James Shand (January 28, 1908—December 23, 2000) was a Scottish musician who played traditional Scottish dance music on the accordion. January 28 is the 28th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1908 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... December 23 is the 357th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (358th in leap years). ... This article is about the year 2000. ... Scotland (Alba in Scottish Gaelic) is a country in northwest Europe and a constituent nation of the United Kingdom. ...

Early life

James Shand was born in East Wemyss in Fife, son of a farm ploughman turned miner. One of nine children, they soon moved to the burgh of Auchtermuchty. The town is known as the birthplace of the brothers Charlie and Craig Reid of The Proclaimers and now boasts a larger than life-sized sculpture of Shand. His father was a skilled melodeon player. Jimmy started with the mouth organ and soon played the fiddle. At the age of 14 he had to leave school and go down the mines. He played at social events and competitions. His enthusiasm for motor-bikes turned to an advantage when he played for events all round Fife. In 1926 he did benefit gigs for striking miners and was consequently prevented from returning to colliery work. One day Jimmy and a friend were admiring the instruments in the window of Forbes' Music Shop in Dundee. His friend said "It wouldn't cost you to try one". Jimmy walked in and strapped on an accordion. The owner heard Jimmy and immediately offered him a job as travelling salesman and debt-collector. He soon acquired a van and drove all over the north of Scotland. He switched to the chromatic button accordion, an instrument he stuck with for the rest of his file. Fife (Fìobh in Gaelic) is a unitary council region of Scotland situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth. ... Burgh can refer to either: Borough - a political division originally used in England Burgh (Netherlands) - a town in the Netherlands in the municipality of Schouwen-Duiveland This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Auchtermuchty is a town in Fife, Scotland, situated beside Pitlour Hill nine miles north of Glenrothes. ... The Proclaimers are a Scottish band composed of identical twins Charlie and Craig Reid. ... A melodeon is a type of 19th century reed organ with a foot-pumped suction bellows. ... A chromatic button accordion is a type of button accordion where the melody-side keyboard consists of rows of buttons arranged so that the pitch increases diagonally along and across the rows. ...

Early musical career

Shortly afterwards, he failed an audition for the BBC because he kept time with his foot. At a time when gramophones were very much luxury items he made two records for the Regal Zonophone label in 1933. His career took off when he switched to making 78s for the Beltona label (1935 - 1940). Most of the Beltona recordings were solo, but he experimented with small bands. This boosted sales. He appeared in a promo film shown in cinemas. While the image showed his fingers moving in a blur, Jimmy was disappointed to hear the sound track playing a slow air. He was prevented from joining the RAF by a digestive disorder, and spent the war years in the Fire Service. On new year's morning on 1945 he made his first broadcast with "Jimmy Shand and Band". This was the first of many such BBC radio and television appearances. Regal Zonophone Records was a British record label formed in 1932, through a merger of Regal Records and Zonophone Records. ...

Works

Soon after the war he became a full-time musician and adopted a punishing life-style later adopted by rock bands. He would play Inverness one night, London the next night and still drive the van back, at breakneck speed, to bed in Dundee. He took his trade mark bald head, Buddy Holly specs and full kilted regalia, Scottish reels, waltzes, jigs and strathspeys to North America, Australia and New Zealand, including Carnegie Hall in New York. Now on the EMI/ Parlophone label, he released one single per month in the mid fifties, including his only top 20 hit - "The Bluebell Polka" (1955). It was produced by George Martin, who was later to work with the Beatles. He was awarded an MBE in 1962, the same year that he appeared on "Top of the Pops". This period is remembered affectionately by Richard Thompson, who played Shand tunes on "Henry the Human Fly" and "Strict Tempo". In 1972 he went into semi-retirement. From then he played only small venues in out of the way places for a reduced fee. He was made a freeman of Auchtermuchty in 1974, North East Fife in 1980 and Fife in 1998. He became Sir Jimmy Shand in 1999. His portrait is in the Scottish National Gallery, close to Niel Gow. In 1983 he released a retrospective album with the cheeky title "The First 50 years". At the age of 88 he recorded an album and video with his son, "Dancing with the Shands". His signature tune was "Kate Dalrymple". Niel Gow (1727-1807) was born in Inver, Perthshire, and became possibly the most famous Scottish fiddler of the 18th century. ...

More than 330 compositions are credited to Jimmy Shand. He recorded more tracks than the Beatles and Elvis Presley combined. In 1985, British Rail named an electric diesel locomotive Jimmy Shand. He was dissatisfied with the chromatic button-key accordions available on the market in the 1940s so he designed his own one. The Hohner company still manufactures the "Shand Morino" to his specifications. Logo of British Rail British Railways (BR), later rebranded as British Rail, ran the British railway system from the nationalisation of the Big Four British railway companies in 1948 until its privatisation in stages between 1994 and 1997. ... A button accordion An accordion is a musical instrument of the handheld bellows-driven free reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as squeezeboxes. ...

 "Call me precious I don't mind 78s are hard to find You just can't get the shellac since the war This one's the Beltona brand Finest label in the land They don't make them like that any more" "Don't Sit on My Jimmy Shands" by Richard Thompson 

External links

• http://www.jimmyshand.com