History
Joseph MacKenzie wrote the haunting lament after the death of his wife, Christine, and in memory of his great-grandfather, Charles Stuart MacKenzie, a sergeant in the Seaforth Highlanders, who along with hundreds of his brothers-in-arms from the Elgin-Rothes area in Moray, Scotland went to fight in the Great War. Sergeant MacKenzie was bayoneted to death at the age of 35, while defending one of his badly injured fellow soldiers in the hand-to-hand fighting of the trenches.
The track was then included in his band Clann An Drumma's album Tried and True. While working on the film We Were Soldiers, director Randall Wallace, received a CD of the album and was haunted by the emotion and spirit of reverence captured in "Sgt. MacKenzie". He arranged for Joe and band mate Donnie MacNeil, who played the pipes, to re-record "Sgt. MacKenzie" with the backing of an 80-piece orchestra and the United States Military Academy Choir at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London. The lament was introduced into the film during key scenes with MacKenzie singing on his own and on the last track of the film with the orchestra and choir.
Read more about this topic: Sgt. Mac Kenzie
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