Album Review: Wild Geese by Jim Reid

When the conversation turns to the best Scottish songwriters of all time, Jim Reid's name will certainly get a mention. His classic "When the Wild Geese Flee" album is spoken about in reverent tones amongst the folk brigade. The album is renowned for the classic track, "The Wild Geese", which began life as a poem by Violet Jacob in 1915. Read on.

The legendary Foundry Bar Band boy

Following a long illness, Jim Reid passed away on 6 July 2009, but not before penning and singing his fair share of songs which have helped to make Scotland's contribution to the folk songs of the world a little grander. Reid was the founder member of the Foundry Bar Band, a ramshackle collective composed of drinkers and musicians from Arbroath's Foundry Bar. After winning the 1971 Ceilidh Band competition at the Kinross Festival, Jim and the bar band boys enjoyed three influential and enjoyable decades of blasting out the folk funk at festivals and dances. After leaving the now legendary Foundry Bar Band, Jim Reid went on to enjoy a very successful solo career which began with When The Wild Geese Flee.

The goose that laid the golden egg

Reid's overwhelming love for poetry led to him writing many famous poems to music. Evocative words loaded with meaning compliment Reid's music perfectly, none more so than Violet Jacob's Wild Geese, sometimes known as Norland Wind.
A loved staple in the Scottish and Irish heritage songbook
Wild Geese has become a much loved staple and well-known classic in the folk song repertoire and helped Reid to the mantle of 2005 Scots Singer of the Year. The song opens the When The Wild Geese Flee album and sets a high standard for what comes next. Up The Noran Water, which is music set to the poem Shy Geordie by Helen Cruichshank, is another classic and other memorable floor-fillers include Bogie's Bonnie Belle, The Flower Of Northumberland and Busk Busk Bonnie Lassie. Style and sophistication You'd have to go a long way indeed to find music that evokes the romance and humour inherent in the North East of Scotland in the same stylish and sophisticated manner that Reid's When The Wild Geese Flee does.

The other Jim Reid

Ironically enough, there is another Scottish Jim Reid in the music industry, and he is the punk pin-up singer from noise merchants and fans of feedback, The Jesus and Mary Chain. That Jim Reid is responsible for screeching lyrics such as, "I want to die just like Jesus Christ," which is different from our Jim's tale of a wild goose which goes, "And far abin the Angus straths I saw the wild geese flee, A lang, lang skein o beatin wings wi their heids toward the sea."