The pipes of Southside

You can add the phrase “punk bagpiper” to the list of words I never thought would be paired together.

This city’s a long way from Scotland, yet there’s not one, but two different bagpipe and drum bands practicing in Southside. One preserves the traditional heritage of the pipes; the second looks for a more modern edge. Though the two groups have different styles, they can definitely agree on one thing: people underappreciate the pipes.

“People either like them or hate them,” said Jim MacRae, the pipe major of Alabama Pipes and Drums.

MacRae began piping in college in 1961 in Pittsburgh, and continued to play for many years across several northern states. He has even played at the Scottish World Festival in Canada and competed in the World Championships in Scotland five different times. Hearing hundreds of pipers and drummers performing together is something he’ll never forget.

“The sound that day absolutely just gave you chills. It gave you a tingling feeling when you’re playing. It’s hard to explain just exactly what it was, like there was electricity in the air,” MacRae recalled of one of his visits to Scotland.

But bagpiping doesn’t hold quite as much popularity here. Alabama Pipes and Drums is trying to build its membership back up to begin competing, and its Monday practices at Sequel Electric in Southside are often small. 

The Ian Sturrock Memorial Pipe Band, which has its own practice space on 11th Avenue South, is also trying to build its numbers back up to compete again. While you’ll see the band’s pipe major, Ryan Morrison, sporting a kilt when he plays, it’s paired with a bright blue head of hair.

“I am the Bizarro world bagpiper,” Morrison said. “I wanted us to be cool.”

Morrison said while the band does play and practice more traditional bagpipe pieces, they’ve also adopted more modern ways of playing and new compositions that bring a different flair. “We have tried to be cheeky,” Morrison said.

That’s how I found myself at Buck Mulligan’s on a Friday night, listening to Morrison play with Jasper Coal, a local band that plays Scottish and Irish jigs and reels “but we punk it up a little bit.” It was a performance that had very little in common with the traditional rendition of “Amazing Grace.”

“The pipes tend to get looked at as a cultural artifact and not as a living, breathing instrument,” Morrison said.

The Ian Sturrock band also takes a step outside the norm with the Flam Fatales, their all-female drum corps. Morrison said he’s yet to hear of another all-female drum corps within the piping world. His wife, Sherry Morrison, leads the Flam Fatales, which started in 2013 with some players who had never held a drumstick before.

“We learned the box, which is the tradition, then we learned to step outside the box respectfully,” Sherry Morrison said.

Morrison said one of the highlights of his career so far was playing at Iron City Bar and Grill for St. Patrick’s Day 2017.

“It really was the best performing night of my life so far,” Morrison said. “It was a dream night for me.”

Even with the edge that the Ian Sturrock band brings to the music, the roots of bagpiping are still important to its players. The band gets its name from Ian Sturrock, born in 1921 in Kilmarnock, Scotland, who immigrated to Birmingham and taught others about piping when he arrived. MacRae’s grandfather played the pipes and Morrison’s grandfather brought stories back from his visit to Scotland during World War II.

Daniel Akin, MacRae’s “second in command” at Alabama Pipes and Drums, grew up in a town with heavy Scottish influence and “started wearing kilts and going to Highland games and [it was] just the inevitable conclusion at that point.”

The bagpiping “scene,” as Morrison puts it, is smaller by far than your average guitarist or other musician, so the bonds they form tend to be tighter. Akin, after 13 years of piping, still regularly performs with one of the earliest groups he met: Palmetto Pipes and Drums in South Carolina.

“I am still talking to the same pipers that I’ve been dealing with since I started,” Akin said.

And a corps of pipers playing indoors, as I found out, isn’t always easy on the ears if you aren’t used to it. Bagpipes can top out over 110 decibels, louder than a jackhammer or a jet take-off.

“To get those things out every day and every time you want to practice, [you’ll] drive the rest of the house crazy,” MacRae said.

But those who find something to love in the harmonies and history of the instrument tend to stick with it for life.

Akin quoted a common bagpiper motto: “Piping is life. The rest doesn’t matter.”