Some people are very hard to impress.
It doesn’t matter if you’re one of Scotland’s most famous folk musicians, a cult hero from the glory days of Silly Wizard, a one-time drinking buddy with the Sex Pistols, and a gifted multi-instrumentalist who brings in the New Year with the BBC every Hogmanay and induces sentimental tears wherever the Caledonian diaspora meets.
Phil Cunningham is all these things, but as he reflected, stellar reputations count for nothing when you bump into the sort of Aberdeen taxi driver who is never in any danger of being confused with a ray of sunshine.
He explained: “I was barely in the car when the cabby turned to me and said: ‘Are you the guy who plays that thingummy with the knobs on it’?
“Aye, yes, I am.”
“And are you the one with the pal who plays that other thingummy with the strings on it?”
“Aye, that’s right.”
“Well, you know something (pause), I cannae stand aw that diddly p***!”
Understandably, that was the catalyst for a few moments of awkward silence, but Cunningham and his long-term confrere, Aly Bain, have gained sufficient accolades to be able to put up with the occasional derisory remark.
Phil, who turned 60 this year, is now in the fifth decade of a far-travelled career which began in the 1970s when he and his older brother, Johnny, took their homeland and the United States by storm with some astonishing accordion and blazing fiddle-playing.
They were renowned as wild rovers, free spirits with an unquenchable thirst for moving in different musical directions and doing so with a sublime skill and steely resilience which belied their band’s name. Wizards yes, but silly….not a bit of it.
Phil has endured tragedy in his life, most notably when Johnny died suddenly in 2003 at just 46, an age when fiddle maestros are usually approaching their prime. And even as he continued to revel in the excitement of whipping up a audience’s spirits, it was clear he remains in thrall to the ghosts of the past.
He said: “Johnny was my driving force, he was unique and we played so often together that it was like second nature…when you grow up with somebody, and you both do something you love, it never really occurs to you the day will come when they’re not around any more.
“I think about him every day, and of course there are times when you feel sad. He was gone far too young and everybody loved him. But he made a real impression on all those he met and I know, from travelling throughout Scotland and much further afield, that he is still held in affection. When you go on stage, you know he’s listening somewhere.”
This man has probably clocked up as many miles as any Scot on the arts trail during the last half a century, yet he and Aly are often taken for granted in their own country, possibly because they make what they do look remarkably easy.
And yet, Phil’s cv testifies to his versatility and determination not so much to break down barriers as drive a double-decker bus through them. Just consider the range of instruments he can play: accordion, violin, piano, guitar, bass, tin whistle, harmonium, synthesiser, Irish bouzouki….and so it goes on.
The chances are that if you handed him an umbrella, he would manage to get a tune out of it. And probably one which he had composed himself.
He hasn’t just glittered in the folk ranks either. Back in the 1970s, he and Johnny blazed a trail across the musical spectrum wherever they ventured.
As he recalled: “We were wild for the drink at that stage and quite a few punks admitted they couldn’t hold a candle to us.
“One night, in Liverpool, when we were all relatively sober, we presented Johnny Rotten with an album for his birthday – Silly Wizard were one of his favourite bands.”
That was an eternity ago. Nowadays, Phil has an MBE, and became an Honorary Doctor of Letters at Glasgow Caledonian University in 2007. He composes classical works and has carried out the duties as musical director at the Beeb’s annual Hogmanay party for long enough to have become a national institution.
But he still remains happiest when he is in front of a crowd and performing from his vast collection of traditional and more recently-penned songs of love, loss, lamentation, lusty reels and long-forgotten characters from folklore.
As Phil said: “We don’t really rehearse any more, except when we are doing new stuff, but we’ve been together such a long time that we know what we like and sometimes I’ll get the devil in me and play a few variations, and then you know, we can go off in any one of a hundred directions.
“The two of us are almost telepathic these days. It’s as if I know from how he’s breathing what he’s about to play and where I should go next.
“But it hasn’t always been like this. It was a struggle at the beginning because I had played for so long with my brother and it was obviously difficult to form a connection with anybody else. But Aly and I have worked together for so long that the stage is probably the safest place for us to be.”
They can finish each other’s sentences and engage in verbal ping-pong matches, and although life is on hold at the moment, they know that when they eventually start performing again after lockdown, it should be the prelude to them returning to the north and north-east of Scotland.
It’s familiar territory for the duo, particularly Phil, who used to work regularly with the project “Live at the Lemon Tree.” And, impervious to the occasional negative critique from a cantankerous cab driver, he insists he has a plethora of fond memories from his sojourns to the north east.
As he explained: “There’s a deep wealth of tradition among the people we meet, whenever we go to Aberdeen, Inverness or any of the island communities, and part of that is because a lot of our songs and music are in Gaelic, Doric or have an affinity to distinct places.
“In Banchory, for instance, there are a lot of talented fiddlers and a thriving folk scene which still preserves the heritage of people such as [famous fiddler, violinist and composer, James] Scott Skinner. It just feels comfortable going to these places.
“You walk on to the stage and you can sense the rapport – they know their music and they know what they like.”
Phil emerged from a spiritual background in 1960 and has never lost his fascination with pushing the boundaries and examining why some shows soar into the stratosphere while others remain close to terra firma.
But, even as the years pass, and fans demand a Greatest Hits playlist, Phil has no intention of just going through the motions every night.
As he said: “There is always something new, some different route you can go down and Aly and I never stick to the same script. You have to keep pushing forward and never forget there is a younger generation coming through behind us.”
These blithe fellows aren’t contemplating retirement. Not even in the unprecedented landscape otherwise known as the new normal.
And anybody who suggests they might be is talking diddly you-know-what!