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http://www.accordions.com/news.aspx?d=26-Jun-2015&lang=fr&s=10524
http://www.accordions.com/news.aspx?d=26-Jun-2015&lang=fr&s=10524
26-Jun-2015
by Rob Howard
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 Jim Halcrow, from Scalloway, Shetland, began playing the accordion in 1951, when he bought a second hand Alvari 80 bass from Forbes of Dundee for £22. Self-taught and unable to read music, Jim Halcrow nonetheless developed into one of Scotland’s finest accordionists. Jim was soon playing in ‘The New Players’, Shetland’s top band of the 1950s and 60s, after which he formed his own band, which became resident at the newly opened Lerwick Hotel. He also began playing with a local jazz band. After working in the construction and fishing industries, Jim had a career move and trained between 1972 and 1974 at a college in Newark as a piano tuner. Jim became a leading exponent of Scandinavian accordion music, and visited Norway on several occasions, leading his Hamefarers Band on a most successful tour of West Norway in 1978. His guru over the past 40 years has been Norwegian virtuoso, Arnstein Johansen, who he first met in November 1991, when Arnstein was a guest at the Shetland Accordion and Fiddle Club. Another hero Jim was to meet at the Club was Jack Emblow, but confesses to being so tongue-tied at the occasion that he didn’t make the best of it! Jim Halcrow did not often play outside Shetland, but some of his favourite memories included playing at the Mull Festival, where he met accordionist Bobby MacLeod, the trip to the Lorient Festival in Brittany with Alistair Hunter and the Lorne Band, the London Accordion Festival in 2001, and the Caister festival in 2006 where, with son David and accordionist Alan Nicolson, they met Art Van Damme, and also Jack Emblow. Some years ago with his band Jim appeared at the ‘Shetland Night’ concert at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections festival, where he went down a storm with the audience. A dedicated family man, married to Doreen, he was proud to hand over his daughter Hazel’s right hand in marriage to bandleader Craig McCallum in July of this year and looks forward to spending Christmas with them in their new home in Aberdeen. In 2012 he was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame, regarded by some as the Scottish ‘Oscars’ of the genre. His wife Doreen accompanied him at the ceremony in Fort William, which was televised live on BBC Alba. In recent times Jim played in his son David’s band, while his daughter Hazel is married to Scottish dance band leader Craig McCallum. Jim Halcrow passed away on June 18th. |