Tom Anderson (fiddler)
| Tom Anderson | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 29, 1910 Eshaness, Shetland Islands, Scotland |
| Died | September 20, 1991 (aged 81)) Lerwick, Shetland Islands, Scotland |
| Genres | Folk music |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, Music teacher, composer |
| Instruments | Fiddle |
| Years active | - 1991 |
| Notable instruments | |
| Fiddle | |
Tom (Tammy) Anderson MBE (1910–1991) was a Scottish fiddler, teacher, composer and collector of traditional tunes. He has been described as "...the most prominent personality in the entire history of Shetland fiddling."
Born on 29 August 1910 on the "Moorfield" croft at Eshaness, Shetland Islands, Scotland. Anderson was the oldest child of James Anderson (b. 26 Sep 1879, Hamnavoe, Eshaness) and his wife Harriet Margaret Johnson (b. 24 Apr 1882, Avensgarth, Eshaness). Brought up in a musical home, he learnt to play the fiddle from his grandfather; as a teenager he played in local bands for weddings and dances in the Northmavine area.
On leaving school he had various jobs in the area: fishing, helping to build Eshaness Lighthouse, labouring on a whaling station. Keen on radio, he assembled and sold radio sets locally and ran a battery charging service. He married Barbara Morrison (b. 17 Oct 1901, Garderhouse, Sandsting), a teacher in Esha Ness, on 10 December 1929 at the Ollaberry United Free Church. They had one child, James John Laurence, who died at the age of five weeks.
In 1933 he became a local collector for the Pearl Assurance Company in Northmavine, then in 1936 moved to live in Lerwick. By this time he was a talented fiddle player with a wide repertoire of Scottish and Shetland tunes. He soon made his mark in Lerwick musical circles, playing with the amateur Lerwick Orchestra and in dance bands. When war broke out in 1939 Tammy’s interest in radio took him into the RAF, ultimately as a radar mechanic, and he was posted to India. Here he encountered the many forms of Indian traditional music, and was inspired to begin a personal crusade to save what remained of Shetland’s traditional fiddle music, after his demob and return home in 1945.
The Shetland Folk Society was formed in 1945 to preserve Shetland’s heritage and traditions, and he became one of its principal music collectors and leader of its Traditional Band. In 1948 he started the Islesburgh Dance Band and by 1960 he was still the leader (it disbanded in 1968) and playing tuba in Lerwick Brass Band. It was the first Shetland Hamefarin in 1960, when over a hundred Shetland emigrants returned home in a group to an organised welcome and holiday, that really brought him into the public eye. As part of the exiles' entertainment, a huge variety concert was planned in Lerwick, and traditional fiddle music was called for. The concert was opened by selections by forty ‘massed fiddlers fae aa ower’, whom Tom had collected together over the preceding winter, rehearsed and led. No other musician in Shetland had such breadth of knowledge and experience so he was the natural organiser for the massed Hamefarin Fiddlers. They captured the imagination of local audiences and found themselves in huge demand at local concerts.
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