Alec Finlay: the ‘Pocket Harry Lauder’

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

This blog post is an edited excerpt from the research Exchange Talk I gave at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland on 11 November 2024.

Inside the song-book, The Glories of Scotland, the foreword was followed by a full-page signed photo of a popular Scottish singer and comedian, Alec Finlay. The University of Glasgow’s Scottish Theatre Archive, characterises the latter as, ‘The pocket Harry Lauder’, and ‘Scotland’s gentleman’, describing his comedy as, ‘delightful, couthie and kindly’.

His was an international variety act; significantly, he toured America in late 1950.

If he was known as the ‘pocket Harry Lauder’, it was for a logical reason: a colleague of mine pointed out that Finlay, who clearly modelled his act on the variety superstar, Harry Lauder, even went so far as dressing like him, ‘wiggly stick’ and all.

Harry Lauder, from Wikiwand.com

A song is linked to the signed photograph of Alec Finlay at the front of the book. The photo is captioned ‘Scotland’s own comedian’, with Finlay in typical pose, full Highland dress, wiggly stick, and a blurred Scottish vista behind him. Beneath the photo, and alongside his signature, is the name of a song, ‘Let Scotland flourish’, composed and sung by Alec Finlay.

Sure enough, opposite a picture of Edinburgh’s Princes Street supplied by the Scottish Tourist Board, page 71 bears the words of the chorus – not the music, just the lyrics!:-

‘Let Scotland flourish / In all the years to be / The land that I was born in / Will aye be dear to me / Caledonia I adore you / Tho’ I travel the wide world o’er / My home is where my heart lies / Scotland ever more.’

It’s there, ‘by kind permission of Alec Finlay’, and it was written and composed by Bill McDonnell and Alec Finlay. At the foot of the page, we read that the ‘complete words, music and Solfa are available for 2/- from all music-sellers.’ It was published by Mozart Allan – who also published The Glories of Scotland.  The British cover appears at the top of this blog post.  (There was another for the overseas edition. )

‘Let Scotland flourish’ is a typical Scottish waltz of the era.  Finlay was a hit in America in 1950; and  selling the song as a single piece of music would make commercial sense.

In the recording of the song, published by Scottish Clan Records in New York, Finlay sings in the broad Scottish brogue that contemporary American listeners would have expected to hear.

YouTube audio – enjoy!

Exchange Talk Given, Book Launched

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

A quick post to mark a successful and very enjoyable evening. I gave my research exchange talk tonight at RCS. It was about a book of Scottish songs almost certainly published for the Festival of Britain in 1951. I talked about history, book history, music history, Scottish tourism and that all important catch-phrase for the Festival of Britain – ‘A Tonic for the Nation’. And then there was my book launch afterwards.

RCS wasn’t on Renfrew Street in 1951. We were the Royal Scottish Academy of Music at that point, in the old Athenaeum building (Nelson Mandela Place), but we had established a drama department in 1950 – the Glasgow College of Dramatic Art. (More about our history – click here.)

It’s fair to say that the book I talked about tonight – The Glories of Scotland, published by local publisher Mozart Allan – would not have been required repertoire for the talented students passing through our doors in 1951. It wasn’t aimed at high-performing classical artistes. (I doubt the library even had a copy in 1951, but there’s no way of finding out now. Anyway, we have recently acquired it!)

Nonetheless, the songbook does have a place in Glasgow’s history, in its own unique way.

Books relaxing after a night out!

After the exchange talk, we launched my book about amateur music making, Scottish national identity and Scottish music publishing. Professor Stephen Broad introduced it, and said some very kind words about it. There were friends and colleagues there whom I hadn’t seen for a while, so it was very sociable as well as celebratory.

Book launch: my ‘few words’ in response

My thanks go to everyone who contributed to make the evening so successful – Research Exchange colleagues, Library former colleagues, and the box office events team. I’m ‘dead chuffed’, as they say.

Dr Karen McAulay Exchange Talk and Book Launch at RCS, Glasgow 11 Nov 2024

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Looking forward to my Exchange Talk and Book Launch next Monday, I made a wee promotional video! Maybe I’ll see you there, if you’re in/around Glasgow.

Click to Book tickets

Click for The book’s details

RCS autumn graduation 2024

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’m very happy to have been honoured with an honorary Fellowship of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the place where  I’ve worked for 36 years.  It was a memorable and touching evening.

https://www.rcs.ac.uk/news-stories/global-arts-educator-to-be-recognised-alongside-the-class-of-2024-at-the-royal-conservatoire-of-scotlands-autumn-graduation/

Support from my Fellowship sponsor and the colleague who’ll be cataloguing my book!

Loads of official photos were taken; here are a couple!

By RCS’s brilliant official photographer
From the RCS Facebook feed!

Monday 11th November: Exchange Talk & Book Launch

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Venue: Royal Conservatoire of Scotland,  Glasgow

Please watch this space!

On Monday 11th November at 6 pm, I’m giving a talk in the well-established and popular RCS Exchange Talk series, where scholars talk about their latest research. I’ll be talking about a song book compiled for the Festival of Britain:-

The Glories of Scotland in Picture and Song: compiling a book with the 1951 Festival of Britain in mind

It’s in the Fyfe lecture theatre. There will be ONLINE BOOKING for this lecture. This will be the link:- https://www.rcs.ac.uk/whats-on/exchange-talk/book/507006/

At 7 pm we’ll have the launch of my new book, in the library. No online booking for the book launch, but if you’re hoping to attend, please do let me know, so we have an idea of numbers.

