Jimmy Anderson, who has died aged 77, was a World Pipe Band Championship winning piper with Muirhead and Sons and the man who half a century ago led the introduction of bagpipes into folk groups.
His successes at the Worlds came in the legendary Muirheads band of the 1960s, and he was the proud owner of three plaques commemorating wins in 1967, ’68 and ’69. With brothers Peter and Tommy, he formed a unique Worlds-winning family triumvirate.
However it is as the ‘father of the folk group piper’ that Jimmy Anderson will be equally well remembered. His attendances at Falkirk Folk Club in the 1960s sparked his interest in the folk scene and he started to learn guitar. Visiting festivals he met up with the Glasgow-based traditional group, the Clutha. They had already pioneered the use of two fiddles in their line up and were keen to innovate further.
Jimmy was asked along to gigs to play Highland pipes but then hit on the idea of using miniature pipes to add to the fiddles, guitar and concertina and the outstanding vocals of Gordeanna McCulloch.
We should remember that until then pipes were a separate tradition never seen anywhere near folk groups. But that world sat up and took notice when, at the Kinross Festival in 1974, the Clutha won the ceilidh band competition with Jimmy in the line up.
Before long other groups started to followed suit. Today there is hardly a Scottish traditional band which does not have a piper in its line-up be it on smallpipes, lowland pipes or Highland pipes.
Jimmy began piping with Hugh Wilson in the Camelon Pipe Band and then moved to Jimmy Inglis at Wallacestone. Encouraged by their parents, both Jimmy and his older brother Tommy started to show great talent, as did Peter on the drums. Jimmy joined P/M Alex Kiddie in the BP Grangemouth band before all three brothers joined Muirheads under P/M RG Hardie.
Jimmy’s playing was characterised by excellence of technique and refined musical expression. He handled Hardie’s strict insistence on both with ease. But more than that, Jimmy was a terrific bandsman, encouraging his colleagues and impressing them with his earthy humour.
Everyone was a friend of Jimmy Anderson’s. Band tours of Canada, the USSR and Europe left a trail of stories still oft recounted.
When the band folded in 1978 Jimmy spent a year back at Wallacestone before accepting a job teaching the Omani Police. He did two tours in the Middle East and enjoyed the change in culture and lifestyle.
When he returned home he built a workshop at the rear of his house and started a successful business making smallpipes. No request was too much for Jimmy, and he would spend hours with visitors chatting about piping and sorting reeds.
Pipe bands and the traditional music scene in Scotland will remember Jimmy, a lover of piping and a lover of people. Sincere condolences to Tommy, Peter and sister Margaret, to Alison and to Jimmy’s children Lyndsay, Ailsa, Niall and Donald, and to the wider family.
RW
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