Archie Fisher

Archie Fisher
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Archie_Fisher".

For other uses, see Archie Fisher (disambiguation).

Archie Fisher MBE is a Scottish folk singer.

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1 The early years
2 Edinburgh Folk Festival
3 The comeback
4 Discography

The early years

Archie Fisher was born in Glasgow on 23 October 1939 into a large singing family. Two of his six sisters Ray and Cilla Fisher, are also professional singers. In 1960 he moved to Edinburgh and appeared regularly at a folk club called "The Howff" run by Roy Guest. In 1962 Ray and Archie released a single on the Topic label, "Far Over the Forth". They appeared on the BBC programme 'Hootenanny' In 1965 the whole family released an album "Traditional and New Songs from Scotland". Bert Jansch was a regular visitor to The Howff in 1960 and received guitar lessons from another regular performer, Len Partridge. Archie met Robin Williamson, Clive Palmer and Mike Heron, later to become The Incredible String Band.

Edinburgh Folk Festival

By 1964 the Edinburgh Fringe could boast a folk festival in its own right. An album of the participants was released on Decca. It was called "Edinburgh Folk Festival vol 2" and contained tracks by Ray Fisher, Archie Fisher, Anne Briggs, and The Ian Campbell Folk Group(including Dave Swarbrick). Jansch and Briggs performed together but this was never recorded. At an early stage Archie recognised the power of Barbara Dickson's singing and in 1969 invited her to guest on his albums. His live act included 'All Around My Hat', later to become a hit for Steeleye Span. His song "Witch of the Westmorland" was recorded by Barbara Dickson in 1971 on her album "From the Beggar's Mantle", by Archie on "The Man With a Rhyme" in 1976, by Stan Rogers in 1979 and by Golden Bough in 1983.

The comeback

In 1983 he started hosting a folk programme on Radio Scotland, called Travelling Folk. It is still running. He appeared as the lead guitarist on Tom Paxton's 1986 album, The Very Best of Tom Paxton and performed with Tommy Makem & Liam Clancy. After Barbara Dickson achieved fame as an easy listening singer it was many years before she sang folk songs again. When she did, Archie was invited back to join her. Archie has toured Canada and the U.S. as a solo act as well as appearing with first Garnet Rogers, and more recently, John Renbourn. His style of singing is very gentle and he avoids all electronic instruments. "Dark-Eyed Molly" has been recorded by Fairport Convention, Eva Cassidy, Stan Rogers, and Sheena Wellington. "Lindsay" has been recorded by John Renbourn and has been a highlight at his live shows for years, while "Mountain Rain" has been recorded by Wizz Jones (along with John Renbourn on guitar). He now lives in the south of Scotland. He was awarded an MBE in the New Year's Honours List in 2006.