‘Arnish Light’ (Green Linnet)

 "You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in."

Arlo Guthrie (1947 - ) 

 Celt In A Twist:  The Tannahill Weavers have woven their sound round a rotating cast of characters over a dozen albums through three decades of playing together. Their music is built on a foundation of traditional Celtic instruments like Highland pipes, flute and fiddle, but they more closely approximate the intensity and attitude of a rock band than their Scottish traditional contemporaries (there’s an oxymoron for you). The Weavers’ latest release on Green Linnet is called ‘Arnish Light’.  To tell us more about it, we’ve hooked up with  Roy Gullane by phone. Good day, and where are you talking to us from?

 Roy Gullane: Seattle. It’s sunny Seattle at the moment.

 CIAT:  Yes, we share weather with them.

 RG:  I see, so if you don’t like it, you just wait a few minutes. 

 CIAT:  What’s the single biggest driving force that keeps the Weavers together or is it simply gravity?

 RG:  No, we still enjoy what we’re doing enormously.  So that keeps us going.

 CIAT: Do you still consider the opportunity to record an album to be a gift, an opportunity to express yourself in a new way, or is there a sense of responsibility to turn out more of what’s worked in the past?

 RG:  If we do any experimenting, it’s kind of subtle.  We don’t want to stray too far from what we realize that people expect of us. We’re not going to do anything radical at this stage in our careers. But we do like to experiment.

 CIAT:  What’s the one new thing you’ve done with this album?

 RG:  It’s all done in the production you know.  We’ll probably mess around with overdubs and harmonies and things like that.  But nothing more radical than that.

 CIAT: You’ve always seemed to derive so much pleasure from performing live. Has time made you more comfortable in the studio as well?

 RG:  Oh absolutely, yes.  Especially now as we’ve got more or less our own studio and we don’t have to look at the clock all the time.  We can more or less go in anytime we feel like it. 

 CIAT:  Do you all live close together?

 RG:  No, no.  But nowadays it’s not much of a problem.  Some of us are actually flying distance away from the other band members.  But when I say that, it’s usually talking an hour.  And in Europe right now we are blessed with budget air lines. So it’s not really a problem.

 CIAT:  Do you all live in Great Britain?

 RG:  Not even that.  One of us lives in the Netherlands, one lives down in Southern England, and the rest of the boys are scattered around Scotland.

 CIAT: You’ve got your Celt In A Twist and we’ve got Roy Gullane from the Tannahill Weavers on the phone to talk about their latest album, Arnish Light. Let’s start with the title; can you shed some light on it?

 RG:  Yeah, Arnish Light is a lighthouse in the Hebrides. And I’m not exactly sure which part of the Hebrides but it’s up there in the north west of Scotland. 

 CIAT:  We were wondering if it’s the alternative to Arnish Medium or Arnish Heavy. 

 RG:  A lot of people say that we should put on the cover that it’s not a beer. 

CIAT: Well, tell us a favorite moment of yours from the disc?

 RG:  Well, a favourite moment was when we got it finished, because during the course of recording this album we actually had two bereavements.  Phil lost his mother and Leslie lost his father.  Normally we would have brought that album out last year, but things kinda got held back because of that so we were in a way pleased to see it finished.

 CIAT:  I appreciate to see that you’ve put a glossary of terms in the back of the little booklet in the album.  I’ve never heard a kilt referred to as a fillibeg before. 

 RG:  It used to be called just a Plaid, that’s years before.

 CIAT:  I’d heard that, but I’d never heard fillibeg.  I’ll have to look that up, it sounds interesting. We’re going to go out on Fair Gallowa from Arnish Light.

 RG:  OK, it’s a good song.

 CIAT:  A good song, a song of love.

 RG:  Definitely, even if he goes around it in a sneaky way, it’s still a song of love.

Gallowa is Burns country on the southwest of Scotland

 CIAT: Oh, I thought it was in Ireland, Gallowa in Ireland?

 RG: Galway is in Ireland.  World famous for its Bay.

 CIAT:  Oh how embarrassing.  Exposing my geographic ignorance like that.

 RG:  You wouldn’t be the first to make that mistake. 

CIAT:  I find a lot of people come over from Great Britain and they are just amazed at the size of North America.

 RG: I heard a story once about a guy whose daughter was flying from Glasgow to Gander.  And he had a brother in Vancouver. So he wrote to his brother and said “Will you please pick my daughter up at the airport”.  And the brother wrote back and said “you pick her up, you’re closer”

 CIAT:  Thanks so much, Roy.  Have a really good show, and have a good trip up to Vancouver.

 RG:  We’ll see you all soon.

 Tune in Celt In A Twist,  Sundays @ 4pm on AM 1470 and planetwide at www.am1470.com.