Thomas Fraser

While visiting my friend Paul in Hong Kong (en route to New Zealand from Thailand) last month he showed me an article he'd kept a hold of, knowing my Shetland roots, and love of music. Here's the opening to it:



How a Shetland fisherman found fame in Nashville almost 30 years after his tragic death. From the Isle of Burra, Peter Culshaw reports
Sunday June 18, 2006
Observer Music Monthly

The Tale of Thomas Fraser


"It feels as if this might be the start of an initiation into a cult - one which is growing by the day. We have found the room in the croft in Outterabrake, in the Shetland Islands, where Thomas Fraser made his first recordings. We have the key fetish objects - the Grundig tape machine he recorded himself on, and the Levin Goliath guitar he played - which we are photographing, imagining Fraser himself playing away, the peat fire burning, on one of those endless winter Shetlands nights where it gets dark by 3pm. Fraser died, aged 50, in 1978 - but only now is he reaching an audience."

Back to me. I visited his website and you can listen to a sample of the songs. They're brilliant. Plenty of country yodelling, a strong voice, and solid accompaniment on the guitar.

His blues and laments have added weight when you know Shetland, and can imagine him playing in his croft with the wind trying to rip the roof off.