The Early Years

I was born in Inverness on Halloween 1968, the second son to my parents Archie and Aldra. The village of Kirkhill was where I spent my wonderful childhood and it was in the village hall near Kirkhill that I first heard the sound of the fiddle. Donald Riddell and the Highland Strathspey and Reel Society were performing there in the Spring of 1976 and until then (apart from banging on my mothers pots and pans) I had no inclination of music being part of my life. Everything changed that evening.  I was spellbound with the sound of the fiddle and so in the Autumn of 1976, once I had turned 8 years old, Donald agreed to take me for a few lessons.

My first tune was “There is a happy land” followed the next week with “The Skye Boat Song” and I was off and running. Within a year Donald had moved me onto Pipe Marches of the 2/4 and 6/8 variety and I fell in love with this music instantly. Bagpipe music for me was where my heart lay and although I was taught other valuable forms of Scottish music which helped me technically, it was the music of the western Highlands, in particular the tunes of Willie Lawrie, John MacColl, George S MacLennan and Willie Ross that I loved.

After 8 years under his watchful eye Donald told me one night that he was no longer going to teach me. I was to no longer play the fiddle like Donald Riddell.  I must play like Duncan Chisholm.

My journey then started to find out what Duncan Chisholm sounded like.

My musical life changed forever in 1987.  Norman Stewart, a great traditional singer, moved to Kirkhill. He convinced me that I had a talent that I could do more with and started to pass on records and tapes to me of great fiddle players and folk outfits. Cathal Hayden’s wonderful “Handed Down” was the first followed by Silly Wizard’s “Live in America”. I was completely hooked and made the decision very quickly that I was going to follow my heroes, Johnny Cunningham, Frankie Gavin and Tommy Peoples into the life of the itinerant fiddler.

The Wolfstone Years

Wolfstone was put together as a project album. It started in 1988 when David Foster and myself recorded some tunes together. I had met David through a mutual friend and had great respect for his musical achievements. He had a small 8 track recorder set up in a cottage north of Alness in Easter Ross. Our idea was to produce an album that would draw on ideas from previous folk-rock outfits but would be particularly Highland in its character. For this project we asked two brothers, Stuart and Struan Eaglesham for their help on guitar and keyboards and really the band was born then.

It was a very exciting time for traditional music in the Highlands. The Feis movement was beginning to emerge and flourish. The village hall music scene, which was to be our mainstay for two years, was enjoying a renaissance. Runrig were on the ascendancy to being the number one band in Scotland and Capercaillie, with beautiful songs and tunes set the benchmark for us all.

The album was finished in the Summer of 1989 in time for the bands first performance at the Highland Traditional Music Festival in Dingwall. A year later we quit our jobs and life on the road began in earnest.

Things started building for the band during the summer of 1990 but we were really still only playing in the north of Scotland. It wasn’t until 1991 with the release of our first funded studio album “Unleashed” that things started going well for us in Glasgow, Edinburgh and abroad. It was during that year also that we were invited to play at  Runrig’s mid-summer Loch Lomond concert along with Capercaillie and The Hothouse Flowers and I think it was the combination of these factors that propelled the band onto television and subsequently to sell-out shows all over the country.

Throughout the early nineties we contrived to travel and see as much of the world as we could. The US was a big step for us and hugely rewarding. Our 1994 trip to the west coast saw us play to thousands of new fans from San Francisco to Seattle, through the Rockies and back to Colorado. We fell in love with the US and after a further 14 tours our love for the place has not diminished. Portugal, Spain, Germany, Kazakhstan, Scandinavia, France, Canada and Italy have all been ports of call and we consider ourselves so very fortunate to have spent so many great times in such wonderful places.

Throughout this time we continued to be as creative as we could. A Wolfstone song “Heart and Soul” written by myself and Ivan Drever found its way on to the soundtrack of the Oscar winning “Good Will Hunting”.  Studio albums were put out on the Iona label and then subsequently on the Green Linnet label. In 1997 we formed our own record label “Once Bitten Records” and released a live album “Not Enough Shouting” recorded in Glasgow followed by a  studio album “Almost an Island”.  Over the years Wolfstone has sold in excess of 250,000 albums world-wide.

We continue to travel and record music.  In 2006 we recorded our 9th studio album "Terra Firma" and very proud of it we are. Our music has changed a lot over the years but I think the essence of the music, that underlying thread that connects the men we are now to the boys we were in 1988 is still there. We still represent who we are and where we are from with a passion and long may that continue.

My solo work and times with Ivan

Throughout the Wolfstone years I have continued to ply my trade as a solo artist. It has always been very important to me to express myself in my music fully and my solo work gives me the freedom to do that.

My musical relationship with Ivan Drever started in 1989 and continues to this day. He is a remarkable musician and composer with a very free and unique style. We have been playing for so long now that I feel he compliments my playing like no other musician can.
Our playing days have taken us down many strange and wonderful roads from pubs to stadiums, concert halls to supermarkets, life is never dull.

In 1997 I released my second solo album “Redpoint”. My first solo album “The Wind on the Heath” recorded when I was eighteen, is now not available.

The release of “Redpoint” was very important for me. I felt that I needed to address my need for a different expression after years of playing in a Rock and Roll band. We recorded the album at Phil Cunningham’s studio in the Highlands during the summer and autumn of 1996 and with the expert help of many, the album I always wanted to produce was finally finished in early 1997. The feel and look for the album were inspired   primarily by a beautiful piece of gaelic prose written by the great Sorley MacLean. “Shores”, a poem of love was translated by Iain Crichton Smith and it was with the blessing of these two wonderful men that the album was made. A very Highland album has been the way it has been described by many and indeed it was put together with the sole purpose of taking the listener on a journey in their mind, a journey to the north west coast of Scotland to where “Preshal bowed his stallion head” and to where “eternity’s savage howl” crossed a “joyless sea”.

It wasn’t until 2000 that I considered making a follow up album to “Redpoint”. I had been spending a lot of time in Spain that summer and been inspired by the many beautiful places I had visited. I wanted to record an album that would reflect the love I have for Spain and in particular my love for the north of Spain.

“The Door of Saints” was the album I wanted to produce and in 2001 it was finally released. A mixture of Spanish and Gaelic influences, it was very different from “Redpoint”. Yet the essence of what I achieved with “Redpoint” I believe I achieved with “The Door of Saints” and that was to paint a new and different place.

The great advantage of playing and listening to purely instrumental music is that you have a blank canvas to record and paint without the intrusion of language. Forty-five minutes of escapism in a place only you can see. That is why “The Door of Saints” and “Redpoint” were recorded and I will forever look at music this way.

A new Duncan Chisholm album will be released some time in 2007.