I'm so sorry to hear the news about Iain. In the days when I was running the Edinburgh Folk Festival he was a constant source of support, often coming up in Sandy Bell's to offer an idea or an observation on the running of things. He loved the open stages, and would get a tune going at any point in the day when there was a lull or an interesting looking newcomer. He embodied the spirit of that festival in many ways.
One of my fondest memories of him was in connection with a concert we produced a couple of times. The Flowers of Edinburgh, as we named it, was a showcase of the many great musicians, well known and not so well known, who live and play in the city. At the second of these I asked Iain if he would start things off with the tune the Flowers of Edinburgh, and anything else he cared to add. He walked out on to the stage unheralded, to the evident bemusement of many in the audience who didn't know him, walked up to the mike with his moothie and played the Flooers twice through and nothing else, a perfect miniature, and wandered off again with that classic rolling gait and a farewell wave. 'You could have played more if you'd wanted,' I said to him. 'Ach,' he said, 'I thought that would be fine to get it started. Besides they're no interested in me.' So modest, and so wrong. There were few better moothie players and few greater characters. I said that he seemed to embody the spirit of one particular festival. I'd go further. The spirit of Scottish traditional music itself. David Francis Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