You can attend both, or either event.

McAulay,  Karen E., A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951 (Routledge, October 2024) 🎶

A book is born

Not Having to be Perfect (the Amateur Composer)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Is it just me, or is there something strangely comfortable about allowing oneself to be an amateur and just enjoy a creative process?

This is how it is for me with sewing, and composing music. Whilst I can spend hours, days, weeks (and more) striving for high-end results in writing about musicology, I take a good deal of pleasure in just sitting and sewing, or writing lyrics and music, enjoying less pressure on myself to produce perfect results. Indeed, several decades ago, when I was writing light fiction for a modest fee, I briefly attended a writing society, but concluded quite quickly that I preferred to row my own boat, solo.

I am chronically perfectionist where I have to be, but I can allow myself a bit of slack with spare-time occupations.

Last weekend I encountered a challenge to write a song in the hour gained between British Summer Time and Greenwich Meantime. I wrote the lyrics in advance, but did complete the song and the score in an hour.  

However, I had to change a couple of chords and un-double a few octaves before ‘recording’ my effort as a computer audio file. Sing it, accompanying myself? No chance! Now, that would be embarrassing.

Listen here!

The Extra Hour (my lyrics)

Trust Your Mum to Keep Your Feet on the Ground

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I hope I’ll get better reviews than this from people who are interested! You need to know the context. This is the complete, full and unabridged parental acknowledgement of the book that I spent five years writing. I have not missed a single word.

Parental Judgement!

Unbacked Assertions

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Image of William Shakespeare

We tell students that they should not make assertions without providing evidence. I was recently explaining that I had found a great website with a long article about the Shakespeare controversy. It criticised a couple of other authors for blithely ascribing half of Shakespeare’s plays to a woman, Emelia Bassano Lanier, without providing sufficient (any?) evidence.

Now, I’m not a Shakespeare scholar. (I did study some of his plays for A-level, a very long time ago – that doesn’t really count!) In recent years, I have become aware that some experts query whether he did write all the plays ascribed to him. That, in summary, is really all I can say about the controversy, because I simply don’t know enough to make further comment.

I was, however, quite taken with this website’s argument. The authors they were criticising had proposed Emilia Bassano Lanier as the author of a number of ‘Shakespeare’ plays. The justification for this assertion was apparently that Emilia hadn’t written much in her own name before middle-age, due to the fact (?) that she had been busily writing some of the plays that we now consider to be by Shakespeare, before that. It seemed a very shaky assertion!

You need to back up your statements with firm evidence, I insisted in my seminar. Well, I was right in that advice.

However, we also talked a bit about being accurate in our references, and checking where our information came from. Very important, as everyone will agree. And here, I’ve come unstuck. Because, if you wanted to cite the Oxfraud website, the first thing you find is that there’s no date of publication at the bottom of the page, and no obvious sign of who the authors are – or whether they have an institutional affiliation. (Don’t try googling, “Who is responsible for Oxfraud” – it thinks you’re asking about monetary fraud.) Indeed, there is also an Oxfraudfraud website and a ShakespeareAuthorship website, and I’ve no doubt I’ve only scratched the tip of the iceberg. But I shan’t be delving any deeper. I don’t need to cite it.

In the circumstances, it’s probably a good thing that, as a musicologist, I don’t actually need to know about the Shakespeare controversy!

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

The Organist Celebrates

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

As I planned what to play for tomorrow’s organ voluntaries, my eye fell on an old book of pieces by Cesar Franck. It had been my father’s book, and I remember my nine-year old self playing one of the melodies on the oboe, as he played the rest of the lines. He loved France, French, and French organ music. Today, I realised that this particular volume was published by none other than one of ‘my’ Scottish music publishers – Bayley and Ferguson. What could be more appropriate to celebrate my new book, than to play our ‘duet’ from that particular anthology?  (I had, moreover, already encountered the editor, Henderson, in my research. He’s mentioned in passing in Chapter 3.)

I don’t know when Dad got that book. It was published in 1953, and it has an oldish look to the cover design, so I imagine he got it not long after it was published.Wherever he was at the time, it has since spent decades in Norwich before eventually coming up to Glasgow, Bayley & Ferguson’s original home.

I must admit that the focus of my book means I didn’t make much mention of organ music, and definitely no mention of Cesar Franck!  Looking at it, the Cesar Franck cover design is staid beyond its years.  You wouldn’t think the sixties were just around the corner.   Still, it’s the music that matters.  I’ll enjoy playing it tomorrow, thinking of Dad as I do so.  He would have been so pleased to see my published work – I can only hope he’s smiling from his fleecy cloud now!

Exciting Day – my Book Arrived!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Writing a second book has felt quite different from the first time round.  The first one developed out of my PhD, so I had my supervisor supporting me as I wrote the original thesis.

Going Solo

But this one? All my own, unsupervised work, arising originally from the thought that someone really ought to write a book about the music published by Scottish publishers in the late Victorian era and the early twentieth century.  No-one had written one, so I researched and wrote it myself. I was grateful for my peer-reviewers’ feedback on the first draft, and I know that the final product benefited from the subsequent edits that I made during my Ketelbey Fellowship at St Andrews.  

This time, I did my own indexing, too.  That was a new experience for me.

Now, to start planning a book launch! Watch this space – I have an idea. Provisional date Monday 11th November, but the details have yet to be finalised!