Old Blind Dogs is a Scottish musical group which plays traditional Scottish folk music and Celtic music, with influences from rock, reggae, jazz, blues and Middle Eastern music rhythms. The three founding members of the band (Ian F Benzie, Buzzby McMillan and Jonny Hardie) first met during a so-called "buskers' holiday" in the Scottish Highlands in 1990, and after playing together for the summer decided to call themselves "Old Blind Dogs". Dave Francis and Carmen Higgins joined the band soon afterwards, but left in 1992 before the recording of the first album, New Tricks. Since that time, the lineup of the band has changed frequently, with only Jonny Hardie remaining from the original group.
The Old Blind Dogs were named "Folk Band of the Year" at the Scots Trad Music Awards in 2004 and 2007. Also in 2004, Jim Malcolm was named Songwriter of the Year. In 2001, the UK’s Association of Independent Music selected their album Fit? as a finalist for the Celtic Album of the Year award.
The band was, until the departure of Jim Malcolm, unusual amongst Scottish folk groups in that it represented the folk tradition of the North-East of Scotland, having a repertoire that included many ballads from this particular area, often sung in the distinctive 'Doric' dialect of Aberdeen and the surrounding area.
The band have toured extensively, performing in Britain, the USA, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, and Russia.
Read more about Old Blind Dogs: Discography, Band Members
Famous quotes containing the words blind and/or dogs:
“A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774)
“We recognize caste in dogs because we rank ourselves by the familiar dog system, a ladderlike social arrangement wherein one individual outranks all others, the next outranks all but the first, and so on down the hierarchy. But the cat system is more like a wheel, with a high-ranking cat at the hub and the others arranged around the rim, all reluctantly acknowledging the superiority of the despot but not necessarily measuring themselves against one another.”
—Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. “Strong and Sensitive Cats,” Atlantic Monthly (July 1994)