The skurl of the pipes – most people love it or hate it, there is little in between. The Great Highland bagpipe is as iconic to Scotland as well, whisky or haggis or tartan. But the bagpipes is not originally Scottish, nor is it limited in its appeal to the Highlands. Bagpipes, of varying types, are found in countries around the world and may have originated in India. While a musical instrument – and yes, some will debate that – bagpipes were also once classified as instruments of war, replacing the trumpet on the battlefield. Most clan castles and strongholds had a piper who piped the clan into battle.
A classic set of Highland bagpipes manufactured by Wallace Bagpipes of Scotland.
Famously, in my home state of Texas, while David Crockett of Tennessee played his fiddle between skirmishes at the Alamo, he was often joined by Scotsman John McGregor –“ Alamo John as he came to be known – playing his pipes from the mission’s embattled ramparts. Pipe music has a great martial tradition and military style pipe and drum bands are popular the world over. But piping goes far beyond tradition, and hybrid adaptations of the bagpipes – like the musical stylings of the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, known as bagrock, are introducing the bagpipes to entirely new audiences.
Scotland’s Red Hot Chilli Pipers brought their bagpipes and “bagrock” to a new audience in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for a first performance in a state where Cajun Zydeco is most often the music you dance to on a Saturday night.
When Scots set out across the globe – beginning with the establishment of the Ulster Plantation in northern Ireland in the 1600s (as we learned in our previous episode) and later in the Great Migration to the new world, they carried their culture, including their bagpipes with them. Rab Lennox is a child of that cultural migration – born and raised in northern Ireland, he is an Ulster Scot whose family traces back generations to Dumbartonshire.
Also part of his family history is a love of piping and drumming. His Dad was a piper and so at the tender age of 9, Rab picked up --- the drumsticks. Rab spent almost 3 decades as a competitive drummer, gigging and playing with Ulster Scot pipe bands, eventually hoisting every major championship trophy but one – the Worlds. For most of the past decade however he has taken to talking about piping and drumming on radio through the Big Rab Show, broadcast locally on Fuse FM BallyMoney in Northern Ireland, and on a weekly podcast of the same name. Married and with two kids, he also has a day job so he’s quite the busy man.
Rab Lennox hosts a live weekly radio radio show about piping and drumming from Northern Ireland as well as a weekly podcast by the same name that is available on demand.
A primary focus of The Big Rab Show is traditional pipe bands and competitive piping and drumming but Rab insists the show delves into all type and styles of bagpipes and every genre of bagpipe music. Photo of the Silver Thistle Pipes and Drums by Todd Bircher (used with permission).
The Big Rab Show airs on Fuse FM Ballymoney each Tuesday from 7-9pm UK time (you’ll have to do your own conversion) or you can catch the podcast online and on demand at any time. As Rab says, “if it has a bagpipe in it, on it, or around it, we’ll talk about it.”
For more on the bagpipes, check out our earlier episodes with Craig Munro of Wallace Bagpipes and piper Dougie McCance – both of whom have toured with the Red Hot Chilli Pipers. And a special nod of thanks to Dougie as our musical bumpers for this episode were taken from his debut CD “Composed” that we reviewed with him on that earlier episode. And don’t miss our episode profiling the Silver Thistle PIpe Band from Austin, Texas recorded just prior to the 2019 World Championships.
•The Big Rab Show (radio website)
•The Big Rab Show Podcast
•A Brief History of the Bagpipes (online magazine article)
•Red Hot Chilli Pipers (website)
•Wallace Bagpipes (website)
•Dougie the Piper (Doougie McCance website)
•Silver Thistle PIpes and Drums (website)