Andrew Curry writes: The Scots singer and songwriter Archie Fisher died at the weekend, at the age of 86. Salut Folk’s editor will write an appreciation here in due course. We have written about Archie Fisher’s work here at Salut Folk from time, and mark his death, and his life, we have assembled some of that coverage here.
(Photo of Archie Fisher via the Traditional Music and Song Association of Scotland, of which he was a Patron.)
Archie Fisher was born in Glasgow, but moved to Edinburgh in his early 20s, where he became a guest at Roy Guest’s The Howff Club, probably around the same time that Bert Jansch was appearing there. He was one of a family of folk singers, and he and his sisters Ray and Cilla were important figures in the 1960s revival in Scotland. He recorded two records with them as The Fisher Family before his first solo record, Archie Fisher, appeared until 1968.
He was quick to spot the talent of Barbara Dickson, then making a name for herself on the Scottish folk scene (before becoming a musical theatre star), and he recorded two records with her at the turn of the 1960s. Their second LP together, Thro’ The Recent Years, was featured in our Loft Vinyl series at the start of 2024. It’s a strong record, with a good secletion of songs–including a Dylan cover–and good arrangements.
It includes an influential cover of Dave Goulder’s January Man, since recorded by a whole host of other artists. January Man was itself one of our many Cover Story features, where we discuss different versions of the same song.
And the title track of Thro’ The Recent Years was included in our Scots’ music St. Andrew’s Day Jukebox which we ran, also in 2024.
As a guitarist, Fisher played with Tom Paxton, and with Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy, and he produced the duo’s first four records in the late ‘70s. As a broadcaster, he presented BBC Scotland’s folk music programme Travelling Folk for more than 25 years, before handing it on in 2010.
Elsewhere on Salut Folk, Fisher is namechecked by our Canada-based contributor Bill Taylor in a profile of the late Stan Rogers. Rogers had a fine version of Archie Fisher’s song The Witch of the Westmerlands, from Fisher’s 1976 record A Man With A Rhyme. After Stan’s early death, Fisher toured with his brother, the fiddle player Garnet Rogers, and has made two records with him, the most recent a live recording in 2018.
The Witch of the Westmerlands is one of those songs that sounds as if ought to have been collected by Francis James Child. As Bill wrote:
It tells of a wounded knight hunting down a sorceress – half woman, half horse – in the Lake District for some, let’s say, unorthodox life-saving treatment.
There’s also a fine version of the song played by the Danish Concord Brass Band and arranged for brass by Philip Harper. Good music has a life of its own.
I.M. Archie Fisher, 1939-2025.
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