Eddi Reader sings Robert Burns

It is the year of homecoming Scotland, after all, and here is Eddi Reader singing -- and wi' wee bit o'dancin' too-- the song Willie Stewart at the concert of Robert Burns songs called Auld Lang Syne at the Royal Glasgow Concert Hall in January. Check out her backing band too, especially John McCusker on fiddle...

Eddi Reader: Willie Stewart

A while back I posted a link to a very fine and very restrained video of Eddi Reader doing the Robert Burns song My Love is Like a Red Red Rose. Very nice stuff, but you sort of expected the members of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to pop up from behind the rocks. This clip, however, is Eddi live in full throttle at a festival -- with back up musicians who are equally fine, including the amazing John McCusker on fiddle -- on a lively Burns song, Willie Stewart. Reader says one of her thoughts in doing Burns music (she's a Scot, as of course, he was, and she's done his work with orchestras and as well as in more informal settings) is to do it the way someone might might have sung the songs in a pub in the 18th century, and you just happened upon it.

Eddi Reader: My Love Is Like a Red Red Rose

Really, this needs no words from me (though I'll have more to say about Eddi Reader later on). Just listen.