Ossian at St Andrews Folk Club 28-11-76 (artiste only)

Formed in 1976, Ossian was one of Scotland's best-loved folk bands.

Initially comprising Billy Ross and former members of Contraband: Billy Jackson, John Martin, and George Jackson the group featured at the 1976 Kinross Festival. (This audio recording is from later that year). All multi-instrumentalists and singers, their arrangements were meticulous, and their songs performed in English, Scots, and Gaelic.
As instrumentalists, Billy Jackson played clarsach, uilleann pipes and whistle, George mandolin and guitar, John Martin fiddle and cello, with Billy Ross the main singer with his extensive repertoire of Gaelic and Scots song, Billy also played guitar, dulcimer and whistle. Later the band would be joined by singer-guitarist Tony Cuffe, who together with Billy Ross would be responsible for many of the bands musical arrangements, and for a short time Ossian became a dual vocalist group. Billy Ross subsequently left to pursue a solo career, Tony becoming the groups main vocalist.
Ossian went on to record some very fine albums and achieve wide international acclaim.

Among their albums, mainly recorded on their own Iona Records label, are

OSSIAN—released on the Autogram label (ALLP-123) reissued Springthyme (SPR1004) 1977
ST KILDA WEDDING – Iona (IR001) 1978
SEAL SONG – Iona (IR002) 1981
DOVE ACROSS THE WATER – Iona (IR004) 1982
BORDERS - Iona (IR007) 1984
LIGHT ON A DISTANT SHORE – Iona (IR009) 1986
THE BEST OF OSSIAN – Iona (IRCD023) 1994
THE CARRYING STREAM – Greentrax (CDTRAX127) 1997

The group disbanded to pursue individual projects in 1989.
Billy Jackson established a new form of “folk orchestra” with his Wellpark Suite and went on to compose further pieces as well as performing solo and recording his own albums.
John Martin and Iain MacDonald both went on to pursue further band careers, Martin with the Easy Club and the Tannahill Weavers, MacDonald with the Battlefield Band.
George Jackson, pursued various projects including theatre work, community music development and opened his Ossian records shop in Glasgow, where he died suddenly in 1998.
Tony Cuffe, released a solo album, When First I went to Caledonia, in 1988 on the Iona/Lismor label (IRCD011) and moved to the United States, where he died in 2001. A posthumous record of some of his finest songs was released by Greentrax (CDTRAX243) in 2003.

[Note: This upload is of the band’s set recorded at St Andrews Folk Club on the 28th November 1976. Unfortunately there are parts of the recording which fall below par. However as a rare insight into the band’s early days the audio track had been uploaded in full – it is hoped this will not spoil listener’s enjoyment. Not many photos relating to the bands early line up could be found and thanks are due to Kenny Hadden for permitting screen shots from his YouTube uploads to be plagiarized! The photos used therefore DO NOT conform to the band’s line-up at the time of recording.
Kenny’s videos can be found at    / @douglashadden2172