The Humblebums were a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 band, based in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

. Its members included Billy Connolly

Billy Connolly

William "Billy" Connolly, Jr., CBE is a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor. He is sometimes known, especially in his native Scotland, by the nickname The Big Yin...

, who later became a renowned stand-up comic and actor, guitarist Tam Harvey and the singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

 Gerry Rafferty

Gerry Rafferty

Gerald "Gerry" Rafferty was a Scottish singer songwriter best known for his solo hits "Baker Street", "Right Down the Line", "Days Gone Down", "Night Owl", "Get It Right Next Time", and with the band Stealers Wheel, "Stuck in the Middle with You". Rafferty was born into a working-class family in...

. The band was active from the mid-1960s until the early 1970s.

Career

Connolly co-founded the band with Harvey in the mid-1960s and played in the pubs and clubs around the city, most notably the Old Scotia Bar. Connolly sang, played banjo and guitar, and entertained the audience with his humorous introductions to the songs. Harvey was an accomplished Bluegrass

Bluegrass music

Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

 guitarist.

Rafferty joined later and for a short time they performed as a trio. However, the nature of the act had changed and Harvey departed shortly afterwards. The remaining duo broke up in the early 1970s after recording two albums of material: The New Humblebums and Open Up the Door, the former graced by a cover by John "Patrick" Byrne, marking the beginning of a long working relationship between the pair. Connolly embarked on a solo career while Rafferty recorded a low impact solo album, Can I Have My Money Back?, then formed Stealers Wheel

Stealers Wheel

Stealers Wheel are a Scottish folk rock/rock band formed in Paisley, Renfrewshire in 1972 by former school friends Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty.The band broke up in 1975 and re-formed without Egan and Rafferty in 2008.-Biography:...

 with Joe Egan before eventually emerging as a major recording act with "Baker Street

Baker Street (song)

"Baker Street" is a ballad written and first recorded by Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty. Released as a single in 1978, it reached #1 in Canada, #2 in the US, #3 in the UK, #1 in Australia and #9 in the Netherlands...

".

A number of songs performed by Connolly on his early comedy albums originated with the Humblebums, and actual Humblebums recordings also frequently turn up on Connolly compilations. A number of Humblebums recordings were reissued following Connolly's rise to international stardom. The Rafferty tracks from this period have been released in a variety of formats, some with just Humblebum material, others adding some or all of Can I Have My Money Back?

Albums

• First Collection of Merry Melodies (Transatlantic
  Transatlantic Records
  Transatlantic Records was a British independent record label. It was established in 1961. It started began primarily as an importer of American folk, blues and jazz records - by many of the artists who influenced the burgeoning British folk and blues boom. Within a couple of years, the company had...
  
   TRA186, February 1969)

Billy Connolly (vocals, guitar, banjo), Tam Harvey (guitar, mandolin) with Ronnie Rae (bass)

• The New Humblebums (Transatlantic TRA201, September 1969)

Billy Connolly, Gerry Rafferty

• Open up the Door (Transatlantic TRA218, June 1970)

Billy Connolly, Gerry Rafferty

Singles

• "Saturday Round About Sunday" (BIG122, 1969)
• "Shoeshine Boy" (1970 written by Rafferty) / "My Apartment" (written by Connolly)

Compilation albums

• The Complete Humblebums (3 LPs, Transatlantic TRA288, 1974)
• The Humblebums (MTRA2008, 1979)
• The Best of the Humblebums (Pulse PDSCD542, 1996) 2-CD set
• The Humblebums (ESMCD498, 1997) single disc containing all of the second and third albums
• Please Sing a Song for Us (Castle CMDDD1211, 2005) 2-CD set with previously unreleased material

External links

• nigelgatherer.com Humblebums biography