There's more to Ronnie than just being 'that guy fae The Corries'
RONNIE Browne's professional association with the Highlands goes back a long way.
Long before he and musical partner the late Roy Williamson found their greatest success as a duo, The Corries would head to the Highlands to appear at the long demolished Empire Theatre then under the care of local showbiz legend, manager John Worth.
"When we first went up to John Worth — this would be 1964-65 — it was Paddie Bell and The Corrie Folk Trio, just the four of us, and he asked us: ‘What time does the rest of the cast arrive?’" Browne recalled.
"John used to play the piano in the pit and answer the phone at the same time — while the show was on. But that’s way back."
Many more visits to the Empire and later Eden Court would follow, but next week will find Browne at a new venue The Ironworks — just along Academy Street from the site of the former Empire Theatre — and in a new guise, published author.
Ronnie Browne: The Guy Frae The Corries, is Browne’s own story and one that has been long anticipated.
As far back as 1992, a journalist suggested Browne publish his autobiography — which he would ghost write.
Browne protested that at 53, he was "a mere slip of a boy", and had nothing to write about.
Two decades on and the book, published by Dingwall-based independent Sandstone Press, shows that Browne does have plenty to write about, from his childhood in wartime Edinburgh, through his professional music career to his later career as a successful portrait painter and a less happy diversion into acting alongside film bad boy Oliver Reed.
While the book’s title acknowledge’s Browne is best known from the group that gave Scