One of Scotland's seminal bands travels through the Northwest

CORVALLIS - It's a recent Friday morning and the four-member Battlefield Band is traveling by car north of Seattle, Wash., destined for Orcas Island in the San Juans.

Although the band has performed several times throughout the Pacific Northwest, including in the Portland area, Sunday's 7:30 p.m. show at Milam Auditorium on the OSU campus, will mark its first visit to Corvallis.

The Scottish band is enjoying an unseasonably sunny day, pipes player Mike Katz said by cellular phone.

Driving the car is Alan Reid, who in 1969 co-founded the band with friend Brian MacNeill, when both were attending college. The band took its name after the "Battlefield" area of Glasgow. They spent a couple years performing in area pubs before taking their ancient music with a modern style on the road.

McNeill left the band in 1990, has written detective novels, and teaches at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Dance.

The band's theme is "Forward with Scotland's Past," which has remained its focus since those early days, Katz said.

"Back then, Scottish music was taking its inspiration from the same things that were happening in America," Katz said. "People were playing folk music and exploring their traditions."

In Ireland, The Chieftains - still popular worldwide today - were expressing national pride through their music, even though, Katz said, the mainstream media focused on pop music. Jeff Nesbit of Billboard Magazine said of the two bands, "What the internationally renowned Irish band, the Chieftains, has done for traditional Irish music, Battlefield Band is doing for the music of Scotland."

"Alan and Brian started playing country songs and then got into playing traditional Scottish music," Katz said. "They researched old books and studied old songs. It was a move away from a drawing room music into a more vibrant type of thing. It was pretty seminal. We were one of the first bands to play that kind of music."

Celtic music has evolved over the last four decades, Katz said.

"There's a renewed, vibrant culture of music in Scotland," Katz said. "More and more young people are playing as individuals and in bands. It's great. It has become normal to play this kind of music. It becomes part of your voice, whether you are singing jazz or are in a rock band. If you are from Scotland, you have this traditional background."

The band made its first trip to the United States in 1981. The band makes two month-long visits to the states each year, performing in about 60 cities. Their music is also popular in Germany, Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, Uzbekistan and the United Kingdom.

"We're probably away from home about half of the year," Katz said. The band's reception in the U.S. has been outstanding. Katz said performing in the United States is important economically for any band. "It's a big country," he said.

Their music is often featured on National Public Radio and they have performed several times on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" radio show.

Reid, from Glasgow, is the only remaining member of the original group. He plays keyboards, guitar, and does much of the band's singing and songwriting. He blends traditional styles with modern synthesizers and has inspired another generation of Celtic bands.

Katz grew up in Los Angeles, Calif., but moved to Scotland at the age of 18 to study at Edinburgh University. He joined the band in 1997 and plays the Highland pipes, small pipes, whistles and bass guitar.

Sean O'Donnell is originally from Derry, Northern Ireland, and moved to Scotland in 1996. He plays guitar and sings and performed with several award-winning Scottish bands before being asked to join the Battlefield Band.

Alasdair White plays violin, whistle, bouzouki and the Highland and small pipes. He comes from the Isle of Lewis and was an award winning fiddler as a teenager. He joined the band at age 18 and was praised as "complete a musician and composer as any of us had heard."

Among the songs the band will bring to Corvallis are "Dookin' for Beetroot," "I'm Going to Set You Free," "My Luv's Like a Red, Red, Rose," and "Paddy Moloney's Welcome to Scotland."

"We'll have bagpipes, fiddles, singing. It will be lots of fun, plus, we're incredibly handsome," Katz said with a hearty laugh.

A Washington Post review bears out Katz's sentiments, at least about the band's music, "It was a wondrous, perfectly paced display by musicians firmly in command of their art -. a Highland jam that rang the barn's rafters -. the band's chemistry at this point is uncanny -. the best Battlefield Band in years."

CHECK IT OUT

What: Battlefield Band performance

Where: Milam Auditorium, OSU campus

When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 15

Sponsors: Corvallis Folklore Society and the OSU Department of Music

Tickets: $18 in advance, $20 at the door. $2 off for CFS members or OSU students. Available at: Grass Roots Bookstore, 227 S.W. 2nd; WineStyles, 2333 N.W. Kings.

Information: www.battlefieldband.co.uk or www.myspace.com/thebattlefieldband.