Alan
Reid, keyboard player, singer and one of the founder members
of Battlefield Band, will be leaving the group at the end
of 2010.
Alan
says: I'm now going to be concentrating on my
musical duo with Rob van Sante. I've had a great time with
the band over the years, toured the world, met many new
friends & played with some fantastic musicians. The
group have a fine replacement for me in the shape of Ewen
Henderson from that well known talentedmusical
family."
Robin
Morton, manager & producer of the band for over 30 years
said "Alan has been 'father & son'
of Battlefield Band since 1969, and we're obviously very
sorry to see him go. We will miss him both on a personal
& musical level, but we wish him & Rob (who has
manned the controls as Battlefield Band's live sound engineer
for many years) all the best. Both Alan & Ewen will
be featured in the band concerts for the rest of the year,
so the group will be performing as a five piece group for
the upcoming shows in Scotland, Germany & the USA and
these will be particularly special shows & tours"
As of
this moment, Alans's last three UK appearances with the
band will be at Piping
Live in Glasgow, the Queens
Hall in Edinburgh for the Festival, both in
August, and the Battlefield
Band's Music Tryst at Newbattle Abbey in September,
where he'll be appearing with the group & also performing
as a duo with Rob. However, as Mike Katz, the
band's piper since 1997, says:
"we'll miss the boys, but we're sure we'll
occasionally all get the chance to play together in the
future - and we look forward to that - perhaps at the Music
Tryst next year...?"
You
can find details of the Scottish shows mentioned in the
tour news item below, you can read more about Ewen below,
and you can find details of all concerts, including the
German & US tours at www.battlefieldband.co.uk/tourdates
New
bandmate: Ewen Henderson joins Battlefield Band!
We're
very pleased to announce that Ewen Henderson is the latest
addition to the Battlefield Band family. Both Ewen &
Alan (who will be departing for
pastures new at the end of the year - see news item above)
will be featured in the band concerts for the rest of the
year, so the group will be performing as a five piece group
for the upcoming shows in Scotland, Germany & the USA
and these will be particularly special shows & tours;
check the tourdates page for
the latest updates
For
those of you who don't know Ewen, we hope you'll get the
chance to hear, see, and meet him for yourself at a concert
sometime soon, but in the meantime here's a bit of background
reading for you:
Ewen Henderson (fiddle/bagpipes/whistles/piano/vocals)
Ewen hails from the Scottish West Highland town of Fort
William, and has been naturally steeped in the traditional
music, Gaelic language and culture of the area. Now in his
early twenties, he started learning the fiddle at the age
of five, and has since mastered an impressive array of other
instruments, having had the privilege of being taught by
many of the true masters of West Highland traditional music,
from Aonghas Grant Snr on fiddle to Angus MacColl on bagpipes,
whilst also being influenced by his strong family musical
heritage. Ewen is superbly talented, and has quickly established
himself as a strong musical force within the band. We look
forward to playing with him and to introducing another great
musician to our worldwide audience.
This
video contains extracts from Battlefield Band's full length
concert DVD (see www.templerecords.co.uk
for more details) along with footage from various sources,
including the World Pipe Band Championships 2009 &
The Gathering 2009. Enjoy!
Alan
Reid & Christine Primrose:
Temple Records Artists
nominated for 2009 Trad Awards - voting open now!
Temple
Records Press Release Nov 5th 2009:
The Scots Trad Music Awards
2009 takes place at the end of November and this year two
deserving Temple Records artists have been nominated for
awards. Please do take a couple of minutes to vote online
and show your support for these great musicians who have
done so much for Scottish music over the years.
Finally,
some people you can vote for, secure in the knowledge that
they won’t flip their mortgage/second home, fiddle
their allowances & then charge you for cleaning out
their moat...
You
can cast your vote online here
and you can read more about these artists
& hear some of their music below.
