Ian Green Autobiography for Friends and Foes Alike

Ian Green, Fuzz to Folk: Trax of My Life, (Edinburgh, Luath Press, 2011), 334 pp. ISBN 1-906817-69-3.

Scotland is a land of strong music, strong drink, and strong opinions. Readers of Fuzz to Folk will encounter all three. It is the autobiography of Ian Green, the founder and proprietor of Greentrax Records. Green inspires great loyalties but, by his own admission, is also viewed by some as a “grumpy old man.” (319) In his defense, he was grumpy before he was old! And for the same reasons he’s so beloved: Green has always been an implacable foe of pretense, incompetence, and dishonesty. Like all great ventures, Greentrax has deep roots. Green acquired some of his love of Scottish music from his father, who was a piper, but if it hadn’t been for the Korean War, he might have taken up his father’s other trade: gardening. Military service sharpened Green’s national identity, but it also led to a civilian job with the police force. In addition to rounding up miscreant, Green helped organize a police-sponsored folk club nicknamed “Fuzzfolk.” Through it he became friendly with performers such as The McCalmans, The Cotters, Jean Redpath, Dick Gaughan, Eric Bogle, Silly Wizard, Nic Jones, and Brian McNeill. Greentrax didn’t occur until after retirement from the police in 1985; in between lay activities such as editing Sandy Bell’s Broadsheet, involvement with the Edinburgh Folk Club, and running Discount Folk Records as a moonlighting job.

Those looking for revelations into the Scottish music scene will be disappointed. Music takes up less than a third of the book, Green is no gossip, and his attitude toward artistry has always been pursuing what he likes rather than analyzing or pigeonholing music. His assessment of performers seldom goes beyond adjectives such as “excellent,” “terrific,” and “distinguished.” The book’s most-revealing chapters are those that highlight Scottish life in the 1950s through the 1970s, a time in which Britain was still very much in the post-World War II doldrums, but opportunities existed for those with more moxie than credentials. Some of circumstances and terms Green discusses may be unfamiliar to North American audiences but they’re not his target audience. Number me among the Ian Green fan club brigade, but even if you conclude he is grumpy, thank your stars for the music you know because of him.