who are the Gilnockie Highlanders?

[OC Richard]

This album was up on Ebay, and I wondered who the Gilnockie Highlanders might be.

Googling came up with nothing beyond this album and an album issued in Italian which might or might not have the same material.



I know that "stock photos" are often used on album covers, so this might well not be a photo of a member of the band.

The photo is reversed.

Be that as it may the photo is interesting, showing a strange blend of the uniform of the pipers of The Scots Guards with odd changes, such as putting a strip of tartan over the diced bottom of the feather bonnet. The pipes appear to be a very valuable full-silver set, missing one of the drone's end-caps.

[cessna152towser]

Very strange indeed.
Gilnockie and Highlander seems very much a contradiction.
Gilnockie is very near the English border and Gilnockie Tower is famous as the home of Johnnie Armstrong the Border Reiver. Nowhere near the Highlands.
I googled "Gilnockie Highlanders" but didn't come up with much. MTV website said there was no biography available for Gilnockie Highlanders and invites submissions.
I found this rendering of Amazing Grace on Youtube, but there's only the music there and no visuals of the group, only a still picture of an album cover called "Golden Instrumentals - Vol.3 " and illustrating a cityscape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYc_FtQBx-E

[Steve Ashton]

As Alex said Gilnockie + Highlanders = oxymoron.

[KD Burke]

Perhaps this recording is the pipe band equivalent of a self-published novel. The copyright date and any label information might provide a clue.

[OC Richard]

I'm no expert on vintage vinyl but the style of the album cover suggests to me the 1970s. The "mono/stereo" logo is interesting, does it suggest an earlier date, the 1960s?

As far as oxymoronic "Highlanders" band names go, there's plenty of those here in the US. Wherever Scots congregated they used that name for things, even in places flat as a billiard board. I guess it refers to the people, not the topography.

That reminds me, have any of you been to Levelland, Texas? It's as flat as the name promises, like being at sea, pretty much.

http://www.levellandtexas.org/index.aspx?nid=177

[imrichmond]

The price sticker in French Francs (25 francs, around 5$US at the time), the designation "gravure universelle" (mono/stereo compatible recording), and the words "Les Tréteaux" (meaning "the boards" or "the stage" but also the name of the now-defunct French recording company that issued this recording) on the cover mark this as a recording issued in France likely in the 1960s or 1970s. The Gilnockie Highlanders in all likelihood never existed. I suspect the name was invented simply to appeal to the average French person's idea of "Scottishness", just like the cover, with its decidedly odd elements. The recording is quite possibly a compilation of older recorded tracks or a re-issue of an older recording under a new title.

[Tarheel]

My searches mentioned "mass band recordings" where the Gilnockie Highlanders were included contributing in the mix of songs available on a few albums. There was never a single (except the Amazing Grace) that Cessna also found.

[MacCathail]

If Glasgow can have Highlanders (cf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Highlanders ) surely Gilnockie can't be denied the privilege?

There is a tune for the highland pipes called Gilnockie. IIRC, it's a 3/4 retreat, or possibly a slow air. It's not in the repertoire but I do have a copy of it around here some place. (It should be in the Big Black Binder with the other xeroxes and hand-written copies but the Big Black Binder itself has gone missing, which is not a good thing.) The theme is supposed to be from a Mozart violin piece, although you couldn't prove it by me.

Cheers,

-John-

[ctbuchanan]

A quick search on Spotify (a music streaming site) came up with one song; "Amazing Grace" of course on an album called "Golden Instrumentals Vol. 3" with an add date of 2006. The artwork on the album looks much, much older.

The version was OK - sounds like 3-4 pipes and an organ. But the pipes could have been over dubbed.

The rest of the album is some pretty bad instrumentals from countries all over the world.

[OC Richard]

There is a tune for the highland pipes called Gilnockie.

Odd it's not in Robert Pekaar's encyclopedia of Highland pipe tunes, which is pretty exhaustive.

Of course new tunes and new books are appearing all the time, and my copy is out of date, from the 1990s.