Notes on Scottish bands touring internationally and features on Scottish music, sport, film and the life written by and for Scots around the world. More →
…Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, according to the readers of Dear Scotland. Almost three and a half thousand votes were cast and in the end Jim Kerr edged out the sensational Alex Harvey for the title. Jim joins former bandmate Derek Forbes, Stuart Adamson and Franz Ferdinand’s Paul Thomson in Dear Scotland’s Greatest Ever Supergroup:
“When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had and never will have” – Edgar Watson Howe.
Having been coaxed out of ’self imposed exile’ by Dear Scotland, this was the first of many brilliant articles by Alec Downie on the joys of Scottish music .
Happy Birthday Alec.
Earlier this year Alec brought us his top 20 Scottish cover versions. 20 through 11 can be found here. His top ten included classics from Belle and Sebastian, Aztec Camera, Travis and Biffy Clyro.
Stuart Adamson on guitar. Paul Thompson on drums. Derek Forbes on bass. On vocals…? From almost a hundred suggestions we finally came up with this shortlist: Liz Fraser, Alex Harvey, Jim Kerr, King Creosote, Annie Lennox, Billy Mackenzie, Frankie Miller, Paolo Nutini, Bon Scott and Rod Stewart. Voting closes Jan 5, 2010.
More on the great Scottish vocalists. Here Alec presents ‘The Popstars’, ‘The Troubadours’ and ‘The Rogues’. From today’s lists and last week’s female vocalist article, we need your help to somehow produce a top ten for next week’s public vote. Take a deep breath…
Alec’s final article in the “Greatest Ever” series is an epic. So much so that we’ve had to break it into two pieces for fear that our readers’ heads may explode. Following last week’s list of females, Alec provides 50 of the greatest ever Scottish male vocalists for you to consider. In part 1 he [...]
So we come to the last of our ‘greatest’ questions: Who is Scotland’s Greatest Ever Vocalist? Now if you’ve ever been to a football match or witnessed the pubs empty on a Friday night in Scotland, you’ll know that the Scots love to sing. And we’ve produced some of the best in the business.
Inevitably Alec’s ‘Who is…?’ article and the suggestions received through Facebook, Twitter and the comments section have caused further heated debate amongst the Dear Scotland contributors. It’s just as well most of us live in different countries. In the end, our final five are: Dominic Aitchison, Jack Bruce, Derek Forbes, Alan Gorrie, and Dougie Payne.
Paul McCartney once said, “None of us wanted to be the bass player. In our minds he was the fat guy who always played at the back”. This reminded me of being a kid in the playground and how everyone wants to be Ally McCoist or Henrik Larsson and nobody wants to play in goal.
