Product Description
Synopsis
From droving to driving, reivers to rustlers, heilan kye to long horns, "Plaids and Bandanas" explores the link between the two cattle cultures in music, song and dance, and folklore. The vast number of Scots who emigrated to North America has been well documented, whether through forcible eviction during the clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries, or voluntarily in the hope of a better life. With them they took their culture, their language, their music, and their skills. Cattle droving in Scotland was an established profession from the 16th century, and many such migrants took cowboy jobs in the American West. The medium of music paints a vivid picture of their social and personal lives and the exchange was not all one way. The music crossed and re-crossed the Atlantic creating strong links between the old culture and the new. Lonely men in strange surroundings found comfort in songs that reminded them of home. The author, himself a musician, researched the roots of the songs and the routes of the drovers, provding a text which highlights the links between the Wild West and the no-less-wild Highlands.
