Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
An entertainer and comedian known for outrageous stand-up, also acclaimed as an actor in films like Mrs. Brown.
On the island
Eight records
And it's a song called Bridgeton, and it's about an area in Glasgow where Frankie comes from, and he says so many things in the song. That I would if I was going to write a song about Glasgow, I would want to say it, but it's too late now. Frankie's done it.
I chose this because it reminds me of my youth, of the dance hall era. Because this marked the end of the holding on to each other, dancing. That means a great deal to me.
The third rag is about John Lennon. Imagine John, if I have a favourite performer, it's John Lennon, and I think this is just a lovely thing.
This is uh a Beatles. I must have a Beatles in its surrounder universe. I just I I want this to remind me of that lovely sixties era that the Beatles almost single-handedly created.
This is by the Albion dance band Postman's Knock and uh it's very typically English music and I like it very much. And they've been so nice on the tour. They they've been the support band on the tour.
I chose it because I used to play this type of music, the sort of Carter family and Appalachian mountain stuff. And also when I'm doing radio shows, this is the one uh I put in f for my wife, Iris, because she also likes this type of music.
Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word
I chose it because it's a it's a rather splendid song, but he's a bit special to me, Elton. With I was his support in America last year.
At the Ball, That's AllFavourite
I think it's absolutely sp what I love about their records, when I play it, I can see them. I can see them doing that silly dancing. holding on to the coat and stepping out.
Earl Scruggs is the best banjo player in the world. He invented this style that he plays in, and Lester Flatt was the guitarist. When I found them, I found my my kind of purpose. I thought that's what I want to play.
The Regimental Band and Pipes and Drums of the Scots Guards
This is Over the Sea to Sky, the Skyboat song, which is the first song I remember liking. On the radio when I was a wee boy, it was the first song I remember made me jump out my chair and march around or dance, jump up and down.
Long Gone Lonesome BluesFavourite
Oh, gri this is this is my lifestyle hero, Hank Williams. On the back of his albums, he had a wee man called Luke the Drifter. He was just a little drawing with a guitar over his shoulder, walking into the sunset, and I thought that's who I'd like to be.
Oh, now talk about getting out of jail. This is little Richard Tooty Frutti. Now, when this happened in around 1957. I was at the Brownies' dance and one of the big girl guides had had this. Well, it was an Elvis record she had, but this was there as well, and this is the one that blew me. Up until then it had been truly, truly fair and all that. And then this came along and I thought, oh, life begins here.
Oh, this is the most beautiful thing. And it remi it's across the universe by the Beatles, but it reminds me so much of John Lennon. I just love the chorus.
Now, I love him, I love his songs. I've been on television with him and I've met him and stuff and and he never knows me when he meets me and we always part, the best of friends. And this is a wee song my girls like. It's called Highlands or My Heart's in the Highlands, because he mentions Aberdeen and we've got a house in Aberdeenshire.
It's by Bob Devereux and Clive Palmer. Now Clive is a wonderful banjo player and he was part of the incredible string band in the seventies that just blew me away. And this is a piece called The Morris Room written by Bob Devereux, who's doing the talking on here.
Oh, now this is by Roy Orbison, and I had the great privilege of meeting him in an elevator in Sydney, Australia. This is Only the Lonely, and I love it. It was always the last record at the dancing. This was the cheek to cheek.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:32What would you be happiest to have left behind if you're stuck on this desert island right away from civilization?
I think possibly I would like to leave my own records behind. I have this total aversion to my own stuff. ... I just can't play them. I find it absolutely impossible. ... I've come to the conclusion now that the best thing to do is just leave them out of the house altogether. I can't stand it, they embarrass me.
Presenter asks
1:10Could you endure loneliness?
I think up until about two years ago I couldn't, but now I I rather enjoy solitude. ... when I'm on tour I just sit in my room all day myself, read books and
Presenter asks
3:39When did you discover [music]? When did you start to get interested in the guitar and the banjo?
I didn't start playing until I was about twenty one or twenty two. It was very late, you know. ... And uh it was a television programme. ... E de Beverly Hill Belise. ... And the introduction music to that, uh On the banjo, I thought, Oh, I'd like to play that So I went and bought a banjo. It cost me two pounds in the marketplace, the barrows in Glasgow.
The keepsakes
The book
Presenter asks
5:12What was the first occasion in which you were paid to sing or entertain?
There was a Glasgow singer called Matt McGinn who died this year. ... And he had a gig ... And he said, Would you like ... to come with me and play banjo? And I went and there was uh three of us at the time, we were in a little band and we backed Matt that night and the guy gave us a pound and we got six and eight pence each. That was my first fee.
Presenter asks
12:01How much do you vary your material for different parts of the country?
I don't vary it a great deal. I I I don't adjust it to suit any particular types of people. I think uh if I'm on stage I should do the leading.
Presenter asks
9:04Why and how were you made to feel so worthless and so useless [during your childhood]?
My mother left when I was four. … Germans were bombing the town. My father was in India. And we lived in a slum place … in Glasgow. … Auntie Mona, she liked to humiliate me. She just she loved to humiliate me and every day she would tell me that I was stupid and worthless and and she would like she would like to do it in front of people and stuff. And then we'd go to school and I'd get this monster of a teacher, you know, big Rosie MacDonald. And she got such joy from whacking people with this leather belt.
Presenter asks
15:39Does it make you feel better or worse confronting yourself with the real facts [of your past]?
That makes you feel much better. … Yeah, because you're carrying it around like a rucksack full of bricks for your whole life. And the more you do it, the more you feel you've got something to hide … And so you get a guilt from it that you really shouldn't have because you were the victim of something. … I've dumped it, but it isn't so long since I've dumped it, but I feel as if I'm out of jail. … There was a kin of film over me and it's gone.
Presenter asks
26:37Why didn't you come back [from America]?
Because I I was very comfortable where I was. I've always said home is where the mortgage is. You know, you just go home. Home is a place where you're allowed to be boring, basically, and sit in your bum and smoke your cigars and play your banjo.
Presenter asks
27:25Do you pinch yourself and think, "My God, I've come a long way"?
Indeed. Yeah, yeah. You know, I stand on my deck looking down San Fernando Valley. Or when we arrive in Scotland and we drive up the driveway of my place. It's a big long driveway with those stone mushrooms, you know, looking up. And then this big house at the end with turrets and flags and all and rolling like a lock in the garden.
“I think possibly I would like to leave my own records behind. I have this total aversion to my own stuff. ... I just can't play them. I find it absolutely impossible. ... I can't stand it, they embarrass me.”
“I think up until about two years ago I couldn't, but now I I rather enjoy solitude.”
“I didn't start playing until I was about twenty one or twenty two. It was very late, you know.”
“I don't set out to be a hell raiser, but things I think are normal seem to raise a bit of hell with the beige crowd, you know.”
“Humiliation is forever. It takes you so long to get over it. It takes your whole life.”
“I call a spade a spade when I'm on stage and I and if I talk about sex, I'm talking about sex and bits of the body that are funny. … I embarrass dirty people.”
“I'm never, never lonely. I'm never lonely. … I love being alone. I like it.”