Made in Scotland:
Studies in Popular Music
Frith, Cloonan & Williamson
reviewed by Sheena Macdonald

A history of seventy years of popular music in Scotland by Simon Frith, Martin Cloonan and John Williamson is fascinating and comprehensive in its introduction to the story , writes Sheena Macdonald in review.

It was with tremendous trepidation that I awaited the delivery of Made in Scotland: Studies in Popular Music, through my door.  This book, commissioned as part of the Routledge Global Popular Music Series, with a view to providing a well informed and up to date introduction to the popular music scene in Scotland, would likely be quite the weighty tome, and as I am not an academic I was anxious that I wouldn’t find it particularly accessible. 

I needn’t have worried. 

Simon Frith, Martin Cloonan and John Williamson, as well as contributing to the book themselves, have edited a fascinating and comprehensive introduction to the history, politics and culture of popular music in Scotland. 

In a series of essays and interviews which are organised into three themes, Histories; Politics and Policies; and Futures and Imaginings, they lay out an examination of Scotland’s popular music within the context of Scotland being both a nation but also a part of the UK, and how that impacts on the complexity of our cultural identity, the history, and the effects of the power structures in music.

A selected timeline of key events is offered at the beginning of the book.  Starting out in 1951 with the launch of the Scottish Folk Revival and finishing with Gerry Cinnamon’s 2022 sold out shows at Hampden.  Setting the book in context, it is a fascinating run down of events both musical and political.  Although quite why they omitted Simple Minds two shows at Ibrox in 1986 the Saturday of which was my first stadium gig as a 15-year-old is questionable.

Running as a continuous thread throughout the book are questions of how Scottish popular music is defined.  Do you need to be Scottish to make Scottish music? What is Scottish popular music? Indeed, is there such a thing as Scottish popular music? How exactly is Scottish defined?  I think it is no surprise, given the political and constitutional debate over the past decade and half, that the questions of identity and definition are a common theme.   

Part 1, Histories, opens with the impact that Stramash!, a television programme produced in Scotland but broadcast on BBC1 across the UK, had.  It only ran for 13 weeks in the mid-60s, and was met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm by reviewers, but without the tartan kitsch and by providing a platform to showcase music and acts mostly excluded by the rest of broadcasters output, it served to launch careers both in the music industry and in television. 

Essays setting out a brief history of Scottish independent record labels and discussing the rise in the profile of the live music sector in Scotland and the impact that the global live industry has covers territory that most music fans (of a certain age) here are likely to be familiar with.  Less familiar may be the conversation about the life and future of Scottish jazz with a stellar cross section of folk who make a living (at least in part) playing, recording, teaching, composing, promoting and writing about Scottish jazz music.  Later in Part 2, Politics and Policies, there is also a conversation with the Director of the Glasgow International Jazz Festival, Jill Rodger, which includes discussion on how Scottish the festival is and indeed whether there is such a thing as Scottish jazz.

An interview with the founders and promoters of the independent Riverside Festival, which has run in Glasgow for a decade, delivers a hair-raising tale of the trials and tribulations of setting up and running a new festival, deliberately setting out to (successfully) diversify the lineup of artists and the audience, and then facing the triple challenge of Brexit, a pandemic and economic recession.

The insight provided in the conversation with singer and BBC presenter Joy Dunlop demonstrates how important the promotion and protection of minority languages, as well as positive government policy and action has been on being able to make a living as a musician recording and performing in Gaelic. When thinking of Scottish popular music, Gaelic might not be the first thing that comes to mind however, as Joy suggests, within the space of one generation the possibility of having a career as a Gaelic singer in now possible.

Rather like the music industry itself, the majority of the voices in the book are male.  Which is not to say that those voices aren’t insightful and astute.  The book is packed with contributions from musicians themselves, some of whom are both academics and performers, and people who make a living working within the Scottish music industry.  A particular highlight is Carla J. Easton’s essay which sets out her own journey from a mining town in Lanarkshire through art school in Edinburgh to becoming an award nominated singer-songwriter and performer.  She highlights the importance and inspiration to her of all female bands and sets out a history of Scottish girl groups.  I’m over a decade older than Carla, but I too remember the joy of hearing Strawberry Switchblade for the first time as a teenager in 1985.

In the introduction to Part 2, Politics and Polices, Martin Cloonan, notes that as a “region” of the UK Scotland is integral to the Anglo-North American dominance of popular music, but as a nation itself is peripheral and therefore has its own story to tell.

The story of how the small town of Kirriemuir, in Angus, with its connection to Bon Scott of AC/DC, reinvented its identity through the use of its cultural heritage to develop a music collective, with rehearsal and recording studio space and access for local young people to music making, as well as a world class music festival, shows what can be done with the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

The place of Popular Music Education in Scotland is examined, and poses as many questions as provides answers, and in my view, rightly raises concerns for the future.

In an essay that will provoke heated debates in the pub over a couple of drinks before heading to a gig, Martin Cloonan concludes that “there is no such thing as Scottish popular music, but there are Scottish popular music makers, some of whom at certain times represent Scottishness in particular ways, while at other times some of the attributes of such musicians have been designated at “Scottish”.”  This is followed by hip hop artist and academic Dave Hook’s examination of Hip Hop in Scotland in which he unpicks the perceived conflicts, including national identity, between the ‘authentic’ expression of Scottish culture and that of hip-hop culture.

There is also an examination of the place of music, and the role of musicians in the campaigns for both devolution and, more recently, Scottish independence. Raising questions about the concept of national identity in popular music, and the subsequent relationship with the British music industry, which in the main resides within the confines of the M25.

In the shortest section, Part 3 Futures and Imaginings, Simon Frith looks at the stories told about popular music in Scottish literature, with examples including James Kelman’s Dirt Road and the more recent Scabby Queen written by Kirstin Innes.  He comes to the conclusion that the protagonists in all the novels ask the same question in different ways; where do I belong?

The question of Scottishness is also discussed in the final two contributions.  An interview with Alasdair Roberts, contemporary folk singer/songwriter, who talks about being more interested in the universality that he saw in traditional songs rather than ideas of Scottishness and how he feels like a bit of an outsider. Finally, Diljeet Kaur Bhachu poses a series of important questions relating to Scotland’s increasing cultural diversity, and how there needs to be a re-thinking of ‘Scottishness’ in the music industry in order to be prepared to support and promote the richness of what all of Scotland’s musical talent has to offer.

In his concluding passage, Coda; the World of Scottish Music, Simon Frith signs off with “Music made in Scotland is music about being Scottish but being Scottish is neither fixed nor simply a geographical identity”.

Fittingly the book is dedicated to the memory of the much-missed Stewart Cruickshank, radio producer, who was not only a supporter of Scottish music (and its musicians) in all its variances but also the most knowledgeable person I ever met on the subject of popular music made in Scotland.

Made in Scotland: Studies in Popular Music is a must have reference book for anyone interested in popular music, here in Scotland and beyond.