Listen Now:
Songs recorded live at the last FifeSing Weekend in May 2007.
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The Place:

The Fife Animal Park
The Fife Animal Park is on the B937 between Collessie and Ladybank on the left about half a mile south from the A91/B937 crossroads. There are good train services from Dundee or Edinburgh to Ladybank station. Taxi (tel: 01337 828630 or 828214) from Ladybank to Collessie (4 miles). Click for interactive map.

Restaurant: Food and Bar Facilities
Food will be available throughout the weekend between events - from Friday at 6.00pm and for Breakfast and Lunch (Saturday & Sunday) and Evening meal (Saturday). Full bar facilities at all events.

On-site Accommodation
The Fife Animal Park has a paddock for free camping and caravans with on-site toilet facilities. Let us know at the time of booking if you plan to bring a caravan.

For a first visit to our event we are pleased to welcome Bob Lewis from Sussex - renowned for his fine style and extensive repertoire of songs from the southern England. Also for the first time as a guest we are joined by singer and fiddle player Jo Miller from Stirling (Saturday evening/ Sunday). We welcome again two excellent local singers Jimmy Hutchison from Newburgh and Ron Bissett the well known local bothy ballad singer from Falkland. Alex Clarke from Dundee, whose songs and reminiscences were received with such great acclaim last year, also joins us again. The great northeast singer Jock Duncan from Pitlochry will join us for the day on Saturday and storyteller and ballad singer Stanley Robertson will join us for the Friday evening. We also welcome the noted traditional singer Elizabeth Stewart from Mintlaw who was unable to be with us last year.

Workshops/Talks

Saturday Morning ~ Timothy Neat: Hamish Henderson - The Continuing Story. Bob Lewis: Spirit of the Downs - A southern garland of songs and stories.
Sunday Morning ~ Jo Miller: Page to performance: Learning the ballads of Mary McQueen. Alex Clarke: A Dundee Life (Part 2): The Hilltown, the jute mills, daft songs, Will Fyffe, William McGonagall, Scottish dance, the butcher’s shop and his granny Clarke’s memories of the fall of the Tay Bridge.

Guest Singer Biographies

Bob Lewis grew up in Heyshott in West Sussex, an area that is renowned as an area where English traditional song and music still thrives as a living tradition. When he first married he moved a short way to Elsted where he worked as an agricultural engineer. Local singers would often have a sing-song in the local pub. Someone might say, 'Give us that old song, George' or whatever. Quite a lot of the week he was away at farm sales, up and down the country, up into Yorkshire and down into Cornwall and he’d meet up with all sorts and have a sing-song somewhere - a few pints and a bit of a sing. The mainstay of what Bob sings is old Sussex but he also has songs from down in Cornwall where he spent some time. His first recordings were for Karl Dallas on the Transatlantic label but he has also recorded for John Howson on Veteran and a recent solo CD: The Painful Plough on the Foxide label. See also Musical Traditions interview by Vic Smith.

Jo Miller is a singer and fiddler who has performed as a soloist and in groups such as The Whistlebinkies and Cloud Howe Ceilidh Band. She has worked in music education for over 25 years and taught at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) for 15 years. She founded the innovative BA (Scottish Music) degree and was course leader from 1996-2005. Jo has also written materials to support the teaching of traditional music in Scottish schools. She currently works as a Youth Music advisor to the Scottish Arts Council, and is a community musician in Stirling, where she runs the Riverside Music Project which supports family and community learning of traditional music. She is also an independent scholar whose research interests include Scottish music pedagogy, especially the impact of the formalisation of traditional music provision in Scotland.

Ron Bissett of Falkland was born in Kincardineshire and came to Fife with his family when his father came as head shepherd to Kippo at Kingsbarns. He took his first job at Letham in 1950 - driving a pair of horse and living in the bothy. He picked up some songs in the bothy and others from his mother and he was a member of the Fife Yokels bothy group when they competed in the Grampian TV Bothy Nichts in the 1960s. Ron has songs on several of the FifeSing CDs AH002 and AH004 and AH006.

