If my Dad was still alive today he would be 91 Im just playing Jimmy Shand music & haveing time alone thinking of all the good times we had together. I miss you so much Dad 😭

I can see ma Da and Mammy dancing aroon the living room floor tae Jimmy and the polka. Love it!

My grandmother from Downings listen to Jimmy's music all the time when I was a kid.

Wow! If Jimmy Shand Jr was 86 there, how old was his dad? Kidding. This recalls boys and girls lined up opposite each other like opposing armies in a school hall that left splinters in your bum when you sat on it, pairing up as stiff as wooden clothespegs to shuffle through the polka in terror of a misstep, without the slightest inkling that this would be the seed of a gloriously happy memory.

Will always be a Grand in my eyes 👍🏻

Wonderful!! This reminds me of my mum and dads many brilliant new year partys many years ago great days rest in peace jimmy shand , mum and dad 🙏❤🙏❤

Our local radio station has just played this cute and fun little polka. Aaah! Memories... 💛💙💛💙💛💙 🥰🇯🇲🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🕊️🔥✝️

I seem to remember this tune from the 1950's. BBC Radio Programme called Children's Favourites. (We didn't have TV then.) I will never forget it, just wonderful! I was 4 or 5 years old!!! Each Saturday morning my siblings and me would gather around the radio to listen to "Children's Favourites," with Uncle Mac. It was the Highlight of our week. Many songs I remember from that programme..

It's a year today my dad has passed away. This was his favourite song. I played it on the day his of service & playing it again year later brings a lot of of good memories. Miss you Dad 🙏♥️

My Dad - Bill Nicol (Accordion) - knew Jimmy personally and he was nothing like the mild appearance on TV. He liked a laugh like all musicians and loved riding a high-powered motorcycle around Fife where he lived.

My god , what wonderful memories I have listening to radio eireann with my family many many years ago.kath mallow co cork Ireland

I grew up listening to Jimmy Shand music and have come to enjoy listening to it. I think what also makes it special to me is it reminds me of my Dad but also we are related to the Shands as he was my Gran's cousin. In fact my brother carries on the name of Shand.

I had the great pleasure of touring Australia and New Zealand with this beautiful human being in 1978,god bless you Jimmy Shand.Harald

Wonderful!! Brings back a lot of childhood memories!

Best music I've ever heard from our Scottish brethren

That man was a legend in his field He was still a great player even in his old age

Yes he did he was knighted in 2000 and sadly died the same year. His first job was as a miner in 1926, but due to strikers, he was taken out of full-time employment. His first recording was a set of jigs in 1933. First performed on BBC radio in 1934. The bluebell polka got to no. 20 in the charts in 1955. In 1962 he was awarded the MBE 1978 he appeared on this is your life.

A mug of tea and the one and only Jimmy Shand, that is how to get your day going first thing in the morning!

fantastic tune

fabulous !!!played this at my dads funeral it was his favourite song x

Great stuff. Music from years ago, that's still great today. So much better than alot of the rubbish on the radio today.

A great Scottish legend....R.I.P Jimmy.

I think hat Jimmy SHnd is one of the few (if not the only) artiste to have released records on 73 rpm, 33 rpm, CD and now MP3 files.

i love jimmy shand

Just pure magic. Remember as a kid listening to Jimmy's lullaby "the Bluebell" just before I fell asleep each night. The magic of Scottish Folk Music...

Always a favorite on any Scottish Radio Show, and one I played regularly on the Tartan Tonic.

Such a pit there is so few videos of Jimmy, we are lucky to have to few we have to see the great man in action.

Reminds me of days long since past. One of the greats. Beautiful Scottish Music.

thanks for this the master at work.....

Jimmy Shand, the Daddy of them all. The Bluebell Polka inspired many a youngster to start playing the accordion, myself included !!!

a great musician, and lovely steady tempo all ways.

lovely music. :)

Still beautiful. I play this tune in Masonic Lodges on organ. Love it. Yay, Sir Jimmy.

Just beautiful. I love Jimmy Shand music ♪♫

Yes, it`s Robbie Shepherd who has presented regular Scottish music programmes on BBC Radio Scotland for over 25 years.

I've known the tune since I learned it at the age of eight or nine (1959, 1960), and only recently realised that the Bluebell Polka is actually a hornpipe.

love you jimmy , met u in auchtermuchty many years ago , great night , your the man RIP

rest in peace jimmy brown love you dad

The great man himself! A credit to Scotland and an inspiration for all accordionists. We will not see his like again. Thanks for posting. Greetings from Ireland. Terry

Ah the Bluebell polka the auld chucking out tune at East End Park every second saturday Jimmy Shand Fife Legend

Absolute legend! :)

Thanks for posting. Great to see him in action again. I never got to see Jimmy playing live as I was always out playing myself any time he was nearby.

