An album from the 1970s which was recorded in Edinburgh’s famous
folk music bar Sandy Bell's (The Forrest Hill Bar), and at Pan Audio
Studios.
Many of the Sandy Bell’s Bar regulars of the time feature on the
album, including Aly Bain, Dick Gaughan, The McCalmans, Chorda, Liz
and Maggie Cruickshank, plus The Bell’s Big Ceilidh Band - local
musicians who regularly played music in the Bar - and The Bell’s
Chorus - regulars who frequently broke into song in Bell’s!
The album fully captures the atmosphere of the period, and even
today the Bar continues to host musical sessions, being a starting
point for visitors to Edinburgh who want to seek out real Scottish
traditional music.
Bell's Big Ceilidh Band are Jimmy Elliot (mandolin), Jimmy Greenan (whistle),
Jock Brown (tenor banjo), Adam Jack (fiddle), Ian Hardie (fiddle),
Peter McClements (fiddle), Norman Chalmers (concertina), Iain McNair
(guitar), Allan Johnstone (guitar), Roy Martin (bass), Rod Paterson
(bones), John Croal (bodhran) and David Baillie (bodhran).
"Sandy Bell's is unique. Nowhere else in the world is there a place
where the folk music of a country is carried on in a similar manner.
Someone should make a record of it." (Thorkild Knudsen)