Alan
Reid - the talented musician singer/songwriter
& co-founder of the renowned Scottish traditional group
Battlefield Band. His solo and harmony singing have been
to the fore throughout the band’s history and his
self-penned songs have long been noted for their strong
melodies, story telling element & lyricism. He has also
gained recognition for his fine instrumental compositions
and he is further noted for his interpretations & setting
to music of several of the well known poems of Robert Burns;
championing Burns' work many years before others discovered
an interest in it.
For
almost four decades, Alan has been the 'engine room' of
Battlefield Band, his keyboards underpinning the bagpipes
and the fiddle. He was the first to use keyboards as an
integral part of a traditional folk band and the depth of
his melodic playing and punctuated rhythms have so defined
Celtic music that his, and Battlefield Band's, influence
can be heard in many of today's younger generation of Celtic
musicians.
Alan
has been nominated in the 'Composer of the Year' category,
an award for the 'best songwriter, tunesmith, composer of
2009'
You can listen to some of his music here
Christine Primrose - the great Gaelic singer,
and a trailblazer for Gaelic song. Christine has been singing
traditional Gaelic song all her life, winning many prizes
at the Mod and the Pan Celtic Festival and has rightly become
a highly regarded and sought after tutor & artist who
has also done so much to introduce the music to a wider
non-Gaelic speaking audience, both in Scotland and beyond.
Her
first album, 'Àite mo Ghaoil', was released in 1982
- at a time when traditional Gaelic singing was not widely
known or appreciated - and broke many barriers, becoming
in retrospect, an album that broke the mould. Since then
she has released several other highly acclaimed albums and
is now Principal Song Tutor at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic
College in Skye, whilst also continuing to record &
tour.
Christine
has been nominated in the 'Gaelic Singer of the Year' category
You can listen to some of her music here
Battlefield
Band's Music Tryst Festival: 17th-19th
Sept 2010
•
Special Guests • Concerts • Workshops •
Open Mic Stage/Bar Sessions •
From
Fri 17th - Sun 19th Sept 2010, Newbattle Abbey in Midlothian,
Scotland, is delighted to welcome Battlefield Band to it's
historic surroundings for a weekend of superb traditional
music. Newbattle, just seven miles south of Edinburgh, has
a rich tradition of celebrating Scottish culture in this
heritage site, and writers, poets and historians have worked
and studied in this beautiful building. We are proud to
host this celebration of traditional music in our unique
surroundings & we hope that people of all ages will
enjoy a weekend of traditional music, workshops and informal
sessions, led by Battlefield Band.
Artists
confirmed for the weekend so far include: Battlefield Band • Archie Fisher • Christine
Primrose
Peter Nardini • Alison Kinnaird • Mr Boom •
Tich Frier
& more will hopefully be added soon!
Alasdair
White wins another Independent Music Award!
We're
extremely pleased to announce that, in addition to winning
the World Traditional Music category in the 7th annual Independent
Music Awards for his album An Clàr Geal,
Battlefield Band's Alasdair White has also won the Vox
Populi Poll in the 2008 World Traditional Music
category in the Awards.
The
original award was voted for by various esteemed industry
judges - people like Charlie Musselwhite, Ray Davies, Angelique
Kidjo, Suzanne Vega, Snoop Dogg & Mavis Staples to name
a few. This year, for the first time though, the IMA opened
the voting process to include fans and industry voters and
more than 30,000 votes were cast at the online Vox Populi
Jukebox on the Independent Music Awards site.
Thanks
to everyone for your support!
Robin
Morton, Alasdair's producer & manager said: "Alasdair's
musicianship and tune making have had a great influence
on the Battlefield Band repertoire and continuing success,
and playing with Battlefield Band has given him that wider
audience that his music deserves. Receiving the initial
award was fantastic for Alasdair but this second award is
particularly special because it was voted for by the people
- the real fans who get out there and support the artist
and spend their hard earned money to go to the concerts
and buy the albums. We're all really pleased for him at
Temple Records because we know just how talented he is and
it's great to see him getting the acclaim he deserves."
"...exciting,
stirring, fresh, moving... ...brilliantly played and arranged.
