Annotation:Auld Chapel Brae

AULD CHAPEL BRAE. Scottish, Air (4/4 time). G Major. Standard. AB. Composed by Bert Murray in memory of his grandfather, Alexander (Sandy) Murray of Banchory, Kincardine-shire. The air takes its name from the hill called Chapel Brae, where Murray's old cottar house was situated. Sandy was a fiddler who played at Lowlands social gatherings, often accompanied by his brother on the cornet and cousin on double bass. J. Murray Neil (1991) relates:

Sandy was an acquaintance of James Scott Skinner, who visited him regularly. On those occasions, the children would sit under the bed, which had been raised on blocks, while the two men chatted and perhaps had a 'dram'. Scott Skinner would often pass a small plug of tobacco through the spars to the boys, which they would smoke in their clay pipes. Sandy composed a number of fiddle tunes, which he wrote out on strips of paper and left on the mantle-piece, and which occasionally could not be found after such a visit.

Printed sources: Neil (The Scots Fiddle), 1991; No. 95, pg. 128.