TAM WHITE
Tam White, "one of the great European blues singers", has on-stage presence which insists that we will enjoy ourselves. His gravelly voice - it is no surprise to find that his trade is stone-masonry - commands immediate attention whether fronting the nine-piece big band (definitely a hot, cooking band) or in perhaps a more restrained mode with his Shoestring acoustic blues trio - or here, and unusually, not fronting anything except himself.
At over sixty years old now, Tam has been around. From rock 'n roll with the renowned Boston Dexters in Edinburgh's 1960s club days, to London from whence Scottish Television in the early 1970s lured him back north of the border with an offer of a series and a 'monkey suit'. "Worst decision I ever made.", quo' the man. Tam's learned a lot in the intervening years!
Tam has had several TV and film roles, perhaps most notably in 1994-95 in Braveheart playing the chief of Clan MacGregor and in 2004 in Man Dancin' based on one of Tam's songs.
Everywhere he goes in Edinburgh, somebody knows Tam White, even behind his sunglasses. In the close below the Grassmarket flat where he spent his childhood, a woman stops and tells her teenage daughter: "See him, he's a great singer, he's famous." And next door in the White Hart Inn, the landlady greets Tam with the extravagant warmth of an old friend - even though he's been off the bevvy for over 25 years. Outside his former secondary school, the steely-faced headmistress recognises Tam: "Good luck to you," she says, her mouth cracking into a smile, "I enjoy your music." "All this fame and no money," says White to no-one in particular. It's been like this for years.
So, mix in a small acting career, his children, grandchildren and a happy and enduring marriage, and you might wonder what Tam White's blues are all about, and what drives him on.
"It's just in my nature to perform, man," he answers. "I have to do it. I like the message in the music I play. Music is communication."