Brian McNeill (born 6 April 1950, Falkirk, Scotland) is a Scottish folk multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, record producer and musical director. He was a founding member of Battlefield Band which combined traditional Celtic melodies and new material.
Biography
McNeill learnt music on the violin before taking up electric guitar. McNeill now sings and plays a range of instruments including guitar, fiddle, viola, mandolin, bouzouki, cittern, concertina, and hurdy-gurdy. He played fiddle with Battlefield Band from its formation in 1969 until 1990.[1][2][3] In 1987, he won the UK National Songsearch competition for amateur and professional performers, having been runner-up in 1986.[4]
In the 1990s he toured extensively with the Scottish ensemble Clan Alba and did joint tours with guitarist Tony McManus and with Iain MacKintosh. More recently he has collaborated and toured with fellow member of Clan Alba, Dick Gaughan.
As a novelist he has published three books, The Busker (1989),[6][2][3]To Answer the Peacock (1999),[2][3] and In the Grass.[2] He has also produced an acclaimed audio-visual show about Scottish emigration to America, The Back o' the North Wind.[6][2]
Apart from his visible contributions, McNeill is influential in Scotland and abroad as a producer. He has many production credits in the UK and North America including "Emigrant and Exile" for Eric Bogle with John Munro[7] and two CDs for fiddler John Taylor. He is also a prolific songwriter.
McNeill's highly accomplished songs often feature lyrics based on Scottish historical themes, and he continually has celebrated the culture of his fellow Scots, including those who have emigrated to North America. His album ''The Back o' the North Wind'' features songs about industrialist Andrew Carnegie and the man who initiated the conservation movement in the United States, John Muir.[6][2]
In recent years Brian McNeill has hosted the Saturday Session at the Cambridge Folk Festival, pulling together many interesting ad hoc groupings from bands playing the festival that year. In doing so he has established a festival record for the most consecutive appearances in the program by an artist. Abroad, he is a fixture at Tønder Festival and the Texas Scottish Festival.
2008 saw Brian McNeill receive the first ever Fatea Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award, recognising, not only, Brian's work as a musician, arranger and producer, but also his work in education passing on his passion for music to rising stars of the next generation.
