Sad news, indeed.

John was a man of many parts -- he was a fine and inspirational concertina player who championed the great repertoire of Scottish pipe tunes; he made sensitive settings of poems by Scottish poets Violet Jacob and Joe Corrie; he resurrected many tongue-twisting dialect songs; he wrote hilarious comic songs in the music-hall idiom; and in his more dogmatic moments he personified Rab C. Nesbitt in full rant mode!
He was also a member of the influential Scottish group The Clutha from the mid-late 60's, and more recently of the Glasgow group Stramash, with me and others.

He was special, a one-off, and will be MUCH missed.