Andy M Stewart: Acclaimed folk singer and songwriter who made his name as a member of the much-loved Silly Wizard
Stewart was a song interpreter, songwriter and raconteur, and achieved a place in the pantheon of Scottish musicians
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Your support makes all the difference.Andy M Stewart grew to become one of the most accomplished musicians of his generation in Scotland's protean folk scene of the 1970s and '80s. Coming to the fore first with Silly Wizard, as a song interpreter, songwriter and raconteur, he achieved a place in the pantheon of Scottish musicians.
A measure of their impact is that the Silly Wizard entry in Irwin and Lyndon Stambler's hefty Folk & Blues Encyclopedia (2001) is slightly longer than Simon & Garfunkel's. Later, he performed and recorded as a solo act and in an enduring partnership with Manus Lunny, the guitarist and bouzouki player with Moving Hearts and Capercaillie, and another with Patrick Street's Gerry O'Beirne.
Born Andrew Michael Stewart in 1952, he attended Blairgowrie High School, where he joined the house band for the school's folk club. Called Puddock's Well – a puddock is a frog – its pool of talent included three future members of Silly Wizard in Stewart, Dougie MacLean and Martin Hadden. Silly Wizard began life in 1972. Stewart joined in 1974, taking over on lead vocals, and stayed until they split in 1988.
As the band coalesced, they recruited the multi-instrumentalist Phil Cunningham. Stewart invited him to come down to their Liverpool base for a weekend, "got him very drunk" and had him choose between them or marrying his German fiancée ("We saved him!"). In Martin Hadden's case, after Stewart's approach he decided not to go to college. "And his mother threw me out o' the house," Stewart recalled in a 1982 interview with the Los Angeles-based folk magazine Folkscene.
Their music was firmly rooted in traditional Scottish styles but played on acoustic and electric instruments ranging from synthesiser to banjo, from electric bass to fiddle and piano-accordion. "About half of our music or more is self-written," he told Folkscene, "but it's done in the traditional style. Folk had been asking us where do we get tunes and where do we get songs, so we started to own up to having written 'em." The Andy M Stewart Songbook (1998) contained 60 of his own compositions.
The band's most striking non-musical element was its stage banter; their stream-of-consciousness song introductions were especially prized. Aside from informing audiences about what was coming next, Stewart and Cunningham in particular used each other as foils for wisecracks and spur-of-the-moment digressions. The sheer deliciousness of their stage repartee could give Billy Connolly a good run for his money.
Over their lifespan they released 10 studio or live albums – and even a single of the theme music to the Scottish television soap Take the High Road. Live Again, released in 2012, repackaged a 1983 concert recording from Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, Massachussetts; it reminds how strong their overseas followings were. Bar a partial reunion at Celtic Connections in Glasgow in February 2007, their final appearance took place in Voorheesville, New York in April 1988.
After their disbandment he launched a solo career, one highlight of which was his Songs of Robert Burns (1990). While it featured frequently encountered repertoire items such as "Is There for Honest Poverty (For A' That)", "Ae Fond Kiss" and "Red Red Rose", he branched out with more obscure fare like "Hey, Ca' Thro", "It Was A' for Our Rightfu' King", "The Lea-Rig" and "To the Weaver's Gin Ye Go".
In her Listener's Guide to Folk Music (1983), the Californian-based writer Sarah Lifton declared, "Nearly all the Scottish bands of note can boast excellent instrumentalists and at least one or two fine singers, but only Silly Wizard has all that and Andy Stewart."
Andrew Michael Stewart, folk singer, instrumentalist and songwriter: born Alyth, Perthshire 8 September 1952; married Kathy (marriage dissolved; one son); died Melrose, Roxburghshire 27 December 2015.
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