Willie Kemp

Willie Kemp was born in 1889 in Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire and first performed publicly at his parents' hotel. When radio arrived in the 1920s Willie quickly became popular, and like others of his generation, went on to record many records (on the Beltona label) which sold extremely well.

In addition to composing and singing bothy ballads, he played tin whistle, trump (or Jew's harp), and ocarina. He recorded many songs and tunes with accordionist Curley MacKay. A book of his songs came out in 1950, Kerr's Cornkisters (Bothy Ballads), and during the 1960s an 12" vinyl LP called The Cornkisters featuring tracks by Willie Kemp and Tom Wright (another bothy ballad singer) was released. The tracks are made up from old Beltona sides.

I could understand this sort of material might not be to everyone's taste, in the context of traditional music, but I find the development of bothy ballad singing interesting, from genuine folksong to music hall and cod bothy ballad singers, 78rpm records, radio and television (Andy Stewart for example), and in many cases, back to folksongs (a lot of bothy ballads in oral tradition were in fact composed by the music hall artistes such as Kemp, G.S. Morris, and so on).

Willie Kemp Material

This list of Willie Kemp's songs and instrumentals is compiled from the sources listed below. I would be very interested to hear of any other material relating to Willie Kemp (email me). A more detailed list of material which includes dates etc can be found here.