Maverick
July 2008

New traditional Scottish folk music from a talented youngster –
Winning BBC Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year in 2002 didn’t mean that Emily Smith immediately had it made. Despite winning, she was then nominated for Up-And Coming Artist of the Year in 2003’ Scots Traditional Music Awards.
This is Smith’s third album but her slow-burning reputation means that it might be this one which finally brings her music to a wider audience. And what music it is. Delivering the traditional sounds of Scotland with a fresh contemporary voice, Smith’s work is a hotch-potch of the old and new. Sunset Hymn, written about her own garden, is a lovely, modern-sounding and warm ode to nature. The Mermaid of Galloway was found by Smith in her local library and features the words of Allan Cunningham, a neighbour of Robert Burns, combined apparently effortlessly with her own tune.
A graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD), Smith’s music mainly revolves around her home region of Dumfries and Galloway. Old Mortality is a self-penned song about a Dumfries man Robert Patterson (nicknamed Old Mortality). It tells the story of how he dedicated his life to marking and maintaining the graves of Covenanter martyrs. It’s this combination of tradition and new in such a seamless way which makes TOO LONG AWAY such a treat and the ‘new-traditional’ Scottish folk scene such an exciting place to be at the moment.
HD