Now I sing Scots and Irish songs. For many years I’ve also written my own songs where I have tried for several years, to fill in some gaps in the historical conundrum of Scotland.

My musical traditions stretch back across several generations. I’m the son of the
Edinburgh band leader, Ken Herbertson, who gave gave me an early introduction to
Swing music. I was bottle fed to ‘Songs for Swinging Lovers ‘, which explains a lot
of the contradictions in my music. My uncle Doug, played harmonica in a Skiffle
band. My mother always sang in the kitchen. On my father’s side of the family, my
grandparents performed in theatre and vaudeville, on my mother’s, they were self
taught musicians and like most of Scotland could always sing a bit if pressed. My
grandmother was a friend of Harry Lauder, folk world nemesis, but I’ve always
thought a bit more Music hall would send a refreshing breeze through the Traditional
music scene. (Plenty of people are glad I’m in the minority). My grandfather, Jock,
played the fiddle and English concertina. He was a journalist. One of his Edinburgh
Evening News articles reveals that my Great Grandmother’s favourite party piece was
‘The Rowan Tree.’

In my youth I played in experimental bands including the Scottish New Wave band ‘The Androids’, reviewed in NME and called ‘surprisingly good’ in the definitive guide to punk, ’45 Revolutions’. The Late John Peel, was kind enough to give us air play on BBC Radio 1. I met him in Liverpool once and had the chance to thank him. After The Androids split up I played with a variety of bands including ‘The Keltix’ whose songs were featured on BBC radio and television.

Latterly, I was invited to join the spectacular dance show ‘Celtic Life’. It toured
Germany and also afforded me the opportunity to sing Loch Lomond at Hopetoun house supporting Chris De Burg. As an exile, this is surprisingly more fun than you could guess and there is nothing like a free trip home to make the job seem worthwhile. The show stimulated me to record solo CD’s. The most recent being a Scottish Trilogy: ‘Hearts of Glory’, ‘ ‘Lord of Whisky’ and ‘A Health to the Ladies’. Thankfully, they have all received good critical reviews.

I’ve had many exciting gigs in my time: played for several Irish Ambassadors, a
British Ambassador,millionaires, company directors, mulitnational firms and big folk
festivals, Tynecastle park in front of nearly twenty thousand but regardless of
whether I played in the streets of Paris to a single homeless bloke or a crowd of
thousands the thing for me is always the music itself and the pleasure it gives.