Archie Fisher & Garnet Rogers at the Mainstay, March 29

Scottish songwriter, folksinger and guitarist Archie Fisher will appear in concert with Canadian songwriter, folksinger and instrumentalist Garnet Rogers at the Mainstay in Rock Hall, Maryland on Saturday March 29 at 8:00 pm for a rare East Coast appearance.

Admission is $20. For information and reservations call 410-639-9133. Information is also available at the Mainstay’s website https://www.mainstayrockhall.org.

Archie Fisher is a legendary Scottish singer, songwriter and a master guitarist. Recognized for his contributions to Scottish folk music since the 60s, he has been inducted into the Scots Traditional Music Hall of Fame and awarded a Member of the British Empire, a prestigious honor nominated by his peers and bestowed by Queen Elizabeth. His songs seem to come from deep within the lives of others, whether it’s a “Bonny Border Lass’’ or a ruined Scottish fisherman and have been recorded by Fairport Convention, the Clancy Brothers, Sheena Wellington, Eva Cassidy, and John Renbourn. The songs are so timeless and authentic that many assume they are traditional.

Garnet Rogers is a charismatic singer, songwriter and instrumentalist from Canada. His music, like the man himself, is literate, passionate, highly sensitive, and deeply purposeful. Cinematic in detail, his songs are optimistic, extraordinary stories of less than obvious heroes and the small victories of the everyday. Garnet first came to prominence as a member of his brother, the legendary Stan Roger’s band. Since Stan’s passing in 1983, he has carved a highly individual career for himself as a singer and songwriter. As memorable as his songs, his over-the-top humor and lightning-quick wit moves his audience from tears to laughter and back again.

Fisher and Rogers are of different generations but are great fans of each other’s work and enjoy collaborating on stage. They have toured together several times over the past 20 years to the delight of their fans but it is a rare pleasure to see them together in concert.

An avid horseman, master guitarist, singer and songwriter, Archie Fisher is Scotland’s foremost troubadour. He is known throughout that country as the former host of BBC Radio Scotland’s award-winning “Travelling Folk” show, which he presented for more than 25 years. His career stretches back to the folk boom of the 1960s. For his contributions to Scottish folk music, he was inducted into the Scots Traditional Music Hall of Fame and in 2006, was awarded an MBE (Member of the British Empire), a prestigious honor nominated by his peers and bestowed by Queen Elizabeth.

Today, Fisher lives in a rural cottage in the Scottish Borders (the eastern part of the region bordering England), where he raises and races quarter horses, tends a large garden, and, as he puts it, “doodles a few songs.’’ His most recent CD Windward Away was more than 10 years in the making and was released nearly 20 years after his previous recording the highly acclaimed Sunsets I’ve Galloped Into.

Fisher was born in Glasgow in October 1939 into a large singing family, which yielded three professional singers—Archie and his sisters Ray and Cilla Fisher. Constant music combined with his father’s appreciation of many musical styles (opera, vaudeville, traditional ballads) proved to be a heavy influence on his music while his mother, a native Gaelic speaker from the Outer Hebrides, was a strong influence on the lyrical quality of his songwriting.

Fisher first became interested in folk music and was drawn to the guitar during the Skiffle movement, a 1950s British fad based on American folk music under the influences of performers such as Lonnie Donegan and Johnny Duncan. Fisher wanted to make the guitar more compatible with the sound of Scottish music, and is widely regarded as the first to use open tunings to simulate the droning notes of bagpipes. “When I started doing it, I thought it was cheating,’’ he said. “I didn’t even know it had a name. I’d heard guitarist Davy Graham use open tunings to play Indian, North African, and Central European melodies; and they had a drone effect that seemed sympathetic to the Scottish modal scales.’’ Fisher took a naturalistic, almost conversational approach to singing, and his friendly, smooth baritone was almost as innovative as his guitar playing.

