Jim Crawford (1914-2007)
first took the stage in the 1920s. He was turning 90 when he recorded Matured to Perfection -- which distills the essence of nine decades of music making. It is available in the U.S. and Canada from
CD Baby (audio samples available)
and in the UK from Concorde Music.
It is the 1920s ... the event a harvest home. A boy sits beside the fiddler, his father, and takes a turn on the melodeon. Jim Crawford has been playing Scottish music ever since. After a career as a dance band leader from the 1940s through the 1970s, he has returned to the melodeon, the instrument he held on his knee at that harvest home. Here Jim plays a Hohner Double-Ray, the match of one he bought in the 1930s at Forbes in Dundee, from a young man named Jimmy Shand.
The melodeon is a small, light instrument. Two sets of reeds, two rows of buttons, a thumb strap to connect the right hand to the box. But Jim said that you can play all of Scottish music on it, and on this CD he plays the traditional music with a freshness, vitality, and musical intelligence that unite flawless technique with a deep feeling for the music.
For this CD, Jim selected tunes that suit the melodeon. Some are old, of the era when young men took pride in ploughing a good rig. Some will be "new" to fans of traditional music. His own composition "The July Fair" conveys his childhood memories of the annual Milnathort market, which he explored from his home on a nearby farm. Listen for the sounds and sights of the fair — German bands and carousels. And two of the "new" tunes are waltzes Jim remembers his father playing. When you listen, picture the young boy beside his father, nine decades ago, at the harvest home.
"In my young time, amongst the country folk, if you could plough a good rig and be a good player o' a melodeon, well you were
somebody kind o' special." - Jim Crawford
Born on 14 April 1914, Jim Crawford grew up in a farming family, the oldest of nine children. Jim recalled hearing Scottish music ever since he was a small boy. Most especially Jim remembered the ploughmen going about their work singing and whistling tunes.
Jim first went to work as a ploughman. By the time he was 18, he was also playing regularly at local concerts. Forming bands to play for country dances naturally developed from there.
The war years saw Jim leave the land to work for the railway, marry his wife Ella in 1939, and move to Edentown, Fife. During these years Jim and Ella ran weekly Saturday night dances. Jim won the solo Scottish championship in the Perth National Accordion competition in 1954. Shortly after this, he acquired a Shand Morino button key accordion from Jimmy Shand, which he played for over thirty years in his own broadcasting dance band. During the 1950s and 1960s he appeared regularly, live, on BBC Radio Scotland.
Jim returned to the melodeon in later life, intrigued by the sound it produces and by the skill of those early players. He said that "you can play all the Scottish tunes ever written, with the two row melodeon." In this collection of tunes, you will hear the "traditional sound" given new life. With the sensitive accompaniment provided by Graham Berry on piano, you will hear why the “wee melodeon� that Jim is so fond of playing is well worth carrying into the future.
Although Graham records with many bands, the connection with Jim is special. Graham has known his "Uncle Jim all his life. Graham’s father Jim went along to Jim Crawford for tuition early in his musical career. Some of Graham’s earliest memories of music-making are of Jim and Ella Crawford's visits to the Berry home, and of his father and Jim having a tune in the Crawfords' sitting room.
Matured to Perfection
All tunes traditional unless otherwise noted.
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