|
|
The Stamping Ground harmonica man, Fraser Speirs, fronted a stellar cast at Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall as one of the highlights of the city's annual Celtic Connections festival in January 2000. According to Rod, there wasn't much Celtic on offer, but there were lots of good turns, including Rab Noakes, James Grant, and Carol Kidd, as well as of course, Rod himself. According to the sleeve notes of the resulting album, 'Rod Clements adds extra atmosphere on electric slide and dobro.' Rod contributed his own arrangement of the traditional classic Steel Guitar Rag (referred to on the sleeve simply as Guitar Rag) as his party piece. |
Rod has also appeared in concert with Fraser Speirs' Blues Cruisers. In fact, this is a sort of generic name, for whatever backing line-up Fraser happens to be using at any given time, a sort of north-of-the-border equivalent of John Mayall's Blues Breakers, perhaps.
At least one other collaboration between Rod and Fraser, the Rough Riders, merits a special mention. Rod takes up the story:
'This band only did one gig, in summer '95 at the King's Head in Allendale, Northumberland, at the behest of the then-owner Jim Semmence (who now owns & runs Newcastle Opera House). He had the Varaflames for their only non-Scottish gig (Jan 95), heard that me & Fraser were up to something, asked us to come & be a blues band, & insisted we think of a name. The line-up was Fraser, me, Ray Laidlaw and Ian Thomson. The name is from a Webb Wilder instrumental that I played with Pacamax, and with the One Track Mind band.'
|