There Was A Love (2021)

The new album from Scott Murray

SCOTT MURRAY voice
DAVE MILLIGAN piano
CORRINA HEWAT voice & harp
TOM LYNE bass
STUART BROWN drums
MIKEY OWERS brass
PHIL BANCROFT saxophones
MARTIN GREEN accordion

Recorded at Castlesound Studios, Pencaitland

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Mattie Foulds

Produced by Dave Milligan

Artwork and design by vangillmedia.com

Photographs by Scott Murray

Thanks to Dave Milligan, for arranging, producing and playing – difficult to express just how grateful I am. I did say once that I gave him caterpillars and he made them into butterflies.

Thanks to Dave, Corrina, Tom, Mikey, Stu, Phil, and Martin for their playing.

Thanks to all colleagues, students, family and friends who have encouraged and supported me over many years.

Special thanks to the folk from Scots Music Group’s Inspire project – Jenny, Ruth, Gica, Sarah N, Sarah M, Amy G, Amy M, Amy L, Michelle, Sandra T, Addy, Benny, Bobby, Sandra D, Frank, Doreen, Ray, Scott, Sammy, Przemyslav – folk who inspired me.

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Reviews

“Singer-songwriter Scott Murray, formerly of the Sangsters, delivers an engagingly idiosyncratic clutch of simple but beautifully arranged songs and tunes from the heart” ****

Jim GilchristThe Scotsman

“Tender, warm and peaty – full of such beautiful mindings for dear ones in Scott’s life. Spacious and elegant. And his voice – and its earthy speak-singing quality – is sitting somewhere between Michael Marra and the late recordings of Johnny Cash, sort of beautifully broken. Bravo. Feels like a mighty piece of life work.”

Karine Polwart

“Synergy here in spades. Not many people will ever be able to put their name to such an accomplished piece of work that really captures the essence of the individual – authentic and innovative – beautiful. This is pure gold, just sublime.”

John MorranDeaf Shepherd

The Songs

1. Miss Isobel

(Scott Murray)

Miss Isobel was step mother to my brother and me. She was a dear woman to both of us. I never heard her say a bad word about anyone, and she always supported me, whatever I’d done. ‘Oh dear, Scott, what are we going to do with you?’, said with affection and a smile.

She died in 2019, having just reached her 97th birthday. She died peacefully in her sleep.

I told Dave about her, and about the fact that she’d been an accomplished pianist, a good sight reader who played for the Southern Light Opera. When he sent what he’d done, he explained that he made it a piece he could have written out for her and imagined her reading and playing it, just solo piano.

Dave (piano)

2. The Can’el

(words: Marion Angus, music: Scott Murray)

Marion Angus lived in Arbroath, Aberdeen and Glasgow, and spent much of her life looking after her mother and her sister. It was after the first world war, when she was over fifty, that she started writing poetry. She became pals with Helen Cruickshank (There Was a Sang).

More information at www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/marion-angus

I was tutoring a group of folk with an interest in song writing, and I sent them these words, as a possible starting point. I said to them to keep saying the words over, get the rhythm of them, see if a tune suggests itself. I did the same thing myself and came up with this.

Scott (voice)
Dave (piano)
Tom (bass)
Stu (drums)
Phil (tenor sax)
Mikey (trombone)

Lyrics

She’s ta’en her can’el frae the boord
Wi’ hands baith slim an’ sma’,
A gowden rose it bloomed and floo’red
An’ flamed atween us twa.
An’ flamed atween us twa.

She’s pluckt ma hert frae oot ma breist
Wi’ hands as white as faem
She’s pluckt ma hert oot o’ ma breist
An’ warmed it at the flame.
An’ warmed it at the flame.

Syne, when the can’el flickered laigh
Wi’ her twa hands she’s ta’en
Ma hert, and at the dawnin’ grey
Gi’en it me back again.
Gi’en it me back again.

3. Flying to Derry

(Scott Murray)

I love going to Derry. It’s a friendly and fascinating place, and I go there for a wee break whenever I can.

The last time was just before lockdown, in March 2020. The football between Derry City and Sligo Rovers on Friday night had been cancelled because of Coronavirus, but the theatre was still doing a roaring trade on the Saturday. ‘Give my Head Peace’, a topical and irreverent show, had the audience crying with laughter. Afterwards a pint of Guinness in Peadar O’Donnell’s capped a great evening.

Just a few days later came lockdown. I’m looking forward to my next visit, but don’t know when that will be. I was thrilled to bits when Corrina and Dave played the tune as part of their set at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival.

Dave (piano)
Corrina (harp)
Tom (bass)
Stu (drums)

4. Afterlight

(Scott Murray)

This started in France, with the first line, and I had no real idea where it would go. I enjoyed making the first and third lines rhyme, as well as the second and fourth.

I suppose all of us can look back on life, at chances taken or not, and wonder how life might have been.

Frank had a few regrets, but there again too few to mention. Edith didn’t regret anything, apparently, and neither should we.

Scott (voice)
Corrina (voice)
Dave (piano)
Tom (bass)
Stu (drums)
Phil (tenor sax)

Lyrics

Some men are born wise
some are born fools
some folk play with lies
others by the rules

some folk take their chance
others turn away
I wish I’d joined the dance
wish I’d seized the day

meet me tonight
at the turn of the road
we’ll find a simple hotel room
I’ll lie in your arms
all through the night
our bodies lit by the moon

and in the morning
we won’t kiss goodbye
we’ll walk down the street hand in hand
we won’t speak of the pasts
we’re leaving behind
we’ll speak of the future we’ve planned

Some paths are true and straight
others hard and long
some accept their fate
others right the wrong

some stay for the show
others leave the scene
the saddest words I know
what might have been

5. Glenwhappen Rig

(Scott Murray)

I sent a recording of me playing this on piano to my pal Sarah Northcott for her to transcribe into sheet music. I commented that the tune is a bit
like one on Evenin’s Fa, a song called ‘Gathernaw Hill’.

