Jimmy Shand - Works

Works

Soon after the war he became a full-time musician and adopted a punishing life-style later adopted by rock bands. He would play Inverness one night, London the next night and still drive the van back, at breakneck speed, to bed in Dundee. He took his trademark bald head, Buddy Holly specs and full kilted regalia, Scottish reels, waltzes, jigs and strathspeys to North America, Australia and New Zealand, including Carnegie Hall in New York. Now on the EMI/ Parlophone label, he released one single per month in the mid fifties, including his only top 20 hit - "The Bluebell Polka" (1955). It was produced by George Martin, who was later to work with the Beatles. He was awarded an MBE in 1962. This period is remembered affectionately by Richard Thompson, who played Shand tunes on Henry the Human Fly and Strict Tempo. In 1991, Thompson paid tribute to Shand with an original song, "Don't Sit on My Jimmy Shands", from Rumor and Sigh.

"Call me precious I don't mind

78s are hard to find

You just can't get the shellac since the war

This one's the Beltona brand

Finest label in the land

They don't make them like that any more"

— "Don't Sit on My Jimmy Shands" by Richard Thompson

In 1972 Shand went into semi-retirement. From then he played only small venues in out-of-the-way places for a reduced fee. He was made a freeman of Auchtermuchty in 1974, North East Fife in 1980 and Fife in 1998. He became Sir Jimmy Shand in 1999. His portrait is in the Scottish National Gallery, close to Niel Gow. In 1983 he released a retrospective album with the cheeky title The First 50 years. At the age of 88 he recorded an album and video with his son, Dancing with the Shands. His signature tune was "The Bluebell Polka".

More than 330 compositions are credited to Jimmy Shand. He recorded more tracks than the Beatles and Elvis Presley combined. In 1985, British Rail named a locomotive Jimmy Shand. He was dissatisfied with the chromatic button-key accordions available on the market in the 1940s so he designed his own one. The Hohner company still manufactures the "Shand Morino" to his specifications. There is a biography The Jimmy Shand Story: The King of Scottish Dance Music by Ian Cameron (2001). A number of his older recordings have been re-released by Beltona Records.