Battlefield Band
Battlefield Band brought Scottish traditional music to stages around the world for nearly fifty years. Formed by Glasgow students in 1969, they were known for pairing Highland pipes and fiddle with keyboards, and old songs with new ones.
- Formed
- 1969, Glasgow, Scotland
- Founders
- Brian McNeill, Jim Thomson, Alan Reid, Eddie Morgan, Sandra Lang
- Labels
- Topic, then Temple Records from 1980
- Hall of Fame
- Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame, 2016
History
The band was started by five Strathclyde University students and named after the Battlefield area of south Glasgow, where Brian McNeill lived. Their first album came out on Topic in 1977, and from 1980 they recorded for Robin Morton's Temple Records, beginning with Home Is Where the Van Is.
The line-up changed many times over the decades, a band tradition in itself. Long-serving members included founder Alan Reid on keyboards and vocals (until 2010), Mike Katz on Highland and small pipes, Alasdair White on fiddle, and singer Sean O'Donnell. The band won Best Live Act at the first Scots Trad Music Awards in 2003 and Best Band in 2011, and entered the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame in 2016. Their last known performance was at Piping Live! in Glasgow in 2017.
The sound
Battlefield Band had no percussion: the drive came from pipes, fiddle and strings. What set them apart was how freely they mixed bagpipes with keyboards and guitar, and traditional material with newly written songs about modern Scotland, including emigration and displacement on The Road of Tears.
Selected albums
| Year | Album |
|---|---|
| 1977 | Battlefield Band (Topic) |
| 1980 | Home Is Where the Van Is |
| 2006 | The Road of Tears |
| 2007 | Dookin' |
| 2015 | Beg & Borrow |
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