Tam Reid

Tam Reid

Genres: Scottish, folk, RIP, traditional, bothy ballad

About Tam Reid

Tam Reid was the Aberdeenshire folk singer whose contribution to the traditional culture of north-east Scotland earned praise from academics and musicians alike. He gained the crown of Bothy Ballad King 30 years ago when Methlick farmer and broadcaster Charlie Allan and musician Marc Ellington, of Towie Barclay castle, staged a contest for the title. The event attracted two dozen competitors and an audience of 10,000 at the Turriff venue. Reid was outright winner. Tam's stage entrance would be a deliberate hirple, with a trademark cheery wave at the end, farmer's bonnet in hand. Yet, behind the brosie-faced folk-singing fairmer lay the reality of someone outstanding at his craft. He worked closely with Aberdeen University's Elphinstone Institute, and was due to travel to Washington this summer to sing at a festival organised by the Smithsonian Institute. His Aberdeenshire farm at Cullerlie was the setting for an annual traditional singing festival. Organised in partnership with the Elphinstone Institute, it brought leading folk singers from throughout the UK and abroad. He sang or competed at many venues and helped to revive Ellon's Bothy Ballad Contest after a gap of 60 years. He would have been a leading contender at the forthcoming Macallan Bothy Ballad Championships. He was ever associated with songs such as Princie and Jean and The Muckle Gawkit Gype. Princie and Jean he picked up from the columns of the long-dead Aberdeenshire weekly People's Journal, and even tracked down the author to Orkney. Together with his friend, broadcaster Robbie Shepherd, he used Doric as everyday speech. He and Robbie first took to the floor 50 years ago at the Garlogie Hall, Tam playing opposite a group called the Garlogie Four - Duckie (Duckie) Smith, Ronnie Massie, Robbie, and Robbie's wife, Esma. What proved to be his last performance was in the same place at a Burns supper 10 days ago, with Willie Brew'd a Peck o Maut. Reid was one of the last people living in the 21st century who had experienced life in a farm bothy at a time when farming depended on heavy horses. So he drew on a way of life that inspired the bothy ballads he preserved through his singing. The tools, machinery, and domestic items he used in his bothy days formed the nucleus of a farm collection he and his wife, Anne, created at Cullerlie Farm Park, which provided a setting for everything from ceilidh nights to steam engine rallies. Tam Reid died after collapsing in snow while feeding his livestock during the recent storms. He is survived by his wife, Anne (nee Forsyth), daughters Isla, Wendy, and Tracey, seven grandchildren, and a great-grandson. Thomas Christie Reid, farmer and folk singer; born May 15, 1929, died January 29, 2003. GORDON CASELY Tom was a legendary singer, having been crowned, in 1977, the Bothy Ballad King before a crowd of 10,000 at the Haughs in Turriff, a title that remained his until his death in January 2003. Tom (‘Tam’) and Anne Reid set up the Cullerlie Farm Park and Heritage Centre in 1993. Tom, moved to the Cullerlie Estate with his parents when just a toddler in 1935, and worked with his father in the traditional way of farming. He kept the traditions alive by turning the old original steading into a farm museum with one of the largest privately owned collections of farming and domestic memorabilia in Scotland. Anne, from nearby Peterculter, joined Tom when they married in 1975. Anne Reid who died in 2006 was also a fine singer and promoted the traditions of the North-East through singing and speaking workshops with schoolchildren and adults at local schools and at the museum, as well as hosting regular Saturday-night ceilidhs. Tam Reid, who has died aged 73, was known in his native Aberdeenshire as the King of the Bothy Ballad - a traditional rustic genre not unlike the American cowboy song, but a great deal less comprehensible to English ears. Reid was widely regarded by experts in the field as the outstanding exponent of such songs as The Hash O' Bennagoak; The Traivlin' Mull; Muckle Friday Fair; A Pair O' Nicky Tams; The Muckle Gawkit Gype; The Muckin' O' Geordie's Byre, and Macfarlan o' the Sprotts. In north-eastern Scotland, bothy ballads were songs of the old "farm touns", where, in the 19th to early 20th centuries, hired farm labourers were boarded out in so-called bothy-houses. As a means of coping with their harsh living conditions, they composed songs about their lives and, during their limited free time at the bothies, at the "hairst supper" or at hiring fairs, they got together for sing-songs. The songs, which often poked fun and occasionally attempted to settle old scores, were usually set to existing pipe and fiddle tunes, but sometimes sung unaccompanied. Along with a mixture of older ballads and contemporary material popular in rural areas, they became known as "cornkisters" or bothy ballads. Reid, a cheery character who always spoke in the Doric dialect of his native Aberdeenshire, gained his crown in 1977 when a contest was staged at an outdoor venue at Turriff, Aberdeenshire, for the title of King of the Bothy Ballad. The event attracted an audience of 10,000 people, and Reid was formally crowned by June Marchioness of Aberdeen. Thomas Reid was born on May 15 1929 at Countesswells, Aberdeenshire, and grew up on a farm that depended on heavy horses, experiencing at first hand the way of life that had inspired the ballads. In 1935, his family moved to Nether Woodside Farm, Cullerlie, near Echt; he lived and worked there until his death. Young Tam was singing ballads almost from the time he could talk and first performed in public at the Garlogie Hall, Echt. He went on to sing and compete at many festivals, including the Buchan Heritage Festival in Strichen and Aberdeenshire's annual Doric Festival, and was a familiar figure at the Traditional Music Association of Scotland festivals, and helped to revive Ellon's Bothy Ballad Contest. Pink-cheeked and gregarious, Reid would make his stage entrance with a deliberate "hirple" (limp) and depart waving his farmer's bonnet. He took a lot of trouble over research. One of his best-known ballads, Princie and Jean, a song in praise of two fine Clydesdale horses, he discovered in the columns of a defunct Aberdeenshire weekly, the People's Journal. He even managed to track down its author to Orkney. As an authority on the bothy ballard, Reid worked closely with Aberdeen's Elphinstone Institute, and, in partnership with them, founded an annual traditional singing festival held every June at his farm in Cullerlie, bringing together leading traditional folk singers from Britain and further afield. He had been due to travel to Washington this summer to sing at a festival organised by the Smithsonian Institute. Reid and his wife Anne developed their farm as a heritage centre, with the tools, machinery and domestic items he had inherited from his father forming the nucleus of a collection of farming memorabilia. Tam Reid gave his last public performance at a Burns Night supper two weeks ago, where he sang Willie Brewed a Peck o' Maut. He died after collapsing in the snow while feeding his livestock during the storms of January 29. He is survived by his wife Anne and by three daughters. Each year in July, their is a festival at Cullerlie Farm Park to celebrate the singing traditions of Scotland, England, and Ireland in memory of Tom and Anne Reid.

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