The Man Himself
A quote to go with the pictures:
The GHB community? street cred ?
If a gang of them turned up my my street, I’d be the first one out wth the rotten cabbages. 
Back to Rufus. Is it me, or is Rufus out of tune with all of his backing tracks?
Mukade
Doesn’t play dress up? 
OK, I guess you posted that before Ben posted those additional pics. I’ll let you off easy on that one.
I’m not saying having no street cred among GHB players is good or bad. It just seemed relevant because the individual in question plays the GHB. And I think I clarified my perspective well enough.
As far as GHB “street cred”… yeah it’s pretty laughable. But we definitely have more street cred than the recorder community.
Cheers,
Aaron
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but on that track he is playing saxophone, not GHB.
Mukade
He is playing Sax on Kerry Dancers clip.
A friend of mine has a RH record he played me a bit down the phone.
It was a version of the tune Windy on GHB with R and B backing. It was certainly “different”.
The Differernt styles were too great an obsticle for a “Harmonius” duet
It sure looks awkward (and weird) to me to see someone playing the GHB’s on the right hand side. I am fine with someone taking a non traditional approach, but put them on the left side please.
I used to play the GHB’s in a rock band and I sure would get a reaction. Blacks were often more taken with the instrument. I have played the pipes a few time marching through crowds of moshers who would body slam me as I played. I told them it was fine with me as long as they didn’t slam into my chanter.
I was fortunate to meet Rufus Harley last year in Philadelphia (my brother is involeved in the jazz scene there and arranged the introduction). Maybe a little eccentric but one of the nicest hospitable people I’ve ever met. His apartment, although a little run down, is a shrine to the US and the constitution and photographs everywhere of his carreer and some really big names he’s played with. His philosophical ideas that he presented went over my head at the time but actually made sense to me later as I thought about them.
He wanted to “jam” so we went into his bedroom where he had a large amplifier stack and plugged in a Jamey Abersol backing track CD, opened all the windows (he said the neighborhood should hear this) and we wailed (I had my GHB’s). God was that fun (and loud)! He told me to forget what I learned on the pipes and just play. We played Coltrane, Rollins and even Mancini. He showed me some unusual cross fingerings (they worked better on his chanter than mine). It was an unforgettable experience and I really enjoyed it. By the way, he was getting ready to leave for Scotland the next week to perform at the paid request of the College of Piping at a special outing they were having.
Thanks for listening -
Paul Fehrenbach
I see in the pic that Ben posted above that Rufus is wearing the traditional “bathrobe with Reebok trainers”. Wouldn’t want someone from the “community” challenging his ‘street cred’ now, would he?
And horns!
And Paul, awesome post, thanks.
listen brian, any deviation from the borg is going to evoke a response not unlike that of a pack of rabid jackels. it’s all about dress up and marching in lockstep with this crowd. how could the precious tradition be so threatened by someone like rufus, who may not be the hp icon, but is a fabulous musician, much more so than the average mongrel in a pipe band could ever dream of. don’t get yer bowels in such an uproar boys.
Agreed.
WHAT was I thinking?!?
A thousand apologies to the borg! 
You can download a clip of RH here
http://www.wyattworks.com/film_rf.htm
Oh please. If there was a UP equivalent of RH, this board would be all over them a la rabid jackals.
The GHB community has plenty of time for anyone who wants to try whatever they like - but as in just about any community, most of us expect that you can demonstrate competency in traditional styles before venturing into free jazz (the free jazz community is exempted here). Rufus Harley couldn’t play his way out of a wet paper bag in terms of technique. I won’t deny that he’s a fine musician and entertaining, but to say what he’s doing has anything to do with the GHB is pretty much nonsense.
Gordon Duncan does a pretty mean staccatto, though I doubt very much there’s another player alive who could do it. Fred Morrison, maybe.
Pipes on the right shoulder is plenty traditional, there are even some good arguments for it. There are even entire threads on the subject on this forum, if you care to search for it.
Cheers,
Calum
oleorezinator :" it’s all about dress up and marching in lockstep with this crowd."
..not all of us…some go into piping for fun (or the fact we couldn’t affort or find a set of UPs) and occasionally for highland dance competition.
…
Calum:“Oh please. If there was a UP equivalent of RH, this board would be all over them a la rabid jackals.”
…I wish I could deny this.
…
I hear that Van Cliburn said the same thing about John Tesh.
Has anyone ever heard of UP’s being played ina RH way - not lacking technique, but playing non trad stuff, jazz etc?
I don’t mean the odd novelty piping piece but mainly non trad stuff.
Stuff by the group’Mobius’ sounds a little bit like sax quartet stuff(think 'World Sax Q/tet) to me.
My own U.P. playing would probably count as free jazz!!
Davy Spillane…some recordings… not altogether trad, but not altogether jazz…new agey at times.