I would rank this as one of my top albums of the year and
I can't recommend it highly enough"
Shreds & Patches, Spring '07, reviewing
An Clàr Geal
"...a
thoughtful and stylish album"
Scotland On Sunday, 12.11.06, reviewing An
Clàr Geal
"...the
best thing to come out of Stornoway since Charlie MacLeod's
black pudding"
The Glasgow Herald, 18.11.06, reviewing An
Clàr Geal
You
can hear a track from An Clàr Geal and find
out more about the album
at www.templerecords.co.uk
'....riveting:
the howling pipes, ululating fiddle
and crashing keyboards are as darkly magnificent as
anything the Battlefield Band has ever recorded'
froots, reviewing ‘Zama Zama…try
your luck…’
With
this new album, Battlefield Band explore the greed, disasters,
human resilience and victories inherent in the search and
exploitation of different sources of wealth.
After
more than three decades performing on the international
stage, inspired by their rich musical heritage and fired
by the strength of the modern Scottish cultural scene, this
powerful album illustrates that the group continue to forge
ahead as pioneers for contemporary Scottish traditional
music.
Featuring
songs and tunes old & new written by Battlefield Band,
Norman Buchan, Alan Reid, Alasdair White, Allan MacDonald,
Mike Katz, Brian McNeill and Nina Simone.
Zama Zama
...try your luck...
'This
album started as a collection of songs and tunes about
gold. But as we searched, like the alchemists of old,
it turned into a wider idea. In the process we saw the
greed, disasters and victories inherent in the search
and exploitation of various sources of wealth in this
world. Then, as if by demonic serendipity, along came
the worldwide economic crisis. We watched the major banks,
insurance companies and Hedge Funds etc., implode, discrediting
the entire financial system and many of its managers and
advisers - but there was still more to come. We, in Britain,
could only stand and watch aghast as many Members of Parliament,
and the House of Lords at Westminster, ‘the Mother
of Parliaments’ were exposed for their cynical misuse
of the expenses system, often amounting to fraud. As we
put this album together we have been amazed, angered,
depressed and hilariously horrified.' Alan Reid
The
album is available as a CD directly from Temple
Records & all good outlets
or you can purchase it as a digital download directly
from
and
all the other main digital download sites
'Robber
Barons' - new single from Battlefield Band out now!
'Robber
Barons' is the first single from Battlefield Band's
upcoming 'Zama Zama ...try your luck...'
album. The core theme running through the album is the pursuit
of wealth & its effects, and this song, written by Alan
Reid, looks at greed through the ages, from the 'Robber
Barons' of the middle ages in Germany to the modern day
politicians & bankers. It's obviously particularly relevant
in the current climate; a very suitable soundtrack to the
summer of 2009!
'Anyone
who has travelled by the river Rhine north of Mainz will
not fail to have noticed the castles perched on the hillsides
at almost every bend. And it is here that the original 'Robber
Barons' (or Raubritter in German) in medieval times extracted
dues from merchant boats in return for safe passage. The
phrase was borrowed to describe unscrupulous tycoons of
the late 19th.and early 20th. centuries as they built up
their empires and amassed great wealth ,often using questionable
methods to overcome competition.
In
these stringent times of sickly banks, vast public debt
and swathing cost cuts it is particularly galling that many
who have presided over failed institutions have continued
to award themselves huge salaries and bonuses ......just
like those barons of long ago'
Alan Reid, 2009
'Robber Barons' is available from the 17th
August as a 'digital download single' only on itunes. You
can hear the track below & purchase it from itunes here:
'Zama
Zama ...try your luck...' will be available
on CD & digital download from 14th/15th September
2009, direct from Temple
Records and through the usual physical & online
outlets.
