PP Audio Archive – Bands

P/M RG Hardie: The legendary pipe major talks to the BBC’s George McIllwham about the success of Muirhead & Sons and plays some of their music:


Jimmy Catherwood: A solo drumming performance from 1949 of the Leading drummer of Edinburgh City Police Pipe Band:


Alex Duthart: Shotts & Dykehead drum corps in 1959 with Alex Duthart leading his now famous drum salute:


Clan MacRae Society Pipe Band in a broadcast given on the BBC in 1948:


P/M Hugh MacInnes and his Toyota Pipe Band, taken from an EP disc made by the band in 1981. It features a Japanese tune ‘Mt Fuji’ and two marches Captain Lumsden and the Heights of Cassino:


This recording, probably the first ever done by a pipe band, is of Govan Police PB, the forerunner to the Glasgow and Strathclyde Police bands, recorded in the early 1900s on an old wax cylinder. It comes to us courtesy of the Glasgow Police Museum. The tunes are the 79th’s Farewell to Gibraltar, Maggie Cameron and the Rejected Suitor or Rejected Lover as the sleeve note says:


This performance earned the legendary pipe band of Muirhead & Sons under P/M RG Hardie and L/D Robert Turner second prize in the 1975 World Championships at Corby in England, one of the few times this competition has been held south of the Scottish border.

Muirhead & Sons: A recording of three marches from the 1956 World Champions:

Muirheads recorded practising in the grounds of York University during the week of 1978 Scottish Tattoo held at the CNE Toronto:

Muirheads recorded practising in the grounds of York University during the week of the 1977 Scottish Tattoo held at the CNE Toronto:

The actual performance given by Muirhead & Sons Pipe Band in 1975 at the Canadian National Exhibition contest in Toronto under P/M RG Hardie and L/D Robert Turner:


Steven McWhirter playing and winning the World Solo Drumming in Glasgow in 2014. The piper is Stuart Liddell: