Latest news with #Capercaillie
The Herald Scotland
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Surprisingly funky Scots band introduced whole new audience to Gaelic
Neigh hooves nor nothing. Capercaillie started off right traditional and, while that remained in their backbone, and indeed their soul, they went on to incorporate funk, jazz and pop into a fusion that brought chart success and introduced a new audience to Gaelic. They've sold more than a million albums worldwide and performed in 30-odd countries. They produced the first Gaelic-language single to reach the top 40. Credited with helping the revival of Celtic music, they followed a trail blazed by the Chieftains and the splendidly named Silly Wizard. Billboard magazine described them as 'the most exciting and vibrant band in the field of Celtic music'. That Celtic music has been described as getting the 'Capercaillie Treatment', with modern electric guitars, synthesisers, drums, loops and samples added to traditional Gaelic songs or featuring in the band's own compositions. These even incorporate swing without losing their Celtic soul. Traditional instruments include fiddle, accordion and uilleann pipes. The deal is sealed with Karen Matheson's voice, variously described as 'transcendent', 'breathtaking', and 'ethereal'. Widely regarded as the finest Gaelic singer in the world, the late Sir Sean Connery once said she had 'a throat that is surely touched by God'. TALENTED FOLK THE band, initially without Matheson and indeed a name, was formed in Taynuilt, Argyll, in 1983 by school friends Donald Shaw on accordion and Marc Duff on bodhran and whistles. Read more Rab Shaw was a teenage prodigy, steeped in traditional folk, but winning the All-Britain Accordion Championship with a Paganini classical piece. Many of the band's Gaelic songs – they also sing in English – were sourced from Matheson's family repertoire, as well as old cassette field recordings, and the School of Scottish Studies archive. Shaw and Duff joined forces with like-minded musicians from Oban, including fiddler and vocalist Joanie MacLachlan, guitar and bouzouki player Shaun Craig, and bass and fiddle player Martin MacLeod. They performed at ceilidhs and were first spotted at the 1983 Mull Music Festival by legendary radio presenter Iain MacDonald, who immediately booked them for his next show, giving the hitherto informal outfit a week to come up with a name. They chose Capercaillie in part to symbolise fighting against extinction, as with Gaelic. After building a reputation with local performances, the band added the aforementioned Matheson, who'd learned songs on her Hebridean grandmother's knee and had performed in local ceilidhs as a child before winning the silver pendant for best singer at the MOD. Capercaillie's first album, Cascade, was recorded over three days in 1984 at Edinburgh's Palladium studios. This and their second, Crosswinds, featured few modern instruments but this was soon to change. After a successful US tour in 1988, David Rome of Survival Records invited the band to London, recording several songs. This led to a licensing deal with major label industry voices thought Rome 'completely crazy', he has recalled, 'because it was just very, very left-field. You know: 'This band doesn't even sing in English'" However, Capercaillie's major-label debut, 1991's Delirium, was a watershed release introducing – on Rome's suggestion – drums to their sound. The album included Coisich a Rùin (Come on, My Love), a funkellated, 400-year-old waulking song which became the UK's first Gaelic top 40 hit. CALL OF DESTINY THE band learned about this heady chart success while standing in and around the phone box of a Little Chef roadside diner near Stirling. 'Everyone was kind of jumping around this little phone box,' recalled Rome. 'That is something I'll never forget'. Much of Delirium's songlist still figures in the repertoire of live performances. Other albums over the years have included 1997's Beautiful Wasteland, with the single of that name a lament about longing for home. It was recorded in the Andalusian mountains of Spain. 'Spain is a big territory for us,' Shaw told The Herald in 1999. 'In Spain they have a lot of respect for artists involved in Celtic languages. Areas of the north of Spain and the Basque country have a lot of affinity with what the band is doing … They look to what we're doing as a really strong parallel in the renaissance of folk music.' A year before Beautiful Wasteland, Matheson released her first solo album, The Dreaming Sea, featuring songs by husband and band co-partner described the record as 'more melancholic' than Capercaillie's 'more vibey' output. Asked in an interview with The Herald's David Belcher in 1996 if she was melancholic, she replied: 'I am, yeah, ooh yes. I find going on stage very difficult, nerve-wracking. I've learnt to cope with it over the years … but then as a child, from the age of four onwards, I sang unaccompanied at Mods and ceilidhs, and my first memories are of being terrified and standing with tears running down my face.' Karen Matheson (Image: Agency) People assumed she'd been forced to do it. But: 'It wasn't that at all. In fact, my father, who was a terrible introvert, became an accordionist in the same way, performing music because music was the community, and everybody sang or played something.' KNOW THE SCORE Last year's album ReLoved marked the band's 40th anniversary and was their first studio release since 2013's At the Heart of It All. It contains new arrangements recorded with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, new territory for them apart from a brief encounter with the Irish Film Orchestra on their Gaelic lament Ailean Duinn, which featured on Carter Burwell's score for the film Rob Roy. Matheson, who was ordered into the British Empire (OBE) in 2006, told The Herald that year: 'As Celts, we shouldn't be precious about music either. It shouldn't be kept in a glass case. With each Capercaillie LP, we get braver and take more chances, more risks.' Yep, that's the key. Any performance, certainly at first, requires courage. As does messing with traditional music (one reviewer attributed their use of a synthesiser to the Devil). But risk has its rewards and these, say the band on their website, have 'taken us from the Brazilian rainforest to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, not to mention into the pop charts. [But] it is the ancient Gaelic culture that still inspires us most.'
