Under The Blue Digital Download
This is a project borne out of a conversation in the Lake District towards the end of summer 2000. A bottle of wine later, and the world looking rosier, the Alan Reid/Rob van Sante partnership was set in motion. This is the result.
We begin with 54 Winters, a tale of one who’s highlight in life is having been in a war and who spends the rest of his life taking about it in the pub. Ballantrae was prompted by the memory of reading many years ago R.L. Stevenson’s ‘The Master Of Ballantrae’, an analysis of the Scottish psyche by a great storyteller. Campbell’s Sisters evokes a ceilidh somewhere in rural Scotland where everyone is determined to have a good time while the Bold Grenadier is a re-working of a fine old English folk song. Atlantic Bridge is a waltz that has a distinctly American resonance, hence the title.
The 1600’s were a period of much bloodshed and religious strife in Scotland and Covenanter imagines a banned outdoor meeting being set upon by dragoons and a worshipper trying to flee the carnage. In stark contrast A Jug Of Charlie’s Wine is based on a whimsical poem ‘A jug of Barney’s wine’ by Belfast man John Campbell.
A Cage Load Of Men, also a poem by the Fife miner turned poet/playwright Joe Corrie, was set to music by Rob. Rob also composed Elaine’s Farewell to Skye for his wife after her all too brief visit to the island. Civil strife may be history in Scotland but it still persists in parts of Ulster and Across The Water expresses the hope that there’s been a sea change in the fortunes of that beautiful part of the world. Fair One is a song for any parent with kids who have trouble getting to sleep.
The tunes which follow are Stovies/Trip To Raasay/ The Cailleach With The Crash Helmet. Stovies are a tasty Scottish dish which include tatties and onions and leftovers from the night before ... delicious, honest! TripTo Raasay commemorates a walk in that fair isle which ended up as a 4 hour endurance trek in which a 10 year old asked her mother if they were going to die there. The Cailleach is a splendid elderly Breton lady who set off towards the holiday gite by taking off her apron, strapping on a helmet, and running down a track to kick start her motor bike.
We close with The Last Lighthouse Keeper, a salute to an intrepid band of men who are no more, the last manned station in Fair Isle having been closed in the summer of 2000, just before Rob and I began talking about this project. Nothing remains the same.
This is a project borne out of a conversation in the Lake District towards the end of summer 2000. A bottle of wine later, and the world looking rosier, the Alan Reid/Rob van Sante partnership was set in motion. This is the result.
We begin with 54 Winters, a tale of one who’s highlight in life is having been in a war and who spends the rest of his life taking about it in the pub. Ballantrae was prompted by the memory of reading many years ago R.L. Stevenson’s ‘The Master Of Ballantrae’, an analysis of the Scottish psyche by a great storyteller. Campbell’s Sisters evokes a ceilidh somewhere in rural Scotland where everyone is determined to have a good time while the Bold Grenadier is a re-working of a fine old English folk song. Atlantic Bridge is a waltz that has a distinctly American resonance, hence the title.
The 1600’s were a period of much bloodshed and religious strife in Scotland and Covenanter imagines a banned outdoor meeting being set upon by dragoons and a worshipper trying to flee the carnage. In stark contrast A Jug Of Charlie’s Wine is based on a whimsical poem ‘A jug of Barney’s wine’ by Belfast man John Campbell.
A Cage Load Of Men, also a poem by the Fife miner turned poet/playwright Joe Corrie, was set to music by Rob. Rob also composed Elaine’s Farewell to Skye for his wife after her all too brief visit to the island. Civil strife may be history in Scotland but it still persists in parts of Ulster and Across The Water expresses the hope that there’s been a sea change in the fortunes of that beautiful part of the world. Fair One is a song for any parent with kids who have trouble getting to sleep.
The tunes which follow are Stovies/Trip To Raasay/ The Cailleach With The Crash Helmet. Stovies are a tasty Scottish dish which include tatties and onions and leftovers from the night before ... delicious, honest! TripTo Raasay commemorates a walk in that fair isle which ended up as a 4 hour endurance trek in which a 10 year old asked her mother if they were going to die there. The Cailleach is a splendid elderly Breton lady who set off towards the holiday gite by taking off her apron, strapping on a helmet, and running down a track to kick start her motor bike.
We close with The Last Lighthouse Keeper, a salute to an intrepid band of men who are no more, the last manned station in Fair Isle having been closed in the summer of 2000, just before Rob and I began talking about this project. Nothing remains the same.