Sally-Part114 . PEDIE AND JEN MACNEILL NOT TO MENTION A FEW OTHER MUSICAL GENIUSES !

BLURRED I KNOW ! BUT THIS WAS THE MAN IN ACTION LAST WEEK AND SHOWS HIM SMILING

KEIR JOHNSTON..ANOTHER OUTSTANDINGLY TALENTED MUSICIAN !

AND JEN ! NOW READ ON !

The one person who changed my life in a single stroke will HATE me for talking about him !

He is Donald 'Pedie' MacNeill of Colonsay, a man who has composed some of the most beautiful songs ever written !

And here I must mention my absolute favourite, 'Gentle Man' which you can listen to on his double CD 'WINTER SUN' and 'HALF HEBRIDEAN' and more of his songs are on his other CD 'Family Life'.

Pedie is a raconteur and wit and songwriter who weaves stories and paints feelings in three dimensions with words and music !

I was on Colonsay in 2008 when he and his friend Keith Johnston organised the first Music Festival, a three day extravaganza of talent that I never knew existed.

Pedie opened the first night, before the 'Real' stars arrived and his playing and singing started me on a course where all I really now want to do is play and sing too, even if I don't have a grain of his talent !

I sat in on the afternoon session when he made his family cry and quite a few others get a lump in their throats when he sung 'Wet Day Love Song' !

I want that power and I've had a tiny bit of it twice ! Once when a lone female voice called out " Beautiful!" after I'd sung 'Invisible' by Boo Hewerdine in a pub in Gatehouse of Fleet and once in Newcastle a couple of weeks ago when I sung Dylan's 'Simple Twist Of Fate' to an audience of fifty and got a huge round of applause that actually made me humble !

Anyway, Pedie wasn't the only performer as his daughters and friends and Keir Johnston, another young Islander who is equally brilliant also joined in during the two hours that I loved without admitting to anyone that I thought that I HATED 'Folk Music' !

Well, there wasn't a single man or woman with sticking out teeth and their fingers in their ears emitting strangled cries from the backs of their throats with all the sound coming down their mostly blocked noses and dressed in tucked in socks and clogs or wellies carrying staves with bells on and with straggly pony tails behind the men's bald spots held by dirty rubber bands or bag ladies with knee-length unkempt hair, crochetted cardigans' hand-quilted floor-length charity shop dresses and banging tambourines which were the highly prejudiced thoughts I reluctantly entered the hall with !

I have since discovered the amazing talents of people like LAU and Karine Polwart and they don't have a single carrier bag between them !

I know I've mentioned Karine in another blog about her but I think it's worth telling the tale again of one of my greatest unworthy moments when in complete ignorance of who she was, I turned to her when she had just sat beside me on the Hotel settee as I watched a man giving a guitar lesson and asked her if she had anything to do with music ! DOH ! The man was her brilliant brother Stephen and together with the third member of their trio, Inge Thompson performed an unforgettable set that night ! Karine, for those who don't know her is one of the most acclaimed singer/songwriters in Scotland if not the world !

But one other person delighted me that first night with her enthusiasm and overwhelming love of people and life together with her brilliantly entertaining talent and that was Pedie's daughter Jen . I sat and watched and listened and along with everyone else in the hall adored her !

It was the same feeling you get watching a top ballet company performing Swan Lake or Romeo and Juliet accompanied by a fifty piece orchestra !

In Pedie's own words, it 'stirs the soul' !

Pedie, incredibly talented as he is, is a miserable bugger born with a reluctance to accept praise or answer questions without suspecting non-existent ulterior motives, whereas Jen is dynamic and smiles all the time and is completely open and FUNNY !

See her off stage and she is surrounded by friends and howling with unsuppressed laughter and she never shuts up for a minute !

I notice such things !

I've thought from the first moment I saw them performing together that they should have their own TV programme, a sort of Transatlantic Sessions with one on Mogadon and the other on Speed !

What Pedie doesn't know is that I would be honoured to sit at his feet and learn from a MASTER !