Hi folks,
I worked with Scotty from 1972 onwards and was on the 'Out of the Blue' album recorded in 1973. I'd seen Scotty around 70/71 at my local folk club (Hitchin). In 1972 I went up to Bounds Green folk club with my then girlfriend and introduced myself; I'd seen Scotty at the 71 Cambridge Folk Festival and mentioned that I'd been there working with Diz Disley (Diz's name could open all sorts of doors in the folk scene at that time!). Scotty invited me along to a gig at Hendon folk club, which was at the Rubby club and miles from the centre of Hendon! Tube to Hendon Central, a bus ride up the A41 half way to Mill Hill, and then walk, carrying my double bass! We had a great time, and so I ended up gigging regularly around the London area, and havign the privilege of hearing Scotty perform new songs for the very first time to audiences (and to me -I had to work out the bass parts on the fly....)
By later on in the year the 'Just Another Clown' album had been recorded: ostensibly produced by John 'hold down a chord' (who remember the TV series?) Pearse, the result was, according to Scotty, rather rough, so Robin Cable (Elton John's engineer) was brought in to rescue the recordings and add overdubs.
Scooty signed to a new management company, one of which was Jamie Granger (son of actor Stewart Granger) and the finished album was signed to Warner Bros, celebrated with a boozy cruise on the Thames that even got an envious mention in Melody Maker's 'Raver' column.
By the summer of 73 plans were afoot to decamp to Saturn Sound Studios in Worthing to record 'Out of the Blue', and just after I finished my tour with Diz and Grappelli, I went down to Worthing to start recording. I played double bass, mellotron and arranged and conducted the string section on the album.
Things began to go downhill rather on the recording. Robin Cable's hobby of jumping traffic lights at speed had finally come home to roost and he was on pain killers through the recording. Add to that the overdubs and mixing at Trident studios, where Robin mixed at insane levels (Motorhead had nothing on him!) and the resulting album at times bears little relationship to how it sounded when we recorded it.
I last saw Scotty in the late 70s at a gig at the Half Moon in Putney. He's lost none of the genius, warmth and sheer entertainment value you could get from thids ultimately loving and human being. Soem may ask why he wasn't more successful: part of it may be that he got star struck by some of the people he was dealing with and lost direction. Ironically enough I saw him get really upset at how Jonathan Kelly was surrounded by sycophants at a prestigious gig and lost his inner direction, yet Scotty may not have realised the same thing was happenign to him when thrust into the limelight.
A shame, but we are where we are, and I look back with affection for the guy and the great times and gigs we had. I'll look forward to seeing him in the great folk club in the sky, together with Diz, Fred Wedlock and Isaac Guillory and all the others we've lost over the years.
THAT will be a great moment.

Best wishes to all fellow Scotty fans,

David (Brillo)