Sir James Shand MBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (28 January 1908 – 23 December 2000) was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 musician who played traditional Scottish dance music on the accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

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Early life

James Shand was born in East Wemyss

East Wemyss

East Wemyss is a village situated on the south coast of the Kingdom of Fife, Scotland. In the United Kingdom Census 2001 the population was recorded as 1841.- History :...

 in Fife

Fife

Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...

, son of a farm ploughman turned miner and one of nine children. The family soon moved to the burgh

Burgh

A burgh was an autonomous corporate entity in Scotland and Northern England, usually a town. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burgh status was broadly analogous to borough status, found in the rest of the United...

 of Auchtermuchty

Auchtermuchty

Auchtermuchty is a town in Fife, Scotland, situated beside Pitlour Hill nine miles north of Glenrothes. Until 1975 it was a royal burgh, established under charter of King James V in 1517. There is evidence of human habitation in the area dating back over 2,000 years, and the Romans are known to...

.The town now boasts a larger than life-sized sculpture of Shand. His father was a skilled melodeon

Melodeon (organ)

A melodeon is a type of 19th century reed organ with a foot-operated vacuum bellows, and a piano keyboard. It differs from the related harmonium, which uses a pressure bellows. Melodeons were manufactured in the United States sometime after 1812 until the Civil War era...

 player. Jimmy started with the mouth organ and soon played the fiddle. At the age of 14 he had to leave school and go down the mines. He played at social events and competitions. His enthusiasm for motor-bikes turned to an advantage when he played for events all round Fife. In 1926 he did benefit gigs for striking miners and was consequently prevented from returning to colliery work. One day Jimmy and a friend were admiring the instruments in the window of Forbes' Music Shop in Dundee. His friend said "It wouldn't cost you to try one". Jimmy walked in and strapped on an accordion. The owner, Charles Forbes, heard Jimmy and immediately offered him a job as travelling salesman and debt-collector. He soon acquired a van and drove all over the north of Scotland. He switched to the British chromatic button accordion, an instrument he stuck with for the rest of his life.

Early musical career

He failed an audition for the BBC because he kept time with his foot. At a time when gramophones were very much luxury items he made two records for the Regal Zonophone label in 1933. His career took off when he switched to making 78s for the Beltona

Beltona Records

Beltona Records is a British record label founded in 1923, producing recordings 'of a mainly Scottish interest'. The company's early history began with 78rpm gramophone records of traditional Scottish music. They produced music common of the time, i.e. dance and barn music. Typical instrumentation...

 label (1935–1940). Most of the Beltona recordings were solo, but he experimented with small bands. This boosted sales. He appeared in a promo film shown in cinemas. While the image showed his fingers moving in a blur, Jimmy was disappointed to hear the sound track playing a slow air. He was prevented from joining the RAF by a digestive disorder, and spent the war years in the Fire Service. On New Year's morning on 1945 he made his first broadcast with "Jimmy Shand and Band". This was the first of many such BBC radio and television appearances.

Works

Soon after the war he became a full-time musician and adopted a punishing life-style later adopted by rock bands. He would play Inverness one night, London the next night and still drive the van back, at breakneck speed, to bed in Dundee. He took his trademark bald head, Buddy Holly specs and full kilted regalia, Scottish reels, waltzes, jigs and strathspeys to North America, Australia and New Zealand, including Carnegie Hall in New York. Now on the EMI/ Parlophone label, he released one single per month in the mid fifties, including his only top 20 hit - "The Bluebell Polka" (1955). It was produced by George Martin

George Martin

Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...

, who was later to work with the Beatles. He was awarded an MBE in 1962. This period is remembered affectionately by Richard Thompson, who played Shand tunes on Henry the Human Fly and Strict Tempo. In 1991, Thompson paid tribute to Shand with an original song, "Don't Sit on My Jimmy Shands".

"Call me precious I don't mind

78s are hard to find

You just can't get the shellac since the war

This one's the Beltona brand

Finest label in the land

They don't make them like that any more"

— "Don't Sit on My Jimmy Shands" by Richard Thompson

In 1972 Shand went into semi-retirement. From then he played only small venues in out-of-the-way places for a reduced fee. He was made a freeman of Auchtermuchty in 1974, North East Fife in 1980 and Fife in 1998. He became Sir Jimmy Shand in 1999. His portrait is in the Scottish National Gallery, close to Niel Gow

Niel Gow

Niel Gow was the most famous Scottish fiddler and dancie of the eighteenth century.-Biography:...

. In 1983 he released a retrospective album with the cheeky title The First 50 years. At the age of 88 he recorded an album and video with his son, Dancing with the Shands. His signature tune was "The Bluebell Polka".

More than 330 compositions are credited to Jimmy Shand. He recorded more tracks than the Beatles and Elvis Presley combined. In 1985, British Rail

British Rail

British Railways , which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the operator of most of the rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the "Big Four" British railway companies and lasted until the gradual privatisation of British Rail, in stages...

 named a locomotive Jimmy Shand. He was dissatisfied with the chromatic button-key accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

s available on the market in the 1940s so he designed his own one. The Hohner

Hohner

Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG is a company specialising in the manufacture of musical instruments. Founded in 1857 by Matthias Hohner , Hohner is identified especially with harmonicas and accordions. The Hohner company has invented and produced many different styles, and most of the...

 company still manufactures the "Shand Morino" to his specifications. There is a biography The Jimmy Shand Story: The King of Scottish Dance Music by Ian Cameron (2001). A number of his older recordings have been re-released by Beltona Records

Beltona Records

Beltona Records is a British record label founded in 1923, producing recordings 'of a mainly Scottish interest'. The company's early history began with 78rpm gramophone records of traditional Scottish music. They produced music common of the time, i.e. dance and barn music. Typical instrumentation...

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External links

• The Beltona Record Company - Jimmy Shand
• http://www.jimmyshand.co.uk
• http://www.jimmyshand.com