Fife blues guitarist Dave Arcari unveils new version of Scottish classic, Loch Lomond

Raised in Kirkcaldy he made his name fronting Summerfield Blues and when they split Dave became the alternative blues soloist we know today, touring the world as the blues troubadour playing original punk blues on a National Steel guitar or occasional acoustic and at times electric.

His new release is a re-written personal updated Loch Lomond, a solo record but with some friends in the chorus he calls The Voices of the Loch.

This is no Runrig anthem nor is it the kilt swinging Kenneth McKellar style I could have seen on the White Heather Club on a monochrome TV between the Highland dancers and Jimmy Shand and before a new Andy Stewart single.

This is a million miles away from those tartan days of Dixie Ingram and Jimmy MacGregor, but the imagery is the same.

The video for the new version shows the eastern Loch Lomond that Dave has made home so this can appeal to a wider demographic in the way that Donnie Munro and Dougie MacLean did decades ago. His trial audience was in a livestream concert and the only way to experience interactive music this last eighteen months.

A radio DJ suggested that this could be a release if some backing vocals were added and so friends and neighbours were recruited to be on the recording, we can now hear on Bandcamp and all the download and streaming sites.

Of the voices heard and just visiting from Florida was Shady Glenn and until then did not know his name was in the lyrics already written.

Still keeping to ballad pace of what was the traditional origins of the song the slide steel guitar gives it a sound like no other.

We can now perhaps hear a new addition to the ever-increasing Dave Arcari songbook. A great introduction to his music appears on Live At Memorial Hall and out as a download, digipack CD or double LP.

Dave tells us shows are slowly getting back together and in the last month has welcomed shows in Manchester, Liverpool and Belfast so I expect he will be internationally causing a storm but who knows where his new song will take him.

Chatting to Engelbert Humperdinck last week for radio and Fife Free Press has meant a flurry of engagement with his fanbase across the world and shared by them to great effect.

I spoke to him exclusively from his home in Bel-Air and we ran in to overtime as there were so many stories ahead of his big show at Dunfermline Alhambra this week.

Radio site Mixcloud is a site to hear recorded radio whereby a million minutes of radio are uploaded every day and they sent me an email to say our interview was number five in the Global Chart.

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