Bob Blair @ Glasgow Ballad Workshop (VIDEO)

This performance by Bob, just a month short of his 86th Birthday, was remarkable for a number of reasons.

Bob Blair, at Glasgow Ballad Workshop (Celtic Connections), January 2025. Bob Blair was the special guest of Glasgow Ballad Workshop in the series of events during Celtic Connections, 2025. This performance by Bob, just a month short of his 86th Birthday was remarkable for a number of reasons. To add some context to this recording, Bob arrived slightly late having been let down by public transport and was ushered to the front just minutes after he arrived at the venue. To compound his problems, Bob discovered that he had left his song list at home. What followed was an incredible hour and three quarters, with only a short break, during which Bob talked about his songs and responded to requests from his audience. This is a 'warts and all' recording, informally recorded - with Bob's agreement. The conditions weren't great, especially the lighting for video, and with some background noise from heating and ventilation in the room on what was a cold January day. It turned out to be Bob's last public performance.

Songs include: The Collier Laddie, Bonnie Lassie o' the Morning, Fine Floors in the Valley (Willie's Lyke Wake), Bonny Peggy (with Bob talking about his last attendance at The Singers Club), Duncan Gray (with an introduction which included how Bob had learned the song, from Burns' Merry Muses, as a schoolboy), A Glasgow Love Song (Adam McNaughtan), The Bar at Inveroran (John Eaglesham), and to close the first half, the ballad Thomas the Rhymer, requested by a member of the audience. The second half starts with Kissin's Nae Sin, then Bob talks about the importance of Robert Burns to Scotland's song tradition, followed by Burns and His Heiland Mary, and Gin My Love Were a Pickle o' Wheat. Bob then sings MacColl's The Tenant Farmer before expressing his views on the importance of new writing, and of continuing to learn songs, before slipping in an Alan Reid song which he had recently learned, and adapted. John Anderson my Jo, was another request, followed by A Wee Drappy o' It, a song he learned from Betsy Miller (Ewan MacColl's mother), before finishing with another request, Cairn o' Mount, which Bob learned from Margie Sinclair. 

FIRST HALF

SECOND HALF