Finally, Sam Amidon… Outlanders: Scotland Unwrapped: Sam Amidon, Robyn Stapleton and the Aurora Orchestra @ King’s Place, London

I’ve been trying to see Sam Amidon in real life since post-Lockdowns and have finally succeeded. In a unique collaboration, Sam Amidon, Robyn Stapleton, the Aurora Orchestra and Nico Mulhy introduced us to a range of Scottish folk ballads, featuring mostly extreme sibling rivalry.

Robyn Stapleton sang some beautiful Scottish diaspora ballads, including Barbara Allen in Scots or Gaelic, a farewell to winter (much needed with the dreary and ongoingly rainy UK weather), some Rabbie Burns. She also sang a horrifying couple of songs about sisters who went for a stroll, one (usually the elder) pushed her prettier, more popular younger sister into the nearby stream, who drowned, and was robbed in her dying moments by the good-for-nothing local Miller. At no point did anyone try to help her get out! In one version, this was royal family soroicide — with the horrible Miller turning the younger sister’s corpse into a variety of musical instruments, a fiddle — or a harp, played at the elder sister’s wedding. On a variation, two brothers engaged in fracticide, with the echo of his desperate pleas to his mother for advise, whilst being told not to come home again.

Equally sad was the tale of Lord Thomas and the ‘Brown Girl’. He loved Ellender, she loved him — but she had no cash and so his mother advised him to marry the minted ‘Brown Girl’ (who never gets a name). For some reason, though advised to stay well away, stay home and mourn, Ellender gets dressed up in her best clothes (much like a bridal dress from the description) and goes up to the bridal celebrations to pay her respects. Awkward. For some reason never explained, the Brown Girl stabs Ellender in the heart with her pen knife!

Sam Amidon joined in with ‘So Much Blood!’ from America, and a disjointed version of a Two Sisters murder ballad, arranged by Nico Mulhy. The sadness of the sister’s corpse being turned into parts for a Miller’s fiddle came through heart-rendingly, as well as a bigger cry for justice. In the royal version, there is justice as the bridal elder sister gets burnt at the stake and the feckless Miller hung at his own premises.

I wonder why Millers get such a bad press? Were they (like bakers and butchers) upholders of the community and providers people depended on, and feared to get ripped off by? Why so much Scottish sibling rivalry? Overall, I’m not sure about the Aurora Orchestra versions of the folk ballads as they were almost disassembled and a bit Philip Glass at points — too screechy for me, personally. Though very well played and performed, and acclimatised, I did enjoy some pieces more than others. I preferred the singing — never heard of Robyn Stapleton before, what a treat to hear such wonderful singing. And loved, loved, loved hearing Sam Amidon perform (on banjo and guitar) at long last.

• Image is from King’s Place website advertising the event, April 2024*

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