JANE MONCRIEFF found ALY BAIN in revealingly reflective mood on a visit to his native Shetland. The great fiddler, who tours this month with Phil Cunningham, talks frankly about his life and music.

THE RAIN is pelting down the window drenching the Shetland landscape, obliterating the view. Aly Bain is in melancholy mood. “Nae chance o getting to the troots da day.” That’s for sure, you would need flankers just to venture outside.
 

Now Scotland’s most famous fiddler, Aly was born here in Lerwick, Shetland’s main town. He and Phil Cunningham have just completed a mini-tour of Spain then Shetland  – ‘direct from Bilbao to Baltasound’ – as they’d quipped on-stage (they will be on tour again later this month). Phil is off to the local high school to deliver workshops to the hordes of accordion students. Aly has decided to take a break, hoping it would be good enough to go trout fishing in Shetland’s many lochs.
 

Phil and Aly are Scotland’s musical equivalent of The Odd Couple. “He’s a lot younger than me – so it’s amazing we agree.” He acknowledges the fact that they have something special. “When we first started to play we were very different but we’ve both given way on things over da years. The relationship has surprised me completely!” It almost seems like a marriage of sorts in the way he describes the partnership.  “It is a musical marriage for sure, plus great companionship, sense of humour and we both feel very, very lucky to be doing it. Folk see da flippant side on stage but the music is deadly serious to wis both.”
 

Aly looks tired today. Not surprising, as it’s a punishing schedule when sixty is snapping at your heels. “It’s a terrible thought that! It hit’s you all of a sudden – you realise that time is running out,” says a reflective Aly.  The man has brought home world-wide recognition for Scottish and Shetland folk music and culture. He smiles ruefully, “If you telt me I wid have ended up doing this for a living when I wis young I widna hiv believed it!” Chronically shy as a young man, it still seems bizarre to him that he had ended up as a famous and feted performer.
 

Although he has played and recorded all over the world, and regularly appeared on television over the years, playing live in his home islands is still the biggest bête noir for Aly. “I build up everything in me mind aboot playing at home. I feel folk is judging me. It’s a psychological thing and I make everybody else nervous. I’ve tried all me life to conquer it.” But he feels that it’s only recently that he has begun to get over the crippling nerves he suffers every time he takes the stage at home. And he has no need. As a duo he and Phil sell out every time they appear.
 

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