Press and Journal
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Press and Journal
Capercaillie star on drinking beer in Fort William caravan with Liam Neeson
Drinking beer in an old caravan in Fort William with film star Liam Neeson remains a treasured memory for Capercaillie accordionist Donald Shaw It was also a pivotal moment in the Celtic music trailblazer's career trajectory that propelled the band from the Highlands to a world-wide force. Not only did Capercaillie provide the music for Rob Roy, they also performed in the 1995 smash hit Hollywood movie alongside leading star Neeson. In between scenes they passed the time swigging beer – until the producer put a stop to the fun for fear the Hollywood star would get too drunk. Donald explained: 'Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange were both lovely to work with. 'We hung out with Liam up the Glen in an old caravan in Fort William when they were shooting those scenes. 'He used to come in and have a couple of beers with us until the producer came in and told us off and to stop trying to get the lead actor drunk in case he forgot his lines. So he wasn't allowed into our caravan after that.' Rob Roy also starred John Hurt, Tim Roth and Brian Cox as the villainous factor Killearn. Music for the soundtrack to the movie was provided by Capercaillie. Donald said: 'At that time it was a really big deal Hollywood coming to Scotland. 'There was probably next to no obvious blockbuster movie that had Scottish traditional music in it. 'It was a breakthrough for us and opened up a bigger audience in America. 'It meant that we could think differently how we could produce music because Gaelic music is quite cinematic in itself.' Capercaillie are set to celebrate their 40th anniversary with their first major Scottish shows for more than a decade. From their roots in the Highlands of Scotland the band have toured more than 30 countries. Donald said: 'For the last decade we have been doing what you might call hit and run festivals around Europe. 'We have also played in the United States and Australia but this is the first major venues we have done as a tour in Scotland for a while. 'Over the years we did a huge amount of touring around the world. 'Life catches up with you as we were bringing up kids and doing other projects so we reduced the touring. 'During that time over the last few years we have always remained great friends so it's always a joy to come back together.' The band originally formed in the early eighties by high school friends Donald and Marc Duff (bodhran & whistles), both from Taynuilt. They soon added further musicians and Gaelic singer Karen Matheson to the line-up and released debut Cascade in 1984. Four decades on from that debut the band released ReLoved last year, featuring the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Donald said: 'ReLoved was taken from a lot of old material and then reorchestrated. 'It was a great feeling to be on stage such a talented orchestra (Scottish Symphony Orchestra). 'It makes the songs big, bold and almost cinematic. 'It's just a shame we can't stick all those guys in a van and take them on tour. 'The musical landscape is changing quite a bit. 'It would have probably have been quite unusual even 20 or 30 years ago for traditional musicians to be working alongside other styles such as orchestral music, jazz or electronica. 'But that is very common now. 'It is a very mixed palette of colours that everyone is using for producing music. 'I'm delighted traditional music is part of that palette.' Since his formative years rich musical palette is something Donald has embraced, having worked with musicians across multiple genres. He has collaborated with country great Bonnie Raitt, alt rock trailblazer James Grant, Peter Gabriel and Nanci Griffith. Donald has also shared a stage with legendary avant-garde free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman. He said: 'When I was growing up in Taynuilt my dad, who taught me accordion, had a reel-to-reel tape player. 'He only had about half-a-dozen tapes. 'One was Sibelius, one was Bobby MacLeod the accordion player from Mull. 'Another was Ornette Coleman. 'It was a strange feeling to meet Ornette all those years later and share a stage with him. 'And trying to figure out how to mix up traditional music with free-form avant-garde jazz. 'He was a lovely man full of enthusiasm. 'Ornette had a great approach towards making music. 'His feeling was if we are experimenting over the period of the concert as long as we got one minute of beauty – that is worth the concert alone. 'I think we got more than that.' The band's major-label debut, 1991's Delirium featured 'Coisich a Ruin', an update version of 400-year-old waulking song which went on to become the UK's first ever Gaelic Top 40 hit. Capercaillie last released an album of new studio material in 2013 with At The Heart of It. Fans will be delighted to hear there will be new material this year. Donald said: 'We're going into the studio when we are all together doing the shows. 'We'll put down some new tracks that we have. 'With the way the world is going with music releases you don't actually have to spend a long time creating a whole album. 'You can just release a couple of tracks digitally and that is what we will do. 'We will get some new stuff out which might see the light of day later in the year. 'There's no going back from the digital world now, that is just the way it is. 'The benefits of that are that as soon as you have a finished track you don't have to wait for the physical process of it being ready on a format. 'You can just drop it on people the next day. I enjoy that side of it.'
