Students studying on the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's Scottish music course are in good hands with Rod Paterson as their tutor.
Paterson, who shares his post with Gordeanna McCulloch, has long been one of the folk scene's great assets. A vital member of the Jock Tamson's Bairns and The Easy Club, he's a wonderful interpreter of Robert Burns and traditional songs who can also weld wryly poetic observation to a swinging rhythmic guitar chord sequence in the Great American Songbook style, a talent that's earned him the "Birkie's answer to Cole Porter" tag.
Both these musical attributes, as well as his Angus upbringing, featured in this terrifically engaging and by and large spontaneously realised singing masterclass. Paterson is a singer with an almost forensically detailed grasp of his material. He doesn't just learn the lyrics and the tune, he'll enthuse over the wording and relevance of a phrase, such as "thick flies the skimming swallow" in Burns's Now Westlin' Winds, and this passion, allied to his melodic assuredness and richness of vocal timbre, brings the whole song to near-cinematic life.
The boozin' auld biddies in Burns's Nodding Song were almost up there onstage with him and it was similarly easy to picture the kenspeckle characters who inspired the young Paterson, fresh from Dundee, to capture Embra in his swingtime classic, The Auld Toon Shuffle and the New Town Stride. Fulfilling requests meant there were occasional memory lapses and re-starts but the quality of Paterson's singing in general, and an absolutely masterful recitation of Adam McNaughtan's Oor Hamlet in particular, rendered any imperfections irrelevant.
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