renderings of the big A third development was the shift from ballad “Lang Johnny Moir” and the broadside traditional music to compositions and songs “Tae the Beggin’,” Kilbride’s earthy singing of written by band members. McNeill, a writer and “The Bachelor” and “The Lady Leroy,” and the composer as well as a staggeringly good multi- band’s epic take on the border ballad “The instrumentalist, got the ball rolling. “Brian Battle of Harlaw,” as well as many stirring sets started writing songs first,” Reid said, “and in of tunes. fact it was his example that prompted me to Iain McDonald, 1997

42 December ’02/January ’03 #103 Gary Glade Alan Reid Gloria M. Rosson

Battlefield Band Time & Tide Temple COMD2090 (2002) Alan Reid & Rob van Sante Under the Blue The White/Katz double-chantered wail, 2002 Red Sands RSC001 (2002) After all these years, and all these albums, Hours.” “We had become almost a parody of Like any lineup, though, this one would not a Battlefield Band fan knows exactly what ourselves,” Reid admitted. “Once we’d started last forever. In 1997, MacDonald called it quits to expect from a new recording. There are a to do novelty numbers, then we had to top it, and was replaced by the band’s current piper, couple of fast bagpipe/fiddle duet tunes, a and do things even more outrageous. It was a Mike Katz, who came to the band from the few slower, melodic pieces, two or three case of ever-diminishing returns, like Police well-known group Ceolbeg. With his long songs from Alan Reid, and a couple from Academy VI or something. So when those two beard and his Jewish name, Katz seems more whoever is the featured vocalist/guitarist. guys left, it was a perfect opportunity for us to like a rabbi than a piper. Indeed, the bagpipes In that respect Time & Tide won’t disap- say, ‘What are the strengths of this band?’ and were not at all a foregone conclusion given his point, as it contains all this and more. The ‘What are we about?’ ” family’s background. “I’m not at all Scottish,” new member this time around is Pat Since the turn of the 1990s, Reid explained, he explained — though he said it with a Kilbride, making his second appearance “the band doesn’t revisit old numbers very lowland burr so thick you could cut it with a with the band, replacing Karine Polwart. much.” Instead, the members tend to write new Claymore. “My family are from Cleveland, His song “Camden Town” will become the songs and tunes and arrange traditional mate- Ohio, and before that from Eastern Europe, new singalong in the live set, and his guitar/ rial that the band has never done before. This and they’re Jews.” bouzouki playing fits in perfectly with the worked well with the new members’ person- So how did a nice Jewish boy end up fiddle and bagpipes. Alan Reid is Alan Reid, alities. MacDonald, as a piper with a thor- talking like Billy Connolly and playing the one constant in the band’s history, oughly traditional background and experience bagpipes in Scotland’s foremost folk band? singing one original and two traditional songs in his trademark dry, gravelly voice. with the group Ossian, was ready to make He began studying the Highland pipes in Los Fiddler Alasdair White has done what most Battlefield more folky, and was in Reid’s words Angeles at the age of 10. The pipes introduced people considered impossible — made “intensely irritated” by having to play “Bad him to the rest of the culture; he first visited people forget about John McCusker — as Moon Rising” on the bagpipes during his Scotland as a member of a pipe band. He was his fiddle, whistle, and composition skills earliest days with the group. McCusker, who so taken with the country he decided to go continue to improve and impress, and Mike had come to the band straight from school via there for university, and picked Edinburgh not Katz quietly and efficiently fills the bagpipe/ a high school group called Parcel O’ Rogues, only for the excellent education but for the multi-instrumentalist position. It’s probably was game for anything. nightlife. “It’s beautiful!” he enthused. “It’s a far too late in the band’s career to expect the “Like a lot of our lineups,” Reid said, “it lot of fun, a lot of drinking and dancing, and members to mess with the formula that’s was a pretty odd assortment of individuals. people have a good time. But it’s very compact, made them successful, and Time & Tide There’s myself, however you want to describe and everybody knows everybody. So it’s like shows that they can still make entertaining me. Alistair, a little rotund English guy with a an old version of New York.” music doing what they’ve always done. This Scottish background, who was pretty much By Katz’s own admission, his attempt at a should please the group’s fans, and could interested in Irish music. Then you had John, university education didn’t amount to very win them many new converts. a young kid from the center of Scotland who much. “I got a degree,” he said dismissively, “but As if he’s not busy enough with Battlefield, was very much influenced by Irish music, and hopefully I’ll never use it.” However, living in Alan Reid has teamed up with the group’s Iain, who was steeped in Highland Gaelic tradi- Edinburgh was a life-changing experience. soundman, Rob van Sante, on a surprisingly tion. So in a sense it was pretty unlikely.” But Among other things, it plugged him into a strong duo recording called Under the Blue. the chemistry was there, and the new lineup network of musicians. In the mid 1990s, one of Van Sante is a good guitarist and has a nice was a success — indeed, it achieved the same Katz’s piping friends suggested him for Ceolbeg, voice, and he helps put Reid’s songs in a level of stability as the previous band, and which also featured the great singer Davy Steele. very un-Battlefield context. Reid’s voice continued to tour and record for almost seven While playing for Ceolbeg, Katz befriended has limited range, but the fuller arrange- years. The group developed a definite person- McCusker, and when MacDonald left, ments tend to compensate for that, and with ality in that time, with McCusker’s youthful McCusker suggested Katz as a replacement. only one or two new songs per Battlefield playfulness and MacDonald’s gruff and Katz reckons that his main qualification for recording, Reid has a backlog of good songs deadpan approach balancing one another to being in the band wasn’t being a good piper; for this collection. Not at all like his full- perfection. In tours around the world, and on they’re common enough in Scotland. It was his time gig and better for it. four acclaimed albums, this quartet earned the ability to tour so often and so widely. “A lot of — Jim Lee (Simi Valley, CA) respect of longtime Battlefield fans. people don’t want to go on the road,” he

