Two Boats Under the Moon

Join us at 5pm-6:30pm on Friday 2nd May at the 50th annual Girvan Folk Festival in the town of Girvan, South Ayrshire, in Scotland for the official launch of "Two Boats Under the Moon", which will be taking place aboard the spectacular tall ship Lady of Avenel (https://www.ladyofavenel.com),  skippered by Shetland singer-songwriter, fiddler, and sailor Barry Nisbet, and moored in Girvan Harbour during the 50th annual Girvan Traditional Folk Festival.

We'll be wrapping things up at 6:30pm sharp to head to Graziano's for a fish supper, before making our way along to the Girvan Catholic Hall for the Milestone concert featuring McKerron, Brechin & Ó hEadhra and Steven Clark.

More info can be found on the Girvan Folk Festival site here ; 

https://girvanfolkfestival.org.uk/concerts-2025

See you there, and don't forget to get yourself to Girvan early on the Friday 2nd May to enjoy "Carrick's Smuggling History" from 3pm in the McKechnie Institute. That should put you in the perfect frame of mind for a few tunes, and tales from distant tropical islands, aboard the Lady of Avenel!

Here's the song & music video "The Fisher". This song is one of five original songs that feature on disc one of "Two Boats Under the Moon". See further down this page for a full track listing for the album.

And for anyone who hasn't seen & heard it yet, here is the full song and music video for "Casuarina", without the crowdfunder voiceover ;

My name's Donald WG Lindsay, and I'm probably best known to the community of Scottish piping and Scottish traditional music as the developer of the Lindsay System for Scottish smallpipes. Fans of piping may be well aware of this innovative design, and of the impact it has been making in the fields of traditional and contemporary music.

"...the sound and expression are given focus in a present-moment bliss, not unlike our best dreams while we are asleep..." experimental piper & composer Matthew Welch, reviewing for Bagpipe.News

"...gorgeous, slumbering stuff..." Jude Rogers for The Guardian

"...Lindsay coaxes such soaring sweetness from his pipes that any images of a gruff Scotsman shrieking the dead to wakefulness will no doubt be banished..." Mat LaBarbera for Tone Glow

Since my teens, in addition to my involvement in Scottish bellows piping and pipemaking, I've been singing traditional songs with and without accompaniment, and writing songs in both contemporary and traditional style. I've been relatively inactive in the public sphere however, only having released one or two songs and rarely having held a concert as a singer.

"...beautifully played 12-string...the whole record is really good." Iggy Pop for BBC Radio 6 Music "Confidential"

Last year, myself and my long time friend Alasdair Roberts decided to begin touring together as a vocal and instrumental duo. While preparing myself for this, during the summer of 2024, I made a series of informal videos in front of the dish rack in my kitchen at home singing a selection of traditional songs. These songs were recorded live, fairly raw, accompanied on a 12 string Eko Ranger strung with unison courses, and in one or two cases a set of Bb Lindsay System Scottish smallpipes, and were shared directly to Facebook.

I was taken aback by the warm reception these videos received - both from friends old and new,  and from professional Scottish folk and traditional singers many of whose music I admire, and whose careers I have followed over the years.

This made my mind up, over the following weeks, to record and self release a solo album of songs, and so I made a booking for December 2024 with Watercolour Music in Ardgour - a beautifully located, state of the art residential studio in the Highlands, run by engineer Nick Turner, and where I've long had an ambition to record. To help me with the task, I invited the very talented Roo Geddes - who I've known and enjoyed playing with since his school days in Glasgow - to join me for what became a short, intense, and immensely enjoyable three days of strictly live-in-the-studio duo recording in Ardgour. 

The result is a whopping 91 minutes of "keepers", too much for a single disc CD album, and so I've divided the playlist into two for what will be a double-disc entitled "Two Boats Under the Moon".

The first disc (or "boat", if you like) is themed as a disc of original songs, including the title song "Two Boats Under the Moon" which I wrote during a three year stay on Ascension Island, South Atlantic. This first disc will also include a setting of a Scots poem by Vale of Leven poet Hugh Caldwell to an original tune I wrote a few years ago, and a rendition of a little-sung number by Allan Ramsay that has been a mainstay of my at-home-in-the-kitchen repertoire for many years.

The second disc is themed as a disc of traditional, mainly Scots, songs that have come to me from a variety of sources and directions, and that have held their seat in my repertoire for many years - in most cases for many decades. This second disc will also include two sets of tunes on the fiddle and the Bb Lindsay System Scottish smallpipes. Fans of the pipes will need to wait until next winter for me to record an album focused exclusively on my Lindsay System pipes, which are about to undergo a major metamorphosis (moving on from V5, for those who know) during spring and summer 2025.

Here's the track listing for both discs ;

Disc One : Two Boats

When You Were Young : 5m27s (Donald WG Lindsay)

Casuarina : 5m03s (Donald WG Lindsay)

Johnnie Blues Well : 7m37s (Hugh Caldwell / Donald WG Lindsay)

The Meantime Song : 4m39s (Donald WG Lindsay)

Two Boats Under the Moon : 4m41s (Donald WG Lindsay / Aaliyah Peters)

The Fisher : 6m20s (Donald WG Lindsay)

An Thou Were My Ain Thing : 11m33s (Allan Ramsay)

Disc Two : The Moon

Wild Rover : 5m48s (Trad. Arr. Donald WG Lindsay & Roo Geddes)

The Grinder / Hardiman the Fiddler / Fy Let Us A Tae the Bridal : 2m55s

(Trad. Arr. Donald WG Lindsay & Roo Geddes)

Tak It Man Tak It : 7m44s (David Webster)

Guidwife, Count the Lawin : 3m22s (Robert Burns)

Soor Plooms o Galashiels : 4m01s (Donald MacLean)

Tramps & Hawkers : 6m25s (Trad. Arr. Donald WG Lindsay & Roo Geddes)

Hind Horn : 14m40s (Trad. Arr. Donald WG Lindsay & Roo Geddes)

This album "Two Boats Under the Moon" is primarily conceived for the benefit of the friends and supporters who provided so much encouragement to me last summer, and who I hope will be interested in hearing more, and in helping "Two Boats Under the Moon" towards its goal of being pressed as a double CD album - by signing up here to receive a copy, by sharing this page on social media to help spread the word, by letting your friends know - or (ideally) by doing all of the above.

Naturally, any other music fans who are liking what they are hearing in the background of this video, are very welcome to join us and make a pledge to support this project - and to spread the word, as enthusiastically as you like :) 

Our warmest thanks to you all, and we look forward to sharing some great music with you very soon!