On
Saturday 24th January 2009, two generations of
Battlefield Band - the current line-up & the
1980 line up - combined in concert as part of
the Celtic Connections Festival classic album
series. This was a great opportunity for the opportunity
for the 'old boys' & the 'new boys' to join
forces as a Battlefield Band 'Big' Band, performing
tracks from their 1980 'Home Is Where the Van
Is' album and playing together on some of the
current Battlefield Band repertoire. As 'lifer'
Alan Reid said during the show - 'Battlefield
Band are their own tribute band!'
If
you were there in the audience; thank you very
much for coming out to show your support (particularly
the guy who travelled from Germany just for this
show!). It was such an appreciative audience &
the reception the boys received was amazing -
three standing ovations no less! Everyone on stage
had a great night too - the band members past
& present all relished the opportunity to
play together and it was one of those fantastic
concerts where everyone wanted the show to go
on all night.
The
band would like to take this opportunity to thank
Celtic Conections, Scotlands premier winter music
festival, for putting the concert on & also
to say a thank you to all the staff at the ABC
in Glasgow.
For
over 30 years Battlefield Band have created and
played traditional Scottish music with a rare
passion and joy, delighting audiences around the
globe and evolving into what the press have called:
"...a
wondrous, perfectly paced display by musicians
firmly in command of their art...a Highland jam
that rang the rafters."
The Washington Post
For
these three decades the band have been distilling
their own unique form of the Scottish spirit and
exporting it worldwide, with concerts in China,
Malaysia, Germany, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand,
Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Syria, Jordan,
India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, U.S.A., Canada, Uzbekistan
and the U.K.
This
long awaited new DVD release captures the excitement
and energy of a Battlefield Band performance and
translates it to the small screen, featuring the
band in their home country; live in concert from
the Brunton Theatre in Musselburgh, Scotland.
"What
the Chieftains have done for Irish traditional
music, Battlefield Band are doing for the music
of Scotland"
Billboard
Former
ambassador Craig Murray to stand in North Norwich
by-election
Craig
Murray, who became a human rights campaigner after
being sacked as Britain's ambassador to Uzbekistan
for making a stance against torture, is to stand
in the North Norwich by-election as an anti-sleaze
candidate.
Battlefield
Band have known Craig since the early days of the
group, when he encountered them as a student during
freshers week at Dundee University. In his role
as British Ambassador, Craig invited the group to
Uzbekistan in 2003, to play at the Queen's birthday
party celebrations at the British Embassy in Tashkent.
The subsequent tour of Uzbekistan was an eye opening
experience for the group during which they met some
fantastic Uzbek musicians. Two years later, with
a lot of organisation, the band managed to bring
two dancers & four of these great musicians
to the UK for a superb combined tour.
Battlefield
Band & Temple Records would like to wish Craig
all the best in his campaign. Here's a tune the
band wrote for him back in 2004 called: 'Ambassador
Craig Murray's Reel'
NEW!
USA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2009 TOUR DIARIESNEW! Woo hoo! Back with a bang, closely followed
by a whimper.
Brits abroad, hormone optimisation & other
deep fried baloney biscuits.
A re-heated feast for your delectation, served
up by our very own scholar and gentleman: Mike
Katz
USA
NOVEMBER 2008 TOUR DIARIES
Served up to you by our very own doctor of backhand
spin, Mike Katz, these diaries feature: Tennis,
T-shirts, Time-Travel, Subterfuge, Smoke, Salsa,
Burritos, Bevy, and The Batties. Click here
USA SPRING 2007
TOUR DIARIES
Topical, hard hitting and mostly made up; read
'em and sleep/weep (delete as appropriate) Click
here
UK
SPRING 2006 TOUR DIARIES
Posted only 10 months late, due to industrial
action, espionage, sabotage & old-age, combined
with a severe case of procrastination, the 'lost'
tourdiaries from last April are now up on the
Battlefield Band website.
Click here
CHINA
2006TOUR
DIARIES
And last but by no means least,. the tour diaries
from our 2006 tour of China are now online too
- you can see them here
"Look
into our eyes, not around the eyes - you're under.You
will read the tour diaries and enjoy them. Awake."
