Scott Murray: There Was a Love
By Jim Gilchrist (The Scotsman)
**** (4 Stars)
“Singer-songwriter Scott Murray, formerly of the Sangsters, delivers an engagingly idiosyncratic clutch of simple but beautifully arranged songs and tunes from the heart. He’s in fine company, including saxophonist Phil Bancroft, trombonist Mikey Owers, harpist Corrina Hewat and pianist and producer Dave Milligan, some of whose settings reflect Scott’s earlier incarnation as an R&B and jazz singer.
Three piano tunes, memorialising his forebears, exude a palpable affection, as in Murray’s gruff singing of The Can’el, based on a Marion Angus poem, joined by harmony vocals from Hewat and mellow tenor sax, in the sentimental Afterlight and the enigmatic George Sanders & Gypsy Caravans. There Was a Sang is delivered warmly by Hewat, while another instrumental, Glenwhappen Rig, takes on the extravagantly dragging march of a New Orleans funeral parade. A glowing, brass-bolstered finale closes the album.”
