I grew up on the Isles of Skye and Lewis in a family where everybody sang - my parents, three sisters, and most of our friends. At the age of 20 I emigrated and lived for nine years in Newfoundland, paradise to a folk musician.“In the Sunny Long Ago” recreates some of these kitchen sessions when we¹d swap songs and bring out the Old favourites. It was recorded on two weekends in Mull with friends from two other singing families. Somehow the late nights seem much later to me than they once did, but I delight in the enthusiasm of the new generation: Gillian, Findlay, Hamish and Martyn.
Margaret has sung at folk festivals and concerts world-wide and, as one of the world's foremost authorities on Scottish Folklore, she features in several films, TV documentaries and on radio. Margaret has a post-graduate MA in Folklore and a PhD in Ethnology and currently holds an honorary Research Fellowship at the University of Glasgow School of Scottish and Celtic Studies. A prize-winning author, she has published several books and articles, and, as the great Scottish folklorist Hamish Henderson writes:
“She is a folksinger of great sensitivity and versatility, and is undoubtedly one of the major figures of the modern Scottish Revival. There can be few scholars on either side of the Atlantic who succeed in combining such a wide range of skills as Margaret Bennett. Margaret embodies all that is best of the spirit of Scotland.”
Selected Awards:
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society award in January 1994 'for notable service...rendered to the people of Scotland'.
Master Music Maker Award in celebration of a lifetime of musicianship and teaching, North Carolina, USA, 1998. (The award was presented to Tom Paxton in 1997 and Ralph Blizzard in 1995)
"Exceptional Celtic Woman Award" was given to Scottish folklorist, author and singer Margaret Bennett in Toronto in 2003 for her lifelong service to Scottish and Celtic Culture by Celtic Women International
Margaret Bennett can also be heard singing in Gaelic on acclaimed CD Glen Lyon
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