The Ullapool Guitar Festival is a unique event, held annually in early October, which provides a rare opportunity for guitarists of all styles and their followers to get together in the beautiful surroundings of this small but busy port on the north-west coast of Scotland. I’d already heard good reports of previous years’ events, so when I was invited to be part of the 2005 festival I didn’t need much persuading to accept.
Marie & I set off on Friday, our journey north broken by a gig in Dingwall that night with fellow Foxy Music artists Emily Druce and Steve Jones, also Ullapool-bound. The final leg of the journey next morning was the drive from the east to the west coast, taking us through stunning scenery resplendent in its autumn colours.
We arrived in Ullapool at lunchtime on Saturday to find the festival already in full swing. As we checked into our lodgings at the Ceilidh Place - one of the hubs of the festival’s activities - the familiar figure of Robbie MacIntosh appeared out of the sea of diners in the coffee shop to greet us. A festival regular since its inception half a dozen years ago, he was there with his family and had just come from running a workshop with Martin Simpson. I hadn’t seen Robbie since we played together on Thea Gilmore’s Songs from the Gutter album a couple of years ago, and this chance reunion typified the spirit of the weekend.
The Ceilidh Place, where we were staying (along with Emily, Steve and several other performers), combines the functions of hotel, restaurant, coffee shop, pub, bookshop, performance space and information centre. It’s a regular gig all the year round, which Marie and I had enjoyed doing on our first trip to the Highlands in June 2004.
Our first task, having checked into our comfortable, bunkhouse-style room, was to check the festival timetable to ascertain when and where I was supposed to be playing. The festival is arranged around several venues, all within walking distance of each other, with the afternoons given over to half-hour sessions in the hotel bars, and the evenings to more formal concerts in larger venues. I was down for four afternoon slots, two each day, the first - at two o’clock - rapidly approaching.
The streets of Ullapool are laid out on a simple grid pattern, which is fortunate for wandering guitar-players looking for their next venue, and the organisers had thoughtfully provided - along with the timetable and dinner vouchers - a small card bearing a town plan with each venue clearly marked. So we easily found our way to my first port of call, the Argyll Hotel. There was a small PA system set up ready in the bar and an expectant audience waiting (my predecessor having unfortunately failed to arrive), so once supplied with coffee, I got straight into it. I kicked off with Blue Interior and half way through the first line realised that the tickly throat I’d been aware of all morning was not going to allow me to complete it without a radical alteration to the melody. This led to some hasty improvisation and, later, revision of the set-list and the key of certain songs. I reassured myself that it was a guitar festival, not a singing one, and by Sunday night I’d got to quite like the Leonard Cohen version of Meet Me On The Corner.
Anyway, my debut appearance was well received and we had time to catch up with another old friend before my next spot. There in the audience was Steve Carson from Cincinnati, who had provided gigs and hospitality on Lindisfarne’s U.S. tours. Steve was with his daughter Annie on a short tour of Scotland, and had been staying with John Renbourn, who was booked to appear at that night’s concert. We also met Middlesbrough ragtime maestro Eddie Walker who’d stopped off en route between his own appointments.
On to the Glenfield Hotel, a smaller audience (being the furthest venue from the centre), but a pleasant hotel bar with PA provided. We were there in time to see two interestingly contrasted players before it was my turn, the last of the afternoon. By now the modus operandi of the sessions was clear: you turn up, wait your turn, respond to your predecessor’s enquiry as to whether you’re there yet, and take over, giving and accepting whatever help you can in the self-drive PA department. Considering that guitarists can be quite catty about each other sometimes, there was a great deal of mutual support and everything ran very smoothly, amicably and no more than half an hour late by the end of the sessions.
Our day’s work done, we took the guitars and CDs back to our room at the Ceilidh Place, meeting up with Emily & Steve (who had been on a similar schedule) to compare notes on how the day had gone. Then it was off for an excellent meal (complimentary to artists) at the Seaforth Hotel, a busy pub and another venue on the festival circuit.
After dinner we walked up to the Village Hall for the evening concert. The hall is a simple, modern building with a lot of wood, glass and white rendering, an example of Ullapool’s "designer whaling station" style. We had evidently turned up at the end of an interval because immediately on arrival we were told by the door staff that we were "just in time", were hustled into the darkened hall and the door closed behind us.
The room, which must have held about 200, was packed to the walls with standing room only at the back, where we squeezed in near the door. It was dark and hot and the atmosphere was expectant. However, we didn’t have long to wait before John Renbourn emerged blinking on to the brightly lit stage.
I hadn’t seen John for many years, in fact not since a Bert Jansch tour in the early 80s when he decided that the passenger seat in my car would be more comfortable than the tour minibus. Since then contact between us has consisted entirely of regards left at various gigs and recording studios. I was looking forward to meeting him again, but it wasn’t to be this weekend. However it was good to see him play, and seated in his relaxed style, he gave a great performance mixing traditional songs like Lord Franklin with wry blues like Mose Allison’s I Ain’t Downhearted.