The recording of the Weavers at Carnegie Hall also had a profound effect on his approach to music and his political outlook. During the TV folk boom of the 1960’s and 70’s he appeared regularly with his younger sister Ray on variety programs and the BBC Hootenanny series.

His first solo, self-titled album was recorded in 1968. During the mid 1970’s he formed a long-term partnership with Dundee musician Allan Barty, which was later grafted on to the revived pairing of Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy. He performing as a backing musician and arranger for the Makem and Clancy duo and produced a series of albums with them. He also produced recordings for the dynamic, very popular and influential Scottish band, Silly Wizard.

During the 1980’s he turned his attention to freelance radio work and originated several series of documentary programs. The BBC documentaries required specific ballads about lighthouse keepers, farmers, or shepherds. He would interview the people he wrote about, not just to learn the details of their lives, but to hear their vernacular, the music in their speech.

In the 1980s, one of his most creative songwriting periods, he returned to the recording studio. It was around this time that he began a partnership with Canadian songwriter Garnet Rogers. They toured North America together, and Rogers produced several of Fisher’s recordings including his highly acclaimed album Sunsets I’ve Galloped Into, which was released on Red House Records in 1988.

In 2008, more than 10 years after the project was first started, Fisher released his long-awaited CD Windward Away, a collection of introspective ballads that evoke the wild and rough beauty of the Scottish Border country. While working on this album, Fisher discovered a master of an old never-released recording he made in the late 1970’s while working with Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy. Although several songs on this missing master had been recorded on other Archie Fisher albums, this missing master had never seen the light of day. Because he believed these recordings represented an important period in his music, he felt they were worthy of inclusion as bonus tracks to the new CD. Together Windward Away and The Missing Master represent more than 28 years of Fisher’s distinguished writing and singing career.

Born in Hamilton, Ontario to parents of Nova Scotian descent, a 6 year old Garnet Rogers began spending many hours in front of the old floor model radio listening to Grand Ol’ Opry broadcasts and harmonizing with his brother, the late folk legend Stan Rogers who was 12 at the time. Two years later, Garnet was playing the definitive 8-year-old’s version of “Desolation Row” on his ukulele. He soon abandoned that instrument to teach himself the flute, violin and guitar.

Within ten years, and barely out of high school, Garnet Rogers was on the road as a full- time working musician with his older brother, now the legendary Canadian songwriter Stan Rogers. Together they formed what has come to be accepted as one of the most influential acts in North American folk music.

Following Stan’s death in a plane crash in 1983, Garnet Rogers has established himself as a major folk name. Hailed by the Boston Globe as a “charismatic performer and singer”, Rogers has a powerful physical presence – close to six and a half feet tall – with a voice to match. With his “smooth, dark baritone” (Washington Post), a wide range, and thoughtful, dramatic phrasing, Garnet Rogers is considered by fans and critics alike to be one of the finest singers anywhere.
Rogers’ compositions and musical choices, like the man himself, are literate, passionate, sensitive, and deeply purposeful. Cinematic in detail, his songs “give expression to the unspoken vocabulary of the heart” (Kitchener Waterloo Record). An optimist at heart, Rogers looks for the extraordinary in the everyday and then writes about it.

His music, his over-the-top humor and lightning-quick wit and ability to work with other musicians has made him a favorite at festivals across North America. Rogers has been the featured performer on numerous television and radio programs including Much Music, Mountain Stage, and All Things Considered. He has been a headliner at concert venues and festivals such as Wolf Trap, Lincoln Center, and Art Park; sharing the stage with performers such as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Billy Bragg, Bill Monroe, Ferron, Greg Brown, and Guy Clark. Resolutely independent, Garnet Rogers has turned down offers from major labels in order to continue to create his music his own way.

The Mainstay (Home of Musical Magic) is the friendly informal storefront performing arts center on Rock Hall’s old time Main Street. For information and reservations call the Mainstay at 410-639-9133. More information is also available at the Mainstay’s website https://www.mainstayrockhall.org.