Great
Reviews for Alasdair White's first solo CD - 'An
Clàr Geal'
This
first solo release from Battlefield Band's highly
regarded young virtuoso fiddle player has had
a superb reception since its release in November
2006. We're all really pleased for him at Temple
Records because we know just how talented he is
and it's great to see him getting the acclaim
he deserves:
"...exciting,
stirring, fresh, moving... ... brilliantly played
and arranged. I would rank this as one of my top
albums of the year and I can't recommend it highly
enough"
Shreds & Patches, Spring '07
"...a
thoughtful and stylish album"
Scotland On Sunday, 12.11.06
"...the
best thing to come out of Stornoway since Charlie
MacLeod's black pudding"
The Glasgow Herald, 18.11.06
If you haven't heard An Clàr Geal yet,
well - shame on you,
but you can read all about it below, and also hear a full preview track and place online
secure orders for it at: www.templerecords.co.uk
Distribution
for this album, and all other Temple Records releases
is now done by Burnside Distribution in the USA. http://www.bdcdistribution.com
Interested retailers can contact them on tel:
(503) 231 0876
Alasdair
White is already well known as Battlefield Band’s
virtuoso fiddle player. In these past four or
five years, his musicianship and tune making have
had a great influence on the bands repertoire
and continuing success, and playing with Battlefield
Band has given him that wider audience that his
music deserves. Now aged 23, having been highly
regarded and talked about since his early teens,
An Clàr Geal (The
White Album) is his first solo album
Alasdair
grew up on the Isle of Lewis, in Scotland’s
Outer Hebrides, where Gaelic language and music
remain important influences on the culture of
the Islands and Scotland in general. For those
fiddle enthusiasts among you, he plays in what
might be called a “North-west” Scottish
style, heavily derived from the piping tradition.
For those that love just good music, then Alasdair’s
playing and tune making offer a privileged panorama
of the exciting traditional music of Scotland
today.
Alasdair
plays fiddle and whistles on this album and is
also joined by Aaron Jones (bouzouki, bass guitar),
Ewen McPherson (guitar, tromb, mandolin, banjo),
Mike Katz (Scottish small pipes, highland pipes),
Iain Copeland (percussion), Russell Hunter (piano)
& Alison Kinnaird (Scottish harp)
This
5min clip was taken from a concert in the Brunton
Theatre, Musselburgh, in Scotland.
The
full concert is about to be released on DVD -
find out more here
Tour
dates in Scotland, England, USA, Canada &
Germany
"...a
wondrous, perfectly paced display by musicians
firmly in command of their art...the band's chemistry
at this point is uncanny...the best Battlefield
Band in years"
Washington Post
Scotland
There
are three more Scottish shows scheduled for this
year. The band will be playing in Glasgow as part
of the 'Piping Live' Festival on the 9th Aug 2010
& during the Edinburgh Festival,
at the Queens Hall in Edinburgh
on the 20th August. These are bound to be a great
(and busy!) shows so if you're planning to book
tickets make sure you don't hang around!
The
other scheduled show is at the Music Tryst
Festival which the group are hosting
over the weekend of 17-19th September at Newbattle
Abbey. This is a beautiful building in
unique surroundings in Midlothian (approx 7 miles
South of Edinburgh) and combined with the music
on offer from Battlefield Band & their special
guests, it should make for a fantastic weekend.
Tickets will be strictly limited for this event
so, again, it's worth making enquiries early to
make sure you're not disappointed.
You can find out more about this festival in the
news item below or at www.musictryst.com
Germany
Following
the fantastic 'Milestone' 40th anniversary tour
in January & February this year, which had
dates in Germany, Switzerland & France, Battlefield
Band are very pleased to have some more German
concerts coming up in September 2010. More shows
will be added to the schedule but you can find
details of confirmed concerts so far here
USA
& Canada
Battlefield
Band's US spring tour was a great success, but
if you couldn't make it along to a show this time
don't worry, because they'll be back again before
the end of the year, and this time there are Canadian
shows too. Keep checking the USA/Canada tour dates
in November 2010 for more concerts as they're
confirmed. www.battlefieldband.co.uk/tourdates
Listen
again - Battlefield Band on A Prairie Home Companion
Battlefield
Band finished their Oct/Nov 2005 tour with an
appearance on the legendary radio show 'A Prairie
Home Companion', hosted by Garrison Keillor, and
appeared again on PHC on the 2nd Dec 2006.
