Iona Fyfe

By Liz Smith

On a cold night in late February, a beautifully fresh breeze blew in from the North Sea off the East coast of Scotland. It was not the usual foggy, sometimes bitter and driving blasts that typify the region near Aberdeen. Instead, it was the warm, lilting - sometimes vigorous and even a little salty - voice of Scottish folk singer Iona Fyfe that rekindled the audience in the cozy venue of Ottawa’s Red Bird Live.

Iona has been described as “one of the most stunning voices on the folk music circuit” and she captivated us with songs that ranged from traditional ballads, mainly from Aberdeenshire, to revivalist Americana tunes, to contemporary singer’s songs that she had transposed from the original wording into the Scots language. An example of the latter was Bob Dylan’s ‘Girl from the North Country’.

The Scots translation did not make this fabled song unrecognizable - just a little more mellifluous - smooth, gentle and easy flowing. For example, the line “Remember me to one who lives there”; became “Mind me tae the one wha bides there”; and, “In the brightness of my day”; became “In the brichtness o’ my day.”

For me, this wording is very familiar and even more so, the songs Iona sang in Doric, a form of North East Scots spoken in Aberdeenshire, where Iona is from, and in the neighbouring county Angus, where I spent my childhood years. While Doric is a less widely known language, in recent years it has enjoyed a revival and is now officially protected by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML).

I didn’t learn Doric in school, but we spoke it in my grandparent’s farmhouse, and when we taunted each other in the playground, and we heard it used by all the shopkeepers and most tradespeople. If your parents threatened to “clap yer lug” (clip your ear), it was time to behave! Doric, like Scots, is a language that has been used over the generations to share knowledge, traditions and values and of course, to tell stories and sing songs.

Iona has been very proactive in this movement of promoting Doric, and a passionate supporter of the statutory recognition of the Scots language, through her role as the Rector of Aberdeen University, in her studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Traditional Music, and of course, through her countless musical performances when touring multiple countries.

She led a successful campaign to pressure Spotify into recognizing Scots and adding it to its list of languages. Iona was honoured at the Scots Language Awards with the title of Speaker of the Year in 2021. The year before, she helped to found Oor Vyce, a campaign group dedicated to securing official recognition of the Scots Language. Scots has since been recognized by the ECRM; and Scots is officially recognized as a language by the Scottish Government and the UK government.

“I love the Scots language,” Iona said to me before the show. “When I sing in it, I feel so comfortable.” Originally from Huntly in Aberdeenshire, Iona told the audience that Scotland’s North East is “the heartland of ballads,” and that extensive academic efforts are underway to capture these folk songs that essentially tell a story, including fairy tales, jokes, love stories, legends and animal fables and that stretch back centuries.

Iona regaled us with a few of the lively examples (“Take me out Drinking”), some of them melancholic. And of course, there were some rousing singalongs (“Ding Dong Dolla”), some for which she accompanied herself on the piano, some she sang a capella, and some with Ottawa guitarist, Ian Clark (formerly from Scotland).

I had mentioned to Iona that I was born in Montrose, just 65 kilometres south of Aberdeen, and I was touched that she made a point of singing a song from Montrose in her selection, “Baltic Street”; albeit it’s a forlorn tale of a young English girl who is cast aside by her Montrose lad, who fears she would find married life in Montrose too dreary! (A more modern version would of course have the girl have a say in the decision – but the song was written in 1945).

Iona was here in Canada from February 22-28, 2025 and toured six locations stretching from Montreal to St. Catherines. Some concerts were sold out, including Ottawa’s, prompting Iona to add on a house concert here for grateful fans. It was an incredible, heart-warming performance, and as one of my concert companions said, “I’ve never felt more like I wanted to hear more!!”.

The Scottish Society of Ottawa was very proud and delighted to have helped sponsor Iona Fyfe’s performance in Ottawa, and hope she’ll be back soon!

Follow Iona on Facebook:@ionafyfe , on Instagram:@iona.fyfe and her YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@IonaFyfe

SSO Directors with Iona Fyfe at the Red Bird Live.