Music of Spencie’s Shetland

By Jan Nary
31 Leybourne St, Chelmer Queensland 4068 Publicist & Journalist National Folk Festival Publicist

Music of Spencie’s Shetland, a scatter of bleakly beautiful islands in the North Sea, has produced more than its fair share of good music. Shetland music has its own distinctive flavour; not entirely Scandinavian, not quite Scottish but nestling somewhere between folk and traditional styles with a soupçon of something slightly jazzy.

Spencie's Book

The original Scandinavian music was brought to the Islands by Viking settlers in about 900AD and the music, like the language, retains the unmistakable lilt of its Nordic antecedents. Shetland, along with its southern sister Orkney, was handed over to the Scottish throne as a wedding dowry in the 16th Century and the influence “fae sooth” (from the south) began to filter in.

The “something slightly jazzy” could be largely attributed to the influence of “Peerie” (little) Willy Johnson, the elder statesman of contemporary Shetlandic music, who introduced elements of post- war American jazz into the traditional music that was being revived locally by the late Dr Tom Anderson.

Nobody knows Shetland’s music better then Peerie Willie, so when he recommended Stevie Spence as one of the Islands’ foremost musicians, a visit was imperative. Fiddle-player and composer, Stevie –or Spencie – lives in Unst, Shetland’s northernmost island. He has been playing music most of his life.

“I was born into a musical family,” he says “My grandfather and father both played the fiddle, so does my brother and both my sisters. From my mother''s side of the family, the legendary fiddler and composer Friedeman Stickle was my Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather. I started learning at school here in Unst when I was nine years old – that’s a few years ago now! Dr Tom Anderson, who was an icon in the music scene, used to go around the schools teaching fiddle and that’s how my music began.”

Steven played in the acclaimed Shetland band Hom Bru but put professional music aside to take on a home brew of a different style, working in the family’s “boutique beer” business, the Valhalla Brewery. Valhalla beers are noted for their consistent quality and distinctive flavours (I can personally vouch for both) and his job as a brewer kept Stevie out of the performing circuit for a while. As well, he works on the Island’s ferries, the hardy, sea- going toilers that keep these scattered communities linked together through hell and high water.

“It’s about ten years since I played with Hom Bru and I haven’t played a lot in public since then- but I have kept composing,” he says.

Spencie's CD launched in 2004

“I’ve written about fifty tunes and even though I wasn’t performing them, other bands were – even bands like Fiddlers’ Bid. My work was also being recorded by other groups, though I often didn’t know about it until someone showed me a CD with one my tunes on it.”

(A bit of prompting - there''s no skite in Shetland - elicits the information that many of Spencie''s tunes have won awards in competitions, including two in just the last month).

Steven’s tunes became increasingly popular and he was often approached by other players saying they’d like copies. The requests became so frequent that after years of urging from other musicians Spencie, with the enthusiastic assistance of the Shetland Arts Trust, produced Spencie’s Tunes, a CD and book of some of his compositions.

“I thought initially that I’d just publish a book of my songs so that anyone who wanted them could have them,” he says, displaying the generosity that is a trademark of these Island communities.

“Then I thought, how much better if I include some of the local stories, to give a feel of the place for people who may never have been to Shetland. So the book has a tune on one page and on the facing page there’s the story of how it came to be written, the people I wrote if for and photographs of them,” he says.

“It’s; hopefully it will be a nice thing to listen to and a lot of people will benefit from it. I’ve found it quite exciting - and I’m feeling the urge to get back on stage again!”

For local folk, the book and CD is an unofficial community diary of sorts; for the incomer (you, me and anyone else who’s lucky enough to visit this stronghold in the North Sea) it’s a privileged and welcoming insight into the sort of close and caring community that’s fast disappearing in the twenty-first century.

The tunes, a collection of jigs, reels, marches and waltzes includes pieces with such intriguing names as Pig’s Reel (written for Ivor Pottinger, another Hom Bru band member), Panic ida Tatties (inspired by the day the potato- digging tractor – and workers - bogged in the mud); Rayburn Reel (in memory of a solid fuel stove that blew up) and – an eerie one this – White Wife.

Spencie has had a Close Encounter of the First Kind with the White Wife, a local ghost who has given her name to one of Valhalla’s most popular brews. She was wont to appear, briefly but terrifyingly, on the seat next to cart drivers in the days of horse- drawn transport. After the advent of cars to the Island she took to appearing in the passenger’s seat of passing cars on the stretch of road that is her territory and she once settled in with Steven, driving home one night. He swears that he was stone cold sober at the time.

“There was a light at the side of the car and when I looked there she was, in the passenger’s seat, smiling at me. Beautiful eyes but terribly rotten teeth. I blinked and looked again – and she was gone. Just like that. It’s an interesting place,” he says, with typical Shetlandic understatement.

Since the launch of the CD Spencie has undertaken a successful tour of America and Canada, inspiring folk across the pond with a love of Shetland’s music, stories – and good ale. We can only hope that his next tour will take in Australia.

Jan Nary
31 Leybourne St, Chelmer Queensland 4068 Publicist & Journalist National Folk Festival Publicist
http://www.folkfestival.asn.au/
Co-host Acoustic Harvest Bay FM 100.3
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