Alex Clarke was brought up in a tenement just off Dundee’s Hilltown - hence his signature song - We’re the lads fae the tap o the hill. His mother was a weaver in the jute mills as was his granny, his father an engineer. As a boy he started out singing Harry Lauder songs and was soon singing in concert parties. He was taught Highland dancing as a boy and later took up Scottish dancing, forming his own troupe for shows with Robert Wilson and Andy Stewart and appearing with the White Heather Club. His granny Clarke was a source of songs and old stories of Dundee, of McGonagall and the fall of the Tay Bridge. He was first ‘discovered’ by Maurice Fleming in the 1950s and was later recorded on the Coorse and Fine LP of Dundee songs on Springthyme in 1985. After his knock-out performance last year, how could we not invite him back as a guest and for further reminiscences! The Bureau on AH006.

Jock Duncan was brought up in the ballad-rich farming country around New Deer and Fyvie in Aberdeenshire, where he developed his love of traditional balladry and music. His extensive repertoire of traditional ballads and northeast songs is an inspiration and he is widely recognised as one of Scotland’s foremost traditional singers. In 2006, he was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame in recognition of his contribution to Scotland’s living song tradition. See Jock Duncan: Ye Shine Whar Ye Stan! and songs on the FifeSing CDs AH002 and AH003 and AH006.

Jimmy Hutchison is originally from South Uist - his mother a Gaelic speaker, his father from Glasgow. Jimmy has been singing traditional songs for many years. In the 1960s he was involved in the St Andrews folk club and the Blairgowrie Festival and became a great admirer of Jeannie Robertson, the Stewarts of Blair and old Davie Stewart. Jimmy now lives in Newburgh where he runs a joinery business. See the Musical Traditions review of his CD: Corachree.

Elizabeth Stewart is recognised as one of Scotland’s foremost ballad singers. She has been singing the traditional songs and ballads of the northeast since childhood, learning her art from her family, especially her aunt Lucy Stewart of Fetterangus who became widely recognised after the release of recordings of her singing made in 1960 by the American collector Kenneth Goldstein. She is also a gifted player of traditional music on the piano and, like her mother Jean, led her own Scottish country dance band. Elizabeth was in hospital in May last year and so was unable to join us - we welcome her return to the fray. She has songs the FifeSing CDs AH002 and AH003 and AH006. See also the Musical Traditions review of her CD: Binnorrie: Songs, Ballads and Tunes.

Stanley Robertson of Aberdeen is a master storyteller, ballad singer and piper. He learned his tradition within his extended family many of whom were musicians and singers. Stanley has strong traveller roots - Jeannie Robertson was his father’s sister and her daughter Lizzie Higgins his cousin. Stanley is author of several books of traditional tales and reminiscences of traveller life and of his time in the fish trade. His latest title Reek Roon the Camp Fire is due for publication by Birlinn in May (i.e. the week of FifeSing2009). He has songs on the Fife Sing CDs AH002 and AH003. See also the review of his CD of Rum Scum Scoosh: Songs and Stories of an Aberdeen Childhood.

Timothy Neat was born and brought up in Cornwall and now lives in Wormit. He completed a degree in Fine Art at the University of Leeds and moved to Scotland in 1968. From 1973 to 1988, he lectured in History of Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee. He has made a number of independent films and documentaries, including The Summer Walkers (1976), Hallaig (1984), Play Me Something (1989) and Walk Me Home (1993). His published titles with Birlinn include When I Was Young: Voices From Lost Communities in Scotland (2000), a two-volume work; The Voice of the Bard: Living Poets and Ancient Tradition in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (2002) and The Horseman’s Word: Blacksmiths and Horsemanship in Twentieth-century Scotland, (2002). Since 2002 he has been working on a major two-volume biography of his great friend and collaborator, Hamish Henderson. The first volume, Hamish Henderson: The Making of the Poet, was published by Polygon in 2007 and the second volume, Hamish Henderson: The Making of the Poet Vol II is scheduled for publication in September 2009. Timothy presented a talk at FifeSing 2006 on the first part of his work on the Hamish Henderson biography. With the second volume of the biography now with the publishers we are very pleased that Timothy has agreed present a talk Hamish Henderson: The Continuing Story at FifeSing2009.

FifeSing CDs

The FifeSing events are run by
The East of Scotland Traditional Song Group
(Committee: Peter Shepheard, Arthur Watson and Tom Spiers)
Contact us at:
Peter Shepheard, Balmalcolm House, Balmalcolm, Cupar, Fife KY15 7TJ
tel: 00 44 (0)1337 830773
email: peter shepheard