Gaels pay tribute to live blues tradition
Wednesday, July 28, 1999 – Caithness Courier

Scottish influences on the blues go back a long way.
In the mid-fifties America, blues shouter Tiny Grimes appeared on stage with his Rockin’ Highlanders resplendent in tuxedo jackets, silk socks, wrap-around shades and kilts. A bunch of very sharp dudes indeed, typical of those faraway days before young European palefaces tuned in to the raw, black sounds that blared out of numberless juke joints, record shacks and seedy clubs from Texas to Chicago. This potent musical seed found a vacant womb, ripe for filling. The results is best traced in the careers of the Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin, Eric Clapton, all those millionaire rockers whose early days were spent solitary in a cold bedroom, struggling to master the chords of the latest Bo Diddley record.
Age has diminished neither the potency of the blues music nor its ability to adrenalise even the most lethargic natures – a power most ably demonstrated by Howlin’ Gaels at their recent gig in Thurso’s British Legion Club. Loud, high-octave sounds, raucous and exciting, driven by a controlled virility that always hits the spot just right, blues played this way is music’s equivalent to the Kama Sutra.

With a wailing harmonica intro to the old Peter Green classic “Goin’ Down”, kilted singer Donnie Williamson set out the evening’s stall, while his three Gael confederates slipped into the classic attitudes of a bona fide blues band. Casual and unanimated, the lead guitarist threw off a string of effortless solo’s, as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do. The bass player, an intense, determined young man, swooped his fingers up and down the four thick strings, the plunging notes like the pulse of a super charged engine driving the music forward, while behind him, the drummer showed that he had mastered the unwritten secret that baffles so many. It is this: at no one time should the beat sound as though it is produced merely by the action of wooden sticks bashing stretched skins. Simple, isn’t it? Believe me, it isn’t.

“Goin’ Down” was followed by a slew of blues-based familiars spanning the past three decades. There was Barrett Strong’s “Money”, covered by just about every British R&B band in the sixties, and the Wilson Pickett’s classic twosome “The Midnight Hour” and “Mustang Sally”, the latter a trademark number for the Gaels and well known by their regular following. This was soul in a blues suit; so too was “Knock on Wood”, that all-time favourite memory with Viewfirth dancers of 30 years ago. Dues were paid to another legend of that era when the Gales blasted out tight, controlled versions of Jimi Hendrix’s “Stone Free” and “Fire”, resisting temptation to indulge in long-winded and unnecessary solos.

One number the band did extend by skilfully medleyising into it Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” was Reef’s 1998 anthem “Place Your Hands”, a combination that had everybody up and dancing.

But the Gaels don’t just put on other folk’s clothes – they write their own numbers, too. Highlight of the evening was their airing of “Where is the Felling”, an intense, emotion-twisting number taken from their forthcoming album Twelve Bars Too Late, due on the record shelves in October.

Outside, blues echoes and the dark, wet streets resurrected memories of a winter’s morning years ago, in south-side Chicago, the only white face on the block, and one of life’s great shocks: to hear from the mouth of a black youth that Elton John meant more to him that Chuck Berry. While daundering home pondering all this, a bumped-into acquaintance, out on the tiles, asked if I’d been to see one of the “tribute bands”. In a way, yes. The Howlin’ Gaels are a tribute- a tribute to the enduring tradition of live blues in the Far North. It is a tradition loyally supported – sign on to it next time these modern Rockin’ Highlanders are in town.

C.D.S