Stewart Family

The music and storytelling traditions of Scotland’s Travellers, nomadic craftsmen whose descendants produced weapons and ornamentation for the ancient clans from the Highlands, could have been dropped forever minus the efforts from the Stewart Family members, who passed them down orally through several centuries. The very first family to become recorded had been Belle and Alec Stewart and their daughters, Sheila and Cathie, who noted a lot of their repertoire during extended sessions on the studios of the institution of Scottish Research Sound Archive. The Stewarts’ assortment of music and tales was passed on by Belle’s dad, Donald “Dan” MacGregor, through her brothers, who trained these to her after her father’s loss of life. The family continuing recording jointly until 1968 if they released their last studio record, The Going Stewarts. Although Alec passed away of leukemia in 1981 and Cathie retired from music, the family members tradition was continued by Belle until her loss of life in 1997, and by Sheila from then on. The Stewart Family members was presented to viewers in Britain by past due folksinger and radio web host Ewan MacColl, who included them in a radio ballad. He and his wife and musical collaborator, Peggy Seeger, afterwards composed a biography from the Stewart Family members, ‘Til Doomsday within the Afternoon, released by Manchester School Press.