The 1970s Tribute Pipe Band

We have a really special treat for all pipers and drummers  at the All-Ireland Pipe Band Championships in Newbridge House on Saturday 6^th July, apart from all the wonderful competitive bands that will be performing on the day.

At 3.30 p.m. , between the Grade 1 MSR and the Grade 1 Medley competition , with the assistance of McCAllum Bagpipes, we will host a performance of the 1970’s Tribute Pipe Band !

What is that all about ??

It’s a wee bit of pipe band history and every enthusiast of pipe bands should tune in to.

Here’s a YouTube video of the band and how it came into being. 

All pipers and drummers today are familiar with the format of the World Pipe Band Championships. Medley competitions and MSR competitions .

However, it was not until 1970 that musical medley competitions were introduced at RSPBA Major Championships, when the concept of ‘ensemble’ adjudication was also introduced.

View a copy of the 1970 World Pipe Band Championship Printed Programme of Events.  

When the medley was introduced, Pipe Majors and Lead Drummers were presented with the opportunity of creating performances which would reflect their particular musical tastes. Bands began to seek out newly composed tunes , resurrect some of the simpler strathspeys and reels, and jigs, and pipers  began to introduce harmonies to their tunes. Drummer really began to get into a more creative mode and the raising of the pitch of chanters and drums had begun.

Shotts and Dykenead Caledonia, for example,  opened their Worlds performance in 1973 with a march composed by Tom Muirhead, an accordion player.

The 1970’s Tribute Ensemble ensemble, under the direction of David Caldwell and John Scullion will recreate the winning medley of Shotts & Dykehead at the World Championships 1973.

Compared to today’s standard of medley , the 1973 medley was quite simple in structure.

• Peter McKenzie Warren – 4/4 March
• Loch Broom Bay – Slow Air
• Dalnahassaig – Strathspey
• O’er The Bows to Ballindalloch – Strathspey
• Lord James Murrav – Reel
• The Linen Cap -Reel
• Jimmy Tweedies Sealegs – Hornpipe

And that was it. Shotts and Dykehead Caledonia Pipe Band won the World Grade 1 Championships in 1973 under the direction of Pipe Major Tom McAllister and Lead Drummer Alex Duthart with the above medley.

The results on the day of the grade 1 contest at the Worlds in 1973 were:

1. Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia
   2. Muirheads & Sons
   3. Edinburgh City Police Pipe Band
   4. City of Glasgow Police
   5. Red Hackle

Please, do come along and witness this performance on Saturday which is of historic and cultural significance !

A personal note.

As a 16 year old piper in 1970, I remember listening to a broadcast on a ‘transistor’ radio ( I hear ye all asking what the hell was that ! ) . I think it was a live broadcast although it more likely may have been a recording. It was from the World Pipe Band Championships in Scotland.  It was the first time I had ever heard a band playing a medley and I was mesmerised. I subsequently managed to buy vinyl records in Waltons Music Store in Dublin of Shotts and Dykehead PB, Muirhead & Sons PB , and the Red Hackle PB.

It’s difficult to describe the excitement of a novice piping teenager at hearing these sounds for the first time. In Ireland of that time I had the great privilege of  living on a diet of the newly forming waves of local Irish talented musicians and  groups such as Planxty, the Chieftains, Rory Gallagher, Horslips, Gary Moore, etc. I loved traditional Irish, my electric folk music, my rock and blues and alternative music. (I still do !) and I remember feeling just a wee bit cornered musically by all the marches my pipe major was teaching me in the band room. I was under the impression that a pipe band could do nothing else but march and play 3/4s, 4/4s , 6/8s , 9/8s, etc.

I was picking up jigs, strathspeys and reels from the Scots Guards Book 1 (newly published back then) and the Queen’s Own Highlanders book but I was only playing those tunes while busking for new band equipment in the local pubs, etc.   Waltons music store in Dublin  had produced a book of settings of Irish tunes, and some of the younger guys in the band were beginning to grapple with the Irish repertoire. But, it was all quite regimented back then. Terry Tully won’t mind me mentioning that he grew up during those same years and we possibly bought the very same books ! And thankfully , Terry went on to master medleys which balanced the traditional Irish and the traditional Scottish music and of course has produced 5 wonderful books of traditional Irish music and newly composed tunes for medley playing.

The introduction of the medley really opened up pipe band music for me and generations of young pipers and drummers and very importantly for public audiences. It was a real milestone in the history of pipe bands.

Brian Mac Mahon , Chairman IPBA.