Origin: Amazing Grace on the pipes

Subject: Amazing Grapes on the Pipes
From: artbrooks
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 09:40 PM

OK, so we went out to supper on St. Patrick's Day - can't avoid it; it's our anniversary. And the pub had one of the local pipe bands and (of course) they played that old traditional favorite slow air Amazing Grace. So, does anyone know who first committed that horrible atrocity? And has there been a contract put out on the bugger?

Subject: RE: Amazing Grapes on the Pipes
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 10:31 PM

I'm with ya' Art! Karen hates it too! I'd be for a law stating that the only way a piper can play the tune is with the chanter 8 inches up his ass. I'll try to get that passed into law here, you get it done in Arizona...........Its a start!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Amazing Grapes on the Pipes
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 11:24 PM

I still love it on pipes BUT they really have so many other wonderful tunes to choose from...they really ought to learn them!

Did you somehow miss this Amazing Thread?:-)

Subject: RE: Amazing Grapes on the Pipes
From: artbrooks
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 11:55 PM

Oh no...saw that one. Singing it is ok, I guess...but on the war pipes?

Subject: RE: Amazing Grapes on the Pipes
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 12:00 AM

I suspect that the Pipes and Drums and Military band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards were responsible for the original recording of Amazing Grace on the pipes. They certainly describe their version as "definitive".

From Roger Kennedy's review on the Amazon link above:-
"This is the classic recording of "Amazing Grace" by the combined bands of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. This recording was originally released in 1972 to mark the amalgamation of the Royal Scots Greys and the 3rd Carabiniers, to become the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, Scotland's only cavalry regiment. The album first appeared on the RCA label and it was this recording which gained the bands such world reknowned fame, selling over 6 million copies of the tune when it was released on 45 rpm."

Ross

Subject: RE: Amazing Grapes on the Pipes
From: artbrooks
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 12:56 AM

Well then...curses upon them and the horses they rode in on!

Subject: RE: Amazing Grapes on the Pipes
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 04:22 AM

They also did "Mulligan's Tyres", an even greater atrocity. Bad cess to them, and their farm and cattle, and the sky over their heads, and their cousins over beyant in Amerikey, and the ship that took them there.

Subject: RE: Amazing Grapes on the Pipes
From: Megan L
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 04:33 AM

I once sat fishing at the side of a lochan in the hills outside Glasgow at dusk one evening when a lone piper played Amazing Grace. It was amazing the haunting sound drifting down through the trees and across the lochan as the sun finally dipped behind the hills.

Subject: RE: Amazing Grapes on the Pipes
From: Leadfingers
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 06:55 AM

When I was an aspiring piper in a Trianing unit band , way back in the late fifties , we 'stole' the tune from the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards recording and used to play it on odd occasions NOT to the pleasure of some of the more 'Dyed in the wool' officers ! Its not a bad tune as a slow air though !