PHC
have an online archive of previous shows so you
can hear recordings of both of these performances
if you've got a broadband connection and real
player (The PHC website tells you how to install
this) . Just click on the links below to choose
a show:
Temple
Records produce an occasional e-mail newsletter
to keep you up to date with their artists, including
news about Battlefield Band's tour dates, tour
diary updates and new releases.
You
can request to have your address removed from
the list at any time and your email address will
never be disclosed to any other party.
Battlefield
Band in Scotland's Homecoming year:
appearing at 'The Gathering 2009' & the 'Burns
an' a' that!' Festival
Homecoming
Scotland
2009 is the year of Homecoming Scotland, a 12
month countrywide events programme celebrating
Scotland's great contributions to the world. A
spectacular calendar of events will mark Scotland's
first ever Homecoming year. Whether you're a Scot,
of Scottish descent, or simply love Scotland,
you're invited to over 200 Homecoming events during
2009 celebrating amongst other things: the 250th
anniversary of Robert Burns’ birth, Scottish
contributions to golf & whisky, plus great
Scottish minds, innovations, rich culture and
heritage.
Battlefield
Band will be appearing at two Scottish events
this year which are part of the Homecoming Celebrations,
hopefully you can make it along to one of them,
but for those of you who can't make it to Scotland
for this years celebrations; check the Battlefield
Band tour dates page
to see if the band are touring in your area -
maybe they can bring the Homecoming & a celebration
of Robert Burns to you!
'Burns an' a' that!'
Festival - 16th of May - Sunday 24th May 2009
2009 is also the 250th anniversary of the birth
of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet
- many of his great poems & songs are included
in Battlefield Band’s repertoire. The band
will be appearing at the 'Burns an' a' that!'
Festival on Sunday 24th May 2009. This annual
event, which takes place on Saturday the 16th
of May - Sunday 24th May 2009 & is now in
its 8th year, is dedicated to celebrating the
life and works of Robert Burns with contemporary
Scottish Culture, in his home town of Ayrshire.
This year's festival is part of Homecoming Scotland
2009.
The
Gathering 2009 - 25th & 26th July 2009
Battlefield Band are also playing at 'The Gathering'
in Edinburgh, Scotlands capital city, on the 25th
& 26th July. The Gathering, also part of the
Homecoming Celebrations, will be one of the largest
Clan Gatherings in history; encouraging Scots
to come home and celebrate their roots. Holyrood
Park will host a magnificent Highland Games and
Scottish Festival over the two days, then on the
Saturday evening Clan members will parade up the
historic Royal Mile and take their seats on the
castle esplanade for a spectacular Clan Pageant
.
On
this long anticipated album, Mike plays the Highland
Bagpipes (the big pipes) the sweet 'small pipes'
and various whistles, plus bass guitar and has
also been joined by various friends: renowned
jazz guitarist Kevin MacKenzie (recent winner
of a Creative Scotland Award); Tannahill Weaver's
fiddler John Martin; concertina mainman Simon
Thoumire and of course his Battlefield Band colleague
Alasdair White, also on fiddle.
The
album features material ranging from very old
traditional tunes to his own compositions, laced
with some music from his Breton trips. As always
with Mike there are lots of good stories about
the music and the man's musicality will appeal
to all who hear it.
"A
Month of Sundays" is out now on Temple Records
and should be available from all good record shops.
It can also be ordered
directly from the 'bagpipe' section of Temple
Records secure on-line web shop: www.templerecords.co.uk
Temple
Records Telephone orders can be placed on: +44
(0)1875 830 328
