Review : Frieda Morrison and her band at the Botanics

And a lovely time was had by all. The Reporter was lucky enough to catch one of the events in The Scottish International Storytelling Festival which has just begun in the city.

What made this evening of music and stories different was that the stories from the curator of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, David Mitchell, were only complemented by the music provided by Frieda Morrison and her “band”. The band is actually Morrison, who plays a pretty mean guitar, her guitarist John Carnie and her niece Delayne Morrison who plays the autoharp. (If you don’t know what an autoharp is then think of Reese Witherspoon playing June Carter Cash in Walk The Line)
Mitchell has a great storytelling voice, and uses it to good effect, telling us the stories of eighteenth and nineteenth century plant collectors who travelled all over the world to bring back plants and seeds previously unknown here in Scotland. Pioneers such as George Forrest, Archibald Menzies and David Douglas proved yet again that Scots are great travellers with much purpose. Menzies brought the monkey puzzle from Chile.

Morrison has a very lovely singing voice, and, backed by her Ladies of Birse, she played some tracks from her new CD Morven which was recorded at the Dunkeld studio of Dougie McLean and which we are told is available on Amazon.

More information about The Scottish International Storytelling Festival here