A little while back, my friend and yours, Dave the Kindly Gnome, sent me a tape recording of some wonderful circus music called "Duck On His Head". On side two of the tape, Dave (tKG) put some filler from BBC Radio 2's "Folk on 2". One of the pieces on this gem of a tape is a documentary of the legendary one armed Glaswegian piper and bluesman, Jamie Mcgee, put together by collector and scholar Sidney Anglo. Here is an excerpt:

You wouldn't need the fingers of one hand to count those who might recognize this...

Ah pipe the blues, that's what ah do
Ah pipe the blues, that's what ah do
Ah pipe the blues, that's what ah do
Ah pipe the blues and ah (unknown word) in a word or two.

Everybody gets the blues sometimes
Everybody gets the blues sometimes
Everybody gets the blues sometimes
So ah blow oan ma pipes and ah (unknown words).

Um blum um blum um blum (etc.)

That's "Piping The Blues", performed by the extraordinary blues bagpiper, "One Armed" Jamie McGee, and recorded in Atlanta around 1932 for F.M.F. The music is obviously modeled on Blind Lemon Jefferson's "One Dime Blues", but it's magically transmuted by the unique "suck, blow, and holler" technique by the emigree Scot.

McGee's piping method defies analysis. Naturally, I have discussed the matter with a number of pipers, all of whom feel that much of what he does, in the way of simultaneous piping and singing, should be utterly impossible with two hands, let alone one.

He also developed what he, himself, called a kind of "blue mumble", which was easier than singing while blowing the pipes. "It gives the auld lungs a wee rest", as he once explained. We can hear this "mumble" at the end of his "Weary Haggis Moan", where, mingling with the pipe's drone, it provides an eerie epilogue to the almost unbearable sadness of the words.

Ooo ooo, I cannae keep from cryin' noo
Ooo ooo, I cannae keep from cryin' noo
Ma poor weary haggis is a layin' doon and dyin' noo.

Ooo ooo, ma haggis cannae get up an' go
Ooo ooo, ma haggis cannae get up an' go
Ma poor auld wee haggis ain't gonna get up no more.

Ma haggis is so flaccid, he just cannae raise his head
I think ma wee haggis is damn well nigh nearly dead.

Och, aye... Woah!

Um buh um buh um buh (etc.)

What a treasure! How did we in the US manage to miss this one?