She said ‘it’s close, but it’s not the same’, so I got out the Ordnance Survey map and found Glenwhappen Rig, next to Gathersnaw Hill. Close, but not
the same. I’d walked over them both on the day Saddam Hussein’s statue was toppled in Baghdad.

It started life with a cheery Scottish country dance feel. During lockdown I was playing about with it, slowed it down, liked it, and thought of Treme,
a series I enjoyed about New Orleans, hurricane Katrina, and the wonderful marching bands.

Dave liked the idea, and said he could imagine the musicians having fun with it. There’s already one person saying they want it played while folk
file into the crematorium for their funeral.

Mikey (trumpet, trombone, bass trombone & sousaphone),
Phil (soprano, alto & tenor sax)
Stu (drums)

6. Annie Rae

(Scott Murray)

Four months after recording the other nine pieces, in the glorious snows of February 2021 in the Borders, a new tune evolved.

It made me think of my dear old Hawick granny, Annie Rae. She was born in Langholm in 1879, and was brought up in Hawick. She worked there
in the mills as a hosiery machinist and met my grandfather, Alexander Scott Brown. He was born at Swinton Quarter, a Berwickshire farm, and became a grocer for Lipton’s. They were married in Hawick in 1906, and lived in Haddington, Eskbank and Dunbar. She was widowed in 1938 and lived with us in Dunbar and Edinburgh until her death in 1958, aged 79.

She was a dear lady, and I wish I had had the interest in family, roots, place, that I have now. We could have had such conversations.

Dave (piano)

7. There Was A Sang

(words: Helen Cruickshank, music: Scott Murray )

Helen Cruickshank was born in 1886, excelled at school, joined the civil service when she was just 17, leaving Angus to go to London. She became
involved with the suffragette movement, and socialism. She moved back to Edinburgh, which she loved. She started to write poetry and became
Honorary Secretary of the PEN club.

More information here: www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/helen-cruickshank

She fell in love and wrote ‘The affair was most unsuitable and maddeningly frustrating’, but ‘it gave my pen its poetry.’ She never married.

She lived round the corner from Miss Isobel, on Corstorphine Hill.

Corrina (voice & harp)
Dave (piano)
Tom (bass),
Stu (drums & percussion)
Phil (tenor sax)

Lyrics

There was a sang
that aye I wad be singin
there was a star
and clear it used tae shine
an liltin in the starlicht
thro the shadows
I gaed lang syne

There was a sang
but noo I canna mind it
there was a star
but noo it disna shine
there was a love that led me
thro the shadows
and it was mine

8. Strange Days

(Scott Murray )

In the early days of lockdown (April 2020) I came up with this tune. Strange days, we are living now in strange days.

That could have been the first line, but I had no idea what to do with it after that. I’ve never been one for the ‘everything is going to be all right’ school of thought.

I love the piano, bass, drums on this – takes me back to jazz clubs in the 60s.

Writing this in early February 2021 everything is very far from all right. Strange days indeed.

Dave (piano)
Tom (bass)
Stu (drums)

9. George Sanders & Gypsy Caravans

(Scott Murray )

I worked with my friend and colleague Jenny Gardner on the Scots Music Group’s Inspire project. One afternoon, with the Alma group, we looked at making another song. We went round the room, each saying a bit about ourselves, our interests.

It got to Sandra, an older lady, and she said ‘I dream of George Sanders and Gypsy Caravans.’

I couldn’t think of anything else until I had the song done. ‘Sandra dreams of George Sanders & Gypsy Caravans’ – what a gift.

Sandra liked it and gave me permission to sing it.

Scott (voice)
Mikey (flugelhorn & trombone)
Phil (tenor sax)
Martin (accordion)

Lyrics

Sandra dreams of George Sanders
and of gypsy caravans
she hears his voice, he looks into her eyes
and she feels the touch of his hands

she hears the laughter of children
in the early morning sun
she sits between mother and father
in the gypsy caravan

o George Sanders
my lover, my friend, my man
come live with me my love
in our gypsy caravan

she opens the bright painted door
and there in the twilight he’s stood
he says ‘hello Sandra, may I come in?’
and she says ‘O that you would’

long summer days come at last
and they take the road from Ardgay
she plays by the river with Betsy and Belle
watches the mountains go by

they drink a glass of chilled wine
and he smokes a black cigarette
he says ‘do you think I should go now?’
and she says ‘please don’t go, not yet’

she sips the last of her tea
and turns to put out the light
she walks to the window, looks for the moon
whispers ‘George Sanders, good night’

10. Miss Margaret

(Scott Murray )

Miss Margaret is Miss Margaret Brown. She became Mrs Margaret Murray when she married my father.

I have a faded colour photograph of her. I think she’s eleven or twelve – bonny, shy looking. We lived in Dunbar, and moved to Gorgie in Edinburgh
in 1952.

When she was thirty nine or forty she was diagnosed with colorectal cancer, and had a few hard years before she died in 1962, aged just forty five.

I had this tune for her, told Dave the story and he made this arrangement.

She and Miss Isobel would have got on.

Dave (piano & melodica)
Corrina (voice)
Mikey (flugelhorn)
Tom (bass)
Stu (drums)

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