Jimmy MacBeath

Jimmy MacBeath
Born	1894 Portsoy, Scotland, United Kingdom
Died	1972 Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom
Known for	Folk singer

Jimmy MacBeath (1894–1972) was an itinerant worker and singer of Bothy Ballads from the north east of Scotland. He was a source of traditional songs for singers of the mid 20th century Folk Revival in Great Britain.

Jimmy MacBeath (pronounced the same as Macbeth) was born to a family of Scottish Travellers in the fishing village of Portsoy, Banffshire, Scotland. He learned songs such as "Lord Randall" (Child Ballad 12) from his mother. At the age of 13 he started work as a live-in farm hand at Deskford. He was a bachelor all his life and learned many songs in the bothies, or farm huts where the male farm workers lived. He was to be a traveller for much of his life; in 1908 he took his first long walk, from Inverness to Perth. In the First World War he joined the Gordon Highlanders and fought in Flanders. Later he served in the Medical Corps during the Anglo-Irish War. In the 1920s he was demobbed. Working as a kitchen porter, begging and at seasonal fruit picking, he set about tramping the roads of Scotland, England, the Channel Islands, and even Nova Scotia. In the streets, pubs, hiring fairs and markets he earned money by singing. It is even said that he sang in cinemas where there was no piano for silent films. He tended to wander during the summer, and spend the winter in Elgin. He died in Tor-Na-Dee hospital in Aberdeen and was buried in Portsoy.

Jimmy MacBeath was a "traditional singer". He was part of the last generation to sing traditional songs in bothies, along with John Strachan, and Willie Scott, In the 1920s he travelled the roads with Davie Stewart, who was also a singer, and who played the bagpipes and accordion. Their styles were very different, so one sang while the other collected. He lived in "model lodging houses", government-run houses for homeless men, slightly better than "flophouses". In 1951 Alan Lomax and Hamish Henderson were in Turriff, when they heard about Jimmy in Elgin. At the prospect of living at the expense of Columbia Records, he came to Turriff and stayed at one of the best hotel rooms. In 1952 he went to London to appear on the earliest folk series on British television. For many years he was popular in folk clubs. When he sang "The Barnyards of Delgaty" at the 1951 Edinburgh People's Festival Ceilidh, the audience were rapturous.

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