Ex-Runrig singer tells of 'immense pride' for Loch Lomond

"It is one of those things that of course, we take immense pride in, the warmth that Scots have for it," said the 69-year-old singer on the enduring appeal of Loch Lomond, which reached number nine in the UK singles chart after being released in 1983.

"When I look into rugby internationals at Murrayfield and hear the crowds singing, it's a huge compliment to what we've done.

"The decision, way back, for us to record Loch Lomond was something that we responded to very early on [based on] the reaction that the song had from crowds, when we played concerts.

"We could not have finished any show without doing that show because people just wouldn't go away," he says, laughing.

While most people associate the singer with music, his championing of the Gaelic language and culture or perhaps even politics (he stood as a Labour candidate in the 1997 General Election ) his first love was art.

He was accepted to study at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen at 16, specialising in drawing and painting, and taught the subject at Inverness Royal Academy and Portree High School.

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During the early days of Runrig, he continued teaching in case things didn't work out with the band.

However, a long and highly successful international career and a string of successful albums followed, with appearances alongside The Rolling Stones, U2, Simple Minds and Van Morrison.

The Runrig song Ubhal as Airde (the Highest Apple) was the first Gaelic song to make it into the UK Singles Chart Top Twenty after being chosen by Carlsberg to soundtrack a TV advert in 1995.

There was also a foray into politics. In the 1997 general election, the singer contested the Ross, Skye and Inverness West for Labour but was defeated by Charles Kennedy.

He says he "remains hopeful" that Labour will form the next UK government and hopes the party will look seriously at the prospect of creating a "genuinely federal UK."

He said: "I would want to see a real strengthening of the Devolution Settlement.

"The work of Gordon Brown signposts this potential outcome and reflects the historic origins of the Scottish Labour Party as a genuine 'Home Rule Party'.

"I believed at the time of the previous referendum that a Federal option should have been presented as a choice to the people of Scotland."

Throughout all these changes of direction, Munro continued to paint and in the early 1990’s, whilst Rector of the University of Edinburgh he began exhibiting at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh.

On June 1, he will launch his first solo show at the gallery - On the Bay - which features composition paintings inspired by views from his house, Skorrybreac -also the name of his son Calum's Michelin-listed restaurant.

"Music was a natural thing that just developed within my life but there was a point where I made an absolute decision that I wanted to be an artist and I wanted to go to art school," he says.

"I consider it my professional background, my training was in visual arts,

"I always hated it if people asked 'is painting a hobby?' I could never think of it that way," added the father-of-four.

Munro describes his work as essentially semi-abstract compositions of landscape and still life with Mark Rothko and Joan Eardley cited as influences.

The Scottish Gallery holds a special place in the artist’s heart, as it was from Aitken Dott and Sons of Edinburgh (which later became the Scottish Gallery) that Munro, as an eleven-year-old child, received his first set of Oil Paints, as a special Christmas gift from his parents. 

"I will never forget the excitement surrounding the arrival in the post of that beautifully wrapped brown paper box with Aitken Dott & Sons stamped on its side and, since that time, I have held a great affection for the Scottish Gallery."

Born in Uig on the Isle of Skye, the youngest of three children he was a native Gaelic speaker, spending his early childhood years between the family home in the village of Portree, where he attended school, and the family’s croft in the small village of Treaslane, in the Northwest of the island. 

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Munro considers himself to have been very fortunate, in having experienced the tail end of that very traditional crofting lifestyle, at a time when Gaelic language and culture remained very naturally ‘embedded’ at the heart of daily family and community life and was the language which so richly informed his formative years.

While he's delighted to be able to devote more of his time to art, he hasn't deserted music, opening last year's Skye Live music festival, which was for many their first large-scale event after the pandemic.

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"My son Niall is the director and had been asking me for some time to do the opening night for them," said the singer, who was inducted as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects, Scotland in 2017, for his services to ‘built heritage’ and for his role as an International Ambassador for Scottish Music and Culture.

"It was fantastic, it was an amazing atmosphere."

He says traditional music has "really blossomed and strengthened" in Scotland over the last 25 years.

"There are far more amazing, young contemporary players of traditional or trad influence in Scotland," he said.

"There would have been a time when traditional musicians were at the lower end of the earning spectrum, if you put them alongside rock bands and whatever but that's really changed a lot.

"I think a lot of the growth in Scotland has really been as a result of the Feis movement and the recognition of the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow, where for a number of years trad music has been part of the degree programme.

"That's elevated the status."