Dirty Linen 43 explained. “There aren’t that many impression on Battlefield’s many fans bands that tour as much as we do.” through his concert performances and How is the touring life? It’s intense. his appearances on two albums. “He was a great loss,” Reid lamented. “You have to live with a bunch of Gloria M. Rosson people,” he said. “All the time. For “That’s all you need to say.” six months of the year. It’s maybe 20 Like the other women who have hours a day, for five weeks at a graced the Battlefield Band, Polwart stretch. It makes you kind of weird, seemed more of a fleeting presence in because when you go off the road the group. Although young and rela- you’re not living with these guys, tively new to folk music, she was and no one understands what you’re clearly a rising star in Scottish folk- talking about. And I like that!” song circles, having won many awards Soon after Katz joined, Russell for both traditional singing and song- left the fold, leaving a vacancy for a writing between 1998 and 2000. singer and guitarist. Katz’s Ceolbeg Polwart toured with the Battlefield bandmate, Davy Steele, stepped into Band for close to two years and the breach. A singer with a warm, The current lineup lines up contributed several beautiful songs and rough voice and a songwriter with a beautiful ear This makes it all the more tragic that Steele solid guitar playing to their album Happy Daze. for both music and language, Steele fit right in. had to leave the band after a little more than As a specialist in traditional song, she brought His songs became a big part of the band’s reper- two years. One day at the beginning of band that side of the band’s identity back to the fore. toire, and the fans loved his singing and his practice, he began to feel ill. “We thought he But soon she decided that Battlefield’s grueling sense of humor. Although Steele had been was joking, because he was such a prankster,” tour schedule was just too much, and Battlefield prominent on the folk scene since the 1980s in Reid remembered. “But he wasn’t.” A diag- was left in need of a singer/guitarist once again. bands like Drinker’s Drouth, Ceolbeg, and Clan nosis of cancer, and the necessity of immediate This time, they tapped Kilbride. Needless Alba, Battlefield was his step to full-time writing treatment, took him away from the group very to say, he was vastly more experienced than he and performing. He was living his dream. suddenly. While Steele battled for his life, the was during his first stint with the group. After “He made a big impression on audiences,” Battlefield Band soldiered on, with guests like leaving Battlefield in 1979, Kilbride moved to Reid remembered. “Audiences loved him, Malcolm Stitt and Kilbride filling in for their France, then lived for years in Belgium, where because here was a guy who was 50, all of a housebound colleague. When it seemed likely he played jazz, rock, and folk. In the 1980s and sudden he was a full-time musician, and it was that Steele would be waylaid for a long time, 1990s, he settled for over 10 years in New a very fulfilling thing for him. So he loved every the band reluctantly replaced him, with Karine York, where he rebuilt his reputation in tradi- single minute of it. He grasped it with both hands, Polwart of the group Malinky. A short time tional music, played many solo shows, and and audiences I think recognized that in him.” later, Steele died, having left an indelible [continued on page 104] said. “So he got us down to the a lot of energy,” he said. “But at the Kilbride first joined in 1978; Foley Battlefield Band mainland, and he asked if I wanted same time, it’s a lot of hard work.” and Russell are both English, and to do any accompaniments on Chris- Katz is American. “Irish and Scottish continued from page page 44 The work is paying off. On the tine Primrose’s album. And I think it music are the same music,” Reid fronted the Kips Bay Ceili Band with evidence of its short concert at the was at my second session for that Museum, as well as its CD Time and explained. “It’s the same form of John Whelan. A subsequent move record that Robin sat me down and music. I like to use the analogy of it took him to London, where he livened Tide, the band is back with a new scuppered my chances of going to being the same language but a up the Irish music scene in Camden sound: more guitar-driven, more university.” Irish-influenced, and perhaps a bit different accent. Unlike, say, Welsh Town. Though he played with many music or Breton music, which to my great musicians there, and set up a It was a hard decision for White: lighter than during the McCusker years. Indeed, Reid’s daughter had a ears sound quite different from Irish recording studio to produce his own university or a musical career. But it or Scottish music.” and other people’s albums, he began certainly seemed natural to those comment on the new album that he Still, the group members all hope their to get the itch to join a band. Kilbride who knew him. “Later that night,” he laughingly repeated: “I like it! It’s fans will embrace the new sound. had already filled in