A Wildly Successful Tour of Scotland for Tiller’s Folly
VANCOUVER - Local folk group Tiller’s Folly is making some big waves here on the wet western coast and receiving considerable media attention and air play on the release of their new album Buchan Bluegrass.
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| TILLER’S FOLLY: Nolan Murray, Laurence Knight, Bruce Coughlan, and Eric Reed. |
They recently returned from a wildely successful tour of Scotland and their feet have still not fully touched down in Canada. On October 21, they held a CD release party, at St. James Hall to promote their fifth album.
Steve Edge of the Rogue Folk Club introduced the group and described their new album Buchan Bluegrass as “exploring the links between Scots ballads, bluegrass and British Columbia history.” Steve has been presenting and promoting local and overseas folk groups for about the past 15 years to Vancouver audiences and has always been very supportive of local groups.
The members of Tiller’s Folly are Bruce Coughlan, Laurence Knight, Nolan Murray and Eric Reed. The band gave up their day jobs about 10 years ago in order to fully concentrate on their music and song writing and it’s a move that’s paid off for them.
They are all excellent and versatile musicians who are most known for their original west coast folk music but who can also play anything from Bob Will’s, western swing to the Beetles and Elvis Presley... it depends on their audience. The group played many of the songs from their new album at their CD release party.
Bruce Coughlan, lead singer and British Columbia history buff, is a prolific songwriter. Bruce always explains the history behind each song and it is obvious he has spent considerable time researching the history of the area. He is now working on a song for the 2010 Olympics which will be held in Vancouver and Whistler, and the group are already working on their sixth album.
One of the tracks on Buchan Bluegrass is MacPherson’s Rant. Ths is the story of a Scotsman who was hanged in Scotland in the 1700s. Nolan Murray, the fiddler in the group was inspired to compose a fiddle tune about this incident and called it The Hangman’s Two-Step. Murray plays it at a fast and furious pace with the resin flying as he leans into the horse hair....the audience loves it!
After the concert I had an opportunity to speak with Coughlan and Knight about touring, and their upcoming plans. Laurence Knight has been doing most of the local bookings and promotion of the album. “We have an agent in Europe now that we’re pretty excited about,” said Knight, “it’s Phil Cunningham’s ex-wife Donna, and as you probably know, Phil Cunningham is the great Scottish accordion player. So, we will be spending more time in Scotland next year.”
He continued, “We’re pretty excited in terms of bookings. We’ve just been invited to a very big showcase in Portland, Oregon in November where we will be playing to approximately 1,000 western colleges in the United States who will all be taking part. We have also been invited to Austin, Texas to showcase for the big Folk Alliance.”
Speaking about some of the folk groups that have returned to their local roots, such as Great Big Sea who have just released an album of all traditional Newfoundland music, Bruce Coughlan said, “We’d like to be the west coast Great Big Sea who keep our heritage alive here.
“There is a lot of Scottish and Irish history tied up in British Columbia. I think it’s all good and well to be a global society this is what make it such a wonderful culture here in the west coast, but let’s not forget to ‘dance with who brung us’. The Scottish and the Irish really built British Columbia and that’s where our heritage lies, so let’s acknowledge that.”
We have often hear the old adage that you have to make it away from home before you get any recognition in your own town or country. That is also true for Tiller’s Folly who are excited about the number of festival bookings they have in the U.S. and Europe, but it still bothers Bruce Coughlan about the lack of respond in Canada. He said, “you know, in the 10 years that we have been playing folk music in Canada we have not played at one, not one, Canadian folk festival.”
For more information about this talented group, visit their website at: www.tillersfolly.com.
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