Musical tribute to Matt McGinn

Apr 29 2009 by Douglas Dickie, Rutherglen Reformer

A TRIBUTE show to Rutherglen folk singer Matt McGinn will be broadcast on May 1.

Celtic Music Radio 1530FAM will be at the East Kilbride Arts Centre where artists will perform some of the 500 songs that Matt left behind following his untimely death in 1977 at the age of just 49.

The broadcast will be at 7pm and has been scheduled to coincide with a weekend of May Day celebrations, a fitting day given Matt’s lifelong socialist ideals.

Indeed, Matt could be found on most may Days marching with workers and he expressed a real interest in the workers of Chicago, among whom the labour May Day rallies originated.

The show is designed to showcase and celebrate Matt’s achievements, not only to the folk and roots music industry, but also the Scotland as a whole.

An icon of the British folk scene, and with entries in the Smithsonian Institutes Top 100 Folk Songs of the 20th Century, Matt’s songs have come to symbolise both Scotland and Glasgow, the city he was brought up in.

Lanarkshire songwriter, Jim McKenna, who organised the event, and will also perform, said: “The Matt McGinn songs and story is good honest Glasgow humour, plus the best of heart rending wonderful music, equals the life of this well loved Glasgow genius.”

The concert is only part of Celtic Music Radio's May Day celebrations. Ross Macfadyen will also be broadcasting his Saturday Sequence show on May 2nd from one of Glasgow's premier music venues, Oran Mor, Byres Road.

Ross said: “Celtic Music Radio 1530 AM will be the first community radio station to broadcast from the Arts Centre and we are delighted to be working in partnership with the Arts Centre staff and South Lanarkshire Council to provide this May Day celebration to our audience all over Glasgow and Lanarkshire and to listeners around the world, from East Kilbride.”

Listeners can tune in to the Matt McGinn tribute on 1530 AM/MW or online at www.celticmusicradio.net.

Although he was widely known as “McGinn of the Calton”, Matt spent most of his life and wrote much of his most popular work while living in Rutherglen.