for Steele briefly remembered, “I saw Noel Hill, the more Irish than the other ones!” This “How people react to the band with before Polwart joined. This time they concertina player, at the Waverly all makes sense given the new our Irish part of the potion, that decided to make it permanent, and Folk Club in Edinburgh, and [well- members. Kilbride is a more serious remains to be seen,” Reid said. What’s Kilbride joined in 2002. known Scottish multi-instrumen- guitarist than Russell, Polwart, or their next step? “Playing a million talist] Norman Chalmers was there. Steele; his latest solo CD, Nightin- The switch from Polwart to Kilbride gale Lane, is about half solo guitar gigs!” Kilbride answered. Reid had a was preceded by another momentous And he turned to Robin and said, pieces, something none of the others different answer: “Immediately, it’s change when John McCusker made ‘When are you going to get this would be likely to try. Kilbride is also seeing what the response to this album up his mind to leave. McCusker, who young boy to join the Batties?’ And Irish, which introduced new elements is. We’ve done it very quickly, but I had been with the band since he was we looked at each other and gasped. to the band. “I’m not a Scottish musi- think there’s a lot of energy in it. practically a child, had a very adult He’d sussed it!” cian. It’s a struggle for me,” he We’re playing a lot of the repertoire decision to make: Either remain on White soon decided to join. “I was admitted, “to know how to accom- off the album, which we all had to the road with the band, or marry his planning to do music for a living pany and how to fit in, but I think learn after we’d recorded it...a lot of sweetheart, English folksinger Kate anyway, after university,” he we’re coming to a compromise. We the arrangements have changed. But Rusby. He made the only sensible explained. “I was going to have a stab worked harder in the studio, and we what’s going to be really interesting is choice: kiss his bandmates goodbye, at it, anyway. People go to university thought about it, and listened a lot, when we start getting to the next load and kiss Rusby at the altar. He now to get their ideal job, and I’ve got and we try and get to the essence of of new stuff,” he said with a gleam in produces records when not on tour as mine at the moment.” the music.” his eye. a member of Rusby’s band. What effect does a lineup change have It helps that White comes from the That excitement of getting to the next The replacement that the Battlefield on the Battlefield Band? By all western isles of Scotland, where the song, the next arrangement, the next Band found, Alasdair White, has accounts, it’s healthy but sometimes culture has much in common with gig, the next record, is always driving much in common with the uncomfortable. Katz explained, Gaelic Ireland. “There’s more resem- the Battlefield Band. You can tell, McCusker of 1990. He’s a teenager talking to the memebers, that this is fresh from school, a fiery fiddle “Every time you have a change, hope- blance to Irish music in the indige- fully it brings something fresh. The nous music of Lewis,” White what they want to be doing. Although player, and a multi-instrumentalist. they all have side projects, most As a piper, White introduced pipe way that I play is largely influenced explained. “It bears far more resem- by playing with John McCusker all blance to Irish music than the music notably Kilbride’s new solo disc and duets into the band for the first time. Reid’s duo album with Battlefield the time, so it’s great to have Alasdair of east coast Scotland, which is How did they come across White? Band sound engineer Rob van Sante, play a different kind of style. And another matter entirely.” This means Battlefield’s long-time manager they always come back to the band likewise, playing with Pat is that White served almost as a bridge Robin Morton, who also runs with excitement and enthusiasm. Temple Records, had worked with completely different than playing with between the Scottish and Irish elements of the new band. When the band’s young fiddler the young player before. Indeed, Karine or with Davy. So from a expressed that ebullience, Reid was White had tried to get a recording musical point of view it is fresh, it’s In any case, the ethnic makeup of the quick to respond. “That’s the danger, contract with a young band from his different, and it keeps you on your music doesn’t matter to the members Alasdair,” he quipped. “Once you’ve native island of Lewis. “Robin toes.” On the other hand, as Reid in the slightest. Despite the group’s done this, you can never go work in wasn’t interested in taking the band pointed out, there’s a whole learning motto, “Forward with Scotland’s a bank.” on, but he was interested in myself process that must be restarted every Past,” they have had non-Scottish and the keyboard player,” White time new members join. “You do get musicians in the band constantly since Ron Hill Gloria M. Rosson Gloria M. Rosson Gloria M. Rosson

Alan Reid Pat Kilbride Mike Katz Alasdair White

104 December ’02/January ’03 #103