Queen Amang the Heather

10.Queen Among the Heather 3:58
Traditional, arr. Wendy Grossman
Publishing administration by Riverlark Publishing (BMI)

For more information, contact:
Andy Cohen, Riverlark Music
Email: twangoleum@outlook.com

This song comes from the Scottish traditional singer Belle Stewart (1906-1997). I first heard it from several of the Scottish singers whose music arrived in the US in the 1970s - Archie Fisher, Dick Gaughan, and others, usually either with guitar or unaccompanied.

As in "The Laird o' Drum", a rich guy goes out in the countryside and immediately proposes marriage to a pretty teenage girl keeping sheep, who initially refuses him because of the vast class differences. In both, they end up (presumably) happily coupled. I like to think the age gap is a lot less here than in "The Laird o' Drum"!

There is no real excuse for playing it on the banjo except that the sparseness of the banjo and of Scottish music seem to go well together, and in my opinion there really ought to be a Scottish mountain banjo tradition. The banjo is tuned in mountain modal.