By Sarah Nelson
KENNETH McKellar was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame this week. This may at last herald recognition and rehabilitation for one of our country’s greatest-ever singers, whose true legacy has long been clouded by a misleading and damaging "tartan and shortbread" image.
The induction should also prompt the team bidding for Paisley to become UK City of Culture to start using its famous son’s legacy – in both Scottish and classical work – to strengthen their own submission.
For Scots in their seventies and over, and for many leading singers and musicians, McKellar (who died in 2010) was a major figure, a profound Scottish musical influence, and an internationally-renowned classical tenor. In contrast, many middle-aged Scots are stuck with the image of a be-kilted figure from their childhood Hogmanays, whom they casually link with Andy Stewart or the Alexander Brothers, who sang of tramping through the heather. For most Scots under 40, he is unknown: his recording output barely visible in stores, or simply absent.
Only the first group has continued to listen, and to hear without preconception what was actually beyond the highland bonnet.
Some people still will quibble at this award. There are at least three reasons not to. The Hall of Fame embraces many different styles and traditions within Scots music, song and verse: Billy Connolly for instance is another inductee this year (see https://projects.handsupfortrad.scot/hall-of-fame/inductees/ for examples of their wide range of awards).
McKellar also contributed a huge output, from throughout lowland Scotland, from Gaeldom, and as a definitive interpreter of Burns’ songs. Anyone who thinks he just did Step We Gaily should listen to the wonderful, emotional and surprisingly modern interpretations and arrangements such as Land of Heart’s Desire, Flowers of the Forest, Island Shieling Song, Afton Water and She Moved Through the Fair.
Another criticism is that McKellar recorded Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser’s “anglicised” Songs of the Hebrides, rather than Gaelic originals. But non-Gaels did not sing in Gaelic in that era, were not expected to, nor invited to. The very fact that it is mainly today’s distinguished Gaelic singers, from Margaret Bennett and Kenna Campbell to Anne Lorne Gillies and Paul McCallum, who have held the beauty and emotion of his singing in the most regard and pushed for his rehabilitation, suggests far from prejudice in the very places it might have remained.
Nonetheless, popular Scottish musical tastes were different in the 1950s and 60s, and there’s no doubt that the secret to appreciating McKellar’s Scottish work today is to pick and choose your playlists carefully from his extensive output.
First, it’s important to ensure the recordings bought or downloaded are from the height of his vocal powers and with the best arrangements: from the 1950s to the 1970s. Secondly, give a miss to all the Step We Gailys, Marching Through the Heathers and Hiking songs, unless you really like that sort of thing.
Start instead with the recommendations above and songs such as Baron’s Heir, Bonnie Wee Thing or When the Bloom is On the Rye, and listen with wonder and an open mind.
I believe it is now important to put together CDs and playlists all chosen carefully from those McKellar songs which will most appeal to modern Scottish listeners.
His many admirers among Scottish singers and musicians would have a big role to play if they chose this week’s induction as the impetus to collaborate on that. The Paisley bid would also be spending money effectively if it contributed funds.
Given today’s great popularity of classical “crossover” singers, including self-trained ones without half his talent, quality of sound or emotional power, the same need for new collections to be released and promoted is apparent for his classical output. In his classical singing, McKellar’s technical prowess was always put in the service of genuine feeling, not an end in itself.
Paisley’s City of Culture bidders – and the rest of us – should search for and promote his superb Handelian output, his hymns and oratorio from Paisley Abbey, and gems such as Massenet’s Dream Song, Godard’s Angels Guard Thee, Quilter’s Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal and Franck’s Panis Angelicus. A good deal of these are on YouTube: so there is no excuse not to begin this very week.
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