Sleeve notes:
“A great performance by Scotland's best-loved solo folk singer recorded
in front of his hometown audience.”
THE “house full” signs went up at Glasgow's Star Folk Club just a few
minutes before the hard-pressed bar staff announced good-naturedly that
they were running out of glasses.
Weekly meetings of the popular club run a stone's-throw from the river
Clyde are invariably well-attended but this turn-out was exceptional.
“Standing room only” was the fate awaiting latecomers and the really
tardy ones, sadly, just didn't get in at all.
Fortunately for them, what they missed can be found within the grooves
of this album.
Iain MacKintosh is one of Scotland's folk ambassadors, an entertainer in
the warmest sense of the word. He's perceptive as well as pawky,
juggling the emotions of listeners with his well chosen repetoire. And
that banjo - is no stage prop. He deftly finds just as many notes as he
needs to match the verses of his differing songs.
A professional, and that's what Iain MacKintosh is, has inevitably
acquired style and technique through long years of application and
experience - all of it gained the hard way.
Fortunately in the process he has never lost his compassion or his
warmth. He's an original in a world of stereo types. And when you listen
to this recording of the man in action you'll hear for yourself exactly
why that Thursday night. March 22nd at the Star Club was so very
special.
Colin MacDonald.
Folk music has become not only my livelihood, but my life, and one of
the nicest things about that life is the friends I've gained through
music. It wouldn't have been possible to realise my long-held ambition
to make a live club recording without the help of some of those friends.
So my sincere thanks go to: Cilia and Artie who helped, encouraged (and
pushed) me; Arthur Johnstone - as splendid a compere as he is a singer;
Brian Young and Cy Jack for unobtrusively getting the sound “as it was”;
George Bell for his keen ear at the mix-down; Peter Cameron for the
great photograph; Mick Meers, the staff, the organisers, and above all
the audience of the Star Folk Club, who combined to generate such a
friendly atmosphere.
Iain MacKintosh