Jamie Smith writes: I started playing the piano at the age of six, then took up the violin at eight. I spent my early teenage years playing in the Hillhead Strings orchestra: once a year we spent a week of intensive practise at Castle Toward near Dunoon. Its beautiful setting was a real inspiration, and we were overseen by the wonderful John Maxwell Geddes.
Folk music began at the age of 13, when I joined the Glasgow Fiddle Workshop in its early days under Jo miller. Traditional music had always been around in the family, if only on tape. My parents used to play, among others, a lot of Patrick Street, Paul Brady, Planxty and De Danann, as well as Scottish artists like Dougie MacLean and Dick Gaughan.
Don’t ask me what my style is: if anything it’s an amalgamation of all the fiddle players I’ve listened to over the years. To name but a few, I would count among my influences: Kevin Burke, Paddy Glackin, Frankie Gavin, Liz Carroll, Matt Cranitch, Martin Hayes and Tommy Peoples. In 1995, on a particularly wet holiday to Skye, my mum bought me Matt Cranitch’s excellent tutor, appropriately titled ‘The Irish Fiddle Book’. I ploughed through it and have never looked back since.
Several years spent with the Inishowen Ceili Band took me to every conceivable corner (and every church hall!) of the Central Belt of Scotland. I also formed my own band, The Broken Peg, and we became stalwarts of student ceilidhs around Glasgow. I competed in the yearly Irish music competitions for a couple of years, winning senior fiddle in the all-Britain fleadh in ’98 and ’99.
1998 was about the time I made some of my longest-lasting musical friendships. Lawrence McElhinney, an outstanding button accordion player, introduced me to the Glasgow session scene. He also took me regularly over to Edinburgh and the heady sounds and atmosphere of the sessions on the Royal Mile. Thus I met folk like Aidan O’Rourke, Kathryn Nicol, Freddie Thomson, Chris Drever, Eilidh Shaw and Malcolm Stitt. I remember thinking, ‘will I ever be able to play at that speed?’. The answer to this day is still, on the whole, ‘no’.
I also met Sean O’Donnell around this time, who’d landed in Glasgow from Derry seeking fame and fortune. Sean had a rock music background but he picked up the backing for folk music at a terrifying pace and is still finding new and inventive accompaniments to this day.
In late 2000 Sean and I got together with Padraig O’Neill, a recent refugee from Kerry. We called the band 'Benêche' – a bizarre name from my history degree, but it stuck. A demo recorded that November became a full-length album, which we released in January 2003.
That same month at Celtic Connections, the band won a Danny Kyle Open Stage award, and Benêche took on an additional member in the form of Martin O’Neill. Martin is a terrific bodhran player who has wowed audiences with his skills all over the world. We were extremely grateful to have him in the band.
I’ve toured quite a bit with Benêche. Highlights would include the Orkney and Shetland folk festivals, Celtic Connections alongside the Dubliners, excursions to Manchester and Wales, and of course Lorient in summer 2004. 2005 was a hectic year though, with my new job at Channel 4 News sapping my energy levels. But starting in February that year I began recording towards my first, and hopefully not my last, solo album. It’s now finally out so I hope you enjoy it.
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