BRILLIANT ,NONE LIKE HIM.

man i cannot play the button accordion but i can play the keyboard one amazing

Hello, Jimmy! You are a true specialist in Irish dancing and I admire you! Your accordion gives so perfectly the rythm that we believe to hear the syncopated footstep of the dancers Congratulations, Odette Salut Jimmy ! Vous êtes un vrai spécialiste des danses irlandaises et je vous admire ! Votreaccordéon rythme si parfaitement la musique que nous croyons y entendre les pas syncopés des danseurs ! Félicitations ! Odette

Listen, this is fantastic stuff!! Thanks so much for posting. I love it, always:-) from Dublin.

i love the look he gives to the band at 1:49 to let them know that the song is due to finish!

legend

wow

The legendary master of the Strathspey! respect!

greatest thing since slice bread invented , could only be Jimmy Shand

quote, It will just be played at that pace and no faster, unquote.

After so many lovely reactions,hard to make any additions here,.... Sir Jimmy is said to be a major button accordionist,and that's absolutely right,but...that was not his aim at all! Quite on the contrary,he hated,to show off his virtuosity,as being a self effacing man,although he did master the instrument...To me,Sir Jimmy remains the greatest MUSICIAN I ever have known,and that is far more than plain virtuosity. The accordion was the way,to put over his own warmhearted personality,.. a great message to all of us. A message for the world and it has been worldwide,and time is ripe for a worldwide revival. He was one of the greats,you instantly could recognize by the first two notes playing. Nobody does play the Shand Button like the maestro himself,I swear it!!I never have seen a player,holding the box so easily and relaxed. And the many own compositions?!! Along with the old fiddle compositions by others,the best,ever written!! Sir Jimmy was a trendsetter for the later SDB's! Major influence by William Hannah?Only to some extent,advertising for the Beltona label?! Forget it! He was JIMMY SHAND! I can understand,that his son Jimmy Erskine JR does not wish any compliments,fans and contacts,for the simple reason....(my bet),...he would react by saying "It was my father,not me".And,..we have to respect this!

Jimmy Shand The Laird o’ Auchtermuchty 33 V5 765 I once met a famous musician. In 1962, he and his band were recording the Scottish Dance Music programme onto tape at the BBC studio at York Place in Edinburgh. This twenty-two-year-old approached the great band leader with trepidation, awkwardly proffering my entrance ticket to him. ‘Mr Shand, could I have your autograph please?’ ‘Certainly lad’. He looked up from his chair and smiled. ‘Just let me get loused out of this box’. A thoughtful man, he slowly lowered his accordion to the floor, stood up and signed my card: Yours Aye, Jimmy Shand. He shook me warmly by the hand. ‘Son, thanks for asking me and, all the best to ye.’ I was grateful to Margaret Jack and her dad, Duncan, who had kindly taken me to that recording session. When I suggested to Duncan, a first class Clydesdale horseman, that I would like to meet Jimmy Shand and get his autograph it was he who encouraged me to stride across the hall. ‘The man will be tickled pink if you ask him’ urged Duncan. Jimmy Shand was! It was early Friday evening, forty years later, that with our work done for the week, decided to swing off the motorway as we drove south from Dundee and take Sally on my little pilgrimage to Auchtermuchty. As the spring sun set its white shafts lit up the tidy square cemetery which drew my eyes to the high trees and upwards to the peaks of the Lomond Hills which looked down protectively upon the cemetery. It was there Sally and I stood, in silent homage, at the grave of Sir Jimmy Shand, Scotland’s brilliant musical ambassador to the world. Son of a Fife ploughman he was born with a quicksilver mind and the brain of a computer. He was a natural accordionist who also became a prolific composer. This one time miner and wartime firefighter in Dundee, who had to borrow £39 from the Co-operative Society to buy his first house, this shy genius who brought happiness to millions of people throughout the nations of the Commonwealth, was the quiet man who inspired thousands of youngsters into music as well. Little wonder that he was universally liked. Looking back from the cemetery gate, I was glad that I had once met him when I suddenly remembered the words of Robbie Shepherd on his Take the Floor programme of Scottish music. Robbie, in the mid-nineties, had hinted that he felt that Jimmy Shand really deserved some national recognition for the gift of his work to Scotland and to the world. It hit me between the eyes. All it requires for nothing to happen is for good men to do nothing. I thought the converse: Life is like a wheel barrow: buggerall happens unless you push it. ‘I thought both Robbie Shepherd and Jimmy Shand need a wee leg up here, and Arthur, you are just the very simple minded country laddie to do it.’ I wrote to Donald Dewar who at that time was the Secretary of State for Scotland and First Minister in the making. I recalled our many happy days together whilst canvassing for him, as the Labour Party candidate, in 1978, in the Drumchapel area of the Anniesland constituency. I laid bare, lest he was unaware of it, the brilliance of Jimmy Shand’s music and how it had transferred so readily to other instruments such as the fiddle, the guitar, the bagpipes and not least the Irish tin whistle. Donald replied three weeks before Christmas in depressing tone. He listed a number of reasons as to why Jimmy Shand should not be honoured. ‘God. What a detached donkey! What has happened to you, Donald? Just wait till I bump into you!’ I ranted to myself in disbelief unaware that I had been so beautifully sent-up! Donald Dewar, pressed by many others, had decided some months earlier to honour Jimmy Shand. He just kept it under his hat till New Year’s morning. When Jimmy Shand was knighted it was met with universal acclaim. I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the sensitivity and the spirituality of the music which he made and left to us. Another thought occurred to me as we stood in Auchtermuchty at the recently erected statue of Jimmy Shand playing his accordion: ‘Why is it, despite our shortcomings, despite our frailties as a nation that, we Scots, from time to time, give to the world good and decent men of unique competence?’ Men like Jim Johnston, Will Starr and Sir Jimmy Shand. Deo Gratias.

