Aberdeen and Dundee (among a host of others) are currently locking horns for the title of "UK City of Culture 2017". Aside from the fact that I sincerely hope there will not be a "UK" in 2017 I would have to come out in favour of Dundee.
Dundee has Dundee Contemporary Arts, The Dundee Rep Theatre, its going to have the V&A Extension museum. Dundee has a rich and varied tradition of working class and in particular women's cultural endeavour. It also has William McGonagall, "poet and tragedian".
Dundee's music is second to none. It is home to the Dundee Blues Bonanza, the biggest free Blues event in Europe. It spawned a whole heap of bands from the Associates and the Average White Band to Deacon Blue through Skeets Bolivar.
The traddie music crowd are also active and Jazzers abound. I must put down the old joke about Dundee and its accent. This is the place where Jazz is "a film aboot a shark".
Dundee singer and songwriter Michael Marra carved a place for himself and his work in the hearts of many. Quintessentially Dundee, his songs were also songs for the world. My favourite is "Frida Kahlo's Visit To The Tay Bridge Bar".
From a gloriously unlikely flight of fancy, (Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist dies and goes to heaven. St Peter is busy and to pass the time till she can get in she pays a visit to the Tay Bridge Bar in Dundee) the song proceeds to the most universal affirmation of life and the triumph over pain and death. I love it.
As part of her visit, Frida has a "dance with Jimmy Howie in the pale moonlight". Jimmy Howie was the sort of character that deserves immortality. Jimmy was an artist for his day job. A super artist who painted wonderful works.
When not painting he danced. He was a wonderful dancer. When my band used to play the Saturday afternoon blues sessions in the former Dexters (now called Non-Zeros and still putting on great bands) we always used to look forward to seeing Jimmy Howie cut up the dance floor with a selection of incredibly good-looking young women.
Jimmy would move like a cat. Prowling around his partner. Always dressed in black. Jimmy was in his seventies at the time. A true force of nature.
Both Jimmy Howie and Michael Marra have been taken from us.
Somewhere there is a picture of Michael Marra and myself posing under a gable-end mural of King Billy on his horse. The irony would be apparent to anyone who knew us. The picture was taken in Donaghadee in Ireland. We were both playing at the Donaghadee Folk Festival sometime in the late 1990's.
Mick was playing a solo show and I was deputising on fiddle with a ceilidh band from Edinburgh. There was a Scottish theme to Donaghadee's Folk Festival that year. I often wish I had a copy of that photograph.
I have few regrets in life. One is the knowledge that I will never now be name checked in a Michael Marra song.
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