Fergusson’s Bagpipe Melodies

Published for the Composer by Bayley & Ferguson, 1939. Paperback, oblong format, 41 pages. A scarce item.

It was in this book that  the strathspey Dornie Ferry first came to light, and also saw the first publishing of the famous slow air Loch Duich.

CONDITION
A good copy with covers and binding intact. Pages good throughout. Previous owner has written their name and address on the rear cover and there is also a postage stamp stuck on. Overall a good copy.

Willie Fergusson (1885 – 1949) was born in Arbroath. As a youth, and now living in Glasgow, he became a pupil of Farquhar MacRae. He firstly was in a Boys’ Brigade band but ran away from home and tried to join the Scots Guards. Being under age his father was sent for and he was taken home.

But as soon as his age permitted he joined the 7th Battalion Highland Light Infantry the Pipe Major where MacRae was P/M. This was most probably the reason for his choosing that regiment. In 1914 P/M MacRae resigned from the HLI and formed the City of Glasgow Pipe Band and later in the same year WW1 was declared. Willie was made P/M of the 7th Battalion  HLI at the age of 29.

He served in Flanders, Gallipoli and Palestine, then, following the Armistice in 1918, he restarted the City of Glasgow band Farquhar MacRae having died in 1916. The band included five ex-Army pipe majors. His  skill in setting chanters and drones, along with his teaching ability, was rewarded when they won the coveted World Championship title at Cowal in 1919.

In 1939 he compiled a collection of music entitled ‘Fergusson’s Bagpipe Melodies’. It contained 55 tunes mostly of his own composition. For some reason he chose not to attribute composers’ names to any of the tunes, so it is difficult to ascertain which were in actual fact his own works, or merely his own settings or indeed tunes by other composers .

Under Willie Fergusson’s leadership the Clan MacRae band went on to win the World Championship four times and become runners-up three times between 1921 and 1927. Another honour was that the  band were the first ever to do a radio broadcast.

Willie Ferguson was one of the great pipe band leaders but his other major legacy to piping were his compositions. He made many superb tunes. These included the 2/4 marches Kantara to El Arish, the Australian Ladies, and the Atholl and Breadalbane Gathering and the strathspey Dornie Ferry to name just a few.

(Location : Ephemera Box 2)