Radio Luxemberg 1955_1956 I loved Jimmy and I am a sasscnech

Braw. Well done tae the man frae 'Muchty!

Back to The Source. I just played this on organ. The form is A-B-C. A and C are all right, but I still haven't got B nailed down. I play it all the time in a Masonic Lodge, wrote out the music by listening to this video. Jimmy has a crisp uplift to his playing that would go well with Swedish dancing. I dance, or used to, and his tempo is just right for digging your heel into the floor for an uplift. I told that to Phil Kelsall one time, and he loved it. Phil loved Jimmy Shand.

I played drums on that tour,we had plenty of accordion players present,lol....

just walked out to this at my mates funeral, fuckin auld bastard, i laughed like fuck, moan the shand. i love wullie blyth. great guy.

guys a legend, auchtermuchty...... wheres the foxes hat

My Uncle Alex's Uncle, I believe.. Grew up with all the accordion music ... my Uncle's on my Mother's side also played them .

Reminds me of the great Sammy Peoples

Yes

not to take anything away from the deceased, but this tune he's playing is originally called Flop Eared Mule, an old time American folk song.

mooi

@Ian Shepherd Thanks for your response. Question to you...are you related to Robbie Shepherd,the ex-presenter of Take The Floor?

His economic bellows work is legendary....hardly moves the left arm at all. I understand this was because the Shand Morino is left-heavy due to the unique Hohner technique of prising so much mechanism into such a small space. The guy was and still is, an inspiration to us all. There's an old joke that goes. "What's the greatest torture in the world?" Answer: "Nail a Scotsman's feet to a plank and put on a Jimmy Shand record!" lol!

He doesn't know where he is - let alone caring about the music !

To all the accordionists on You tube doing this song, myself included, the real essence of Jimmy's unique sound was the LILT, the lively spring, the foot lifting bounce, that he gave this tune (and others). Even at the great age he was in this video, the spritely lilt is there....it's actually the most difficult element of copying this song. Think you can do it as well as Jimmy? Let me know...

@tottie7 Yes, he played very nice.

How to torture a Scotsman Glue his foot to the floor n put this record on :)

Veuillez me pardonner Breekie, pour mon lapsus dans le précédent commentaire ! Mais bien sûr, c'est une danse Ecossaise !!! I am sorry ! Odette

shandtastic

was this song featured in the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral" in a dance scene? the movie starred Hugh Grant and Andi McDowell.

he used to do take the floor on mfr right?

and Roond and Roond and roond and Roond and roond and roond and up and doon , and roond and roond and roond and roond and off we go again

Is that Robbie Shepherd?

All these years I thought he played a piano accordion.

who was best shand or Starr ?

was jimmy not famous for his sense of tempo? ISTR a rather fancy and famous occasion where he was told his playing, though immaculate, was a bit slow - to which he replied he was playing it correctly as it was composed and it was the dancers who were 'too fast'. something like that anyway

I do agree with you! It seems that humans need to be "entertained" these days, it's rather scarey, and quite disgusting.

@0AZ909 Irish dancing? He was Scottish!

Bra!!!! Hugo 5*

i was watching this clip and my comment was going to be L E G E N D then i spotted the previous comment was if fact LEGEND. so it would seem i have nothing worth adding other than L E G A N D

it's awkward as balls when the zoom in on his face

scotland.avi

Even the English like this,well i do anyway But maybe i have some Scottish blood in me.

To bad few people care for polka music any more

heres a younger scottish talent Steven Carcary and his band why not give it a whirl watch?v=Hr71CUfWwNg

That's interesting, and quite disappointing to us post-war Brits. I shall "Google" it, and hope that you are wrong, but I just bet that you aren't! Cheers!

It would have been nice if he had smiled the odd time. I know that making music can be a serious event at times, but he could at least have looked as if he was enjoying it.

Scots had to listen to this? Jeez no wonder my Scottish ancestors fled to America.

@saorsa74 kop yer wack its jimmy shand and his pish poor band

Factnotfictionpeople... This is a truly false statement and depends where in scotland (or Ireland perhaps?) those who are disparaging come from if it is the central belt then they know little of the scottish musical heritage in any case north of Stirling they are certainly not disparaging.