Martin Simpson took the stage not long after John had finished, as with such a wealth of talent on offer, things were inevitably running late. It turned out that we had missed earlier sets from John Smith and Milica Ilic. Unannounced, Martin began with an improvised sequence which developed into an atmospheric instrumental piece featuring the e-bow, a device more usually associated with electric guitar, which when held near the strings creates sympathetic vibrations causing them to resonate in a violin-like way. Like John, Martin combined traditional and blues elements in a masterful set, his slide work in Blind Willie Johnson’s I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes particularly impressive for its tone and accuracy.
We made our getaway just before the end, as we were beginning to feel the heat (and the absence of a bar), so after a quick nightcap on the way home, we headed off to bed.
Next morning, after an excellent and very civilised breakfast at the Ceilidh Place, we headed for the Caledonian Hotel where I was hoping to meet Steve Carson before he and Annie left for Inverness with John Renbourn. Unfortunately we’d missed them by a couple of hours. However we did get the chance to catch up with Martin Simpson and his sidekick Terry over coffee. We’d first met up at a festival in Wales a couple of years back when we were more or less the only people there, and bumped into each other a couple of times since.
After a quick lunch, it was back on the afternoon circuit and my first spot was at the Caledonian bar. A good-sized and good-humoured crowd obviously contained a couple of people who knew some of my songs. I was beginning to recognise some of the regular faces. Marie sold a couple more CDs and was comparing notes with Terry, who does the same job for Martin. My voice was not at its best but at least I knew what to expect, and having got the hang of the routine, I was definitely getting a taste for this life.
Then down to the Seaforth, where I was scheduled as the last afternoon session. Things were running late, but that just gave us time to relax and see a couple more acts than we’d expected. The bar was full and despite the fact that some people hadn’t come for the music, the atmosphere was friendly, the PA worked and enough people paid attention for us all to have a good time. We met a couple from Switzerland who were touring the Highlands and hadn’t even known the festival was on, but found themselves in the thick of it and left with a Stamping Ground CD.
The Seaforth became the main theatre of operations for the next few hours as, while we were having dinner, the bar was transformed into that evening’s concert venue.
The Sunday night programme emphasised the festival’s eclectic nature by moving away from acoustic based music, and though the Hot Club-inspired Swing Guitars and the virtuosity of Clive Carroll continued the weekend’s previous themes, what followed took it somewhere else entirely.
We took a break during the second set and wandered down to the Ferry Boat Inn (FBI) for a change of scenery. There we ran into Jon Strong from Leeds, whom I’d last met at the Penistone festival last year. He too had been playing the afternoon circuit and after a pint together, we made our way back to the Seaforth.
We were just in time for the start of the festival’s penultimate performance, from ex-Stone Roses guitarist Aziz Ibrahim. Playing an electro-acoustic nylon strung guitar (with natty illuminated fretboard!) and accompanied by a hooded percussionist, he created long, heavily rhythmic grooves cranked up to fill the room and get the audience moving. The final set featured former Bhundu Boys guitarist Rise Kagona with his 5-piece band Culture Clash, who rose above early technical problems to close the festival on an appropriately high note, getting the whole audience dancing with their irresistible rhythms, catchy melodies and joie-de-vivre.
We headed back to the Late Night festival club at the Caledonian with Emily, Steve and Eddie Walker and settled ourselves at the bar. I was soon witnessing an animated debate between Steve and Eddie about the spaces between the notes in Blind Blake’s guitar rags. This, I thought, is something you don’t get every day of the week. My next thought was that it might be time to quit while we were ahead and call it a night. So, even though Clive Carroll was about to begin an impromptu set in the next room, we wended our way back to the Ceilidh Place.
We woke late on Monday morning and, having missed breakfast, were having a picnic in our room when there was a knock on the door. Emily and Steve were about to hit the road but first wanted me to see some of the guitars Steve had made, which are their regular working instruments. Two round-hole flat-tops and a dobro, all nicely worked and good sounding with a simple, understated vintage appearance. Obviously a useful man to know! They were heading down to Oban, but Marie and I had decided to have a day off in Ullapool before our Tuesday night gig at the Bein Inn, on the way home.
The town seemed strangely deserted, the streets bereft of guitarists looking for their next gig. We went down to the harbour and watched the seals hanging around the fishing boats hoping for scraps. We had the restaurants, coffee shops and the Ceilidh Place bar to ourselves, and were glad of the chance to breathe in the quiet autumn atmosphere as the town returned to normal.
The festival, like Ullapool, like the west coast, is a unique experience and I hope it continues to thrive. We greatly appreciated some fine performances, good company, and warm hospitality (especially at the Ceilidh Place). If there’s one person who deserves the thanks of everyone at the festival, it’s organiser and co-ordinator Richard Lindsay, whose beaming presence - though never obtrusive - was frequently glimpsed at the back of an audience, on stage introducing an artist, or leaning out of a Land Rover to ask if everything was OK. It was, Richard, it was fine.
Next morning we headed south to Perth and the Bein Inn, the weather growing steadily worse until we arrived in a downpour which lasted all night. The audience was consequently small but the welcome as warm as ever. From there, it was home next morning and straight into that night’s Rothbury Roots gig. And then, at last, a chance to unpack the car and put our feet up for a bit before the next excursion.
Click on the above images to view the full-size programme pages.