DOUGIE MACDOUGALL OF ALTURLIE & SPECIAL FRIENDS - At The End Of A Perfect Day
Brechin All Records CDBAR028
At The End Of A Perfect Day is Dougie MacDougall’s debut album jam-packed with marches, jigs, polkas, waltzes, reels and slow airs - if ever you want an introduction to a traditional dance style Scottish band then this is the album for you. However, this is only half the story as Dougie was born at Cannich, Inverness-shire in 1928, and even at his advanced years he has lost none of his energy and vitality concerning his performance style. This is a joyful collection of tunes, traditional and contemporary, that could have only come from Scotland. Whilst this work is ultimately a testimony to a lifetime of playing the accordion (since the age of eight) Dougie is also joined by 17 musicians, many of whom are family members.
Given the breadth and quality of the musicianship, one wonders why Dougie has taken so long to put a few tracks down for posterity. Maybe there lies the rub, for I believe that whilst music has played such an important and major part in Dougie’s life, I feel it has not been his lifetime’s ambition to become a ‘star’ - a refreshing reflection in our modern world. There is a great honesty and dignity in this CD, it is what it is and certainly does what it says on the tin.
The style and production is uniform throughout. I particularly enjoyed Sarah’s Song by Phil Cunningham, which is a quite beautiful reflective slow air which perhaps mirrors in music more than half a century of salmon netting on the Moray Firth, the end of a perfect day indeed. In the turbulent uncertain world we live in now, one can only marvel at the beauty of Dougie’s simple but enigmatic fishing station as depicted on the front cover and centre fold pages of the booklet. Rose tinted glasses do not, of course, belie the tough nature of his trade, but on occasions the Northern Lights must have been some compensation.
If you are an exponent of Scottish dance band music I can think of no better collection of tunes, what a celebration!
www.brechin-all-records.com
John Oke Bartlett
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this CD online from The Listening Post The Listening Post is the CD mailorder service of The Living Tradition magazine. This album was reviewed in Issue 118 of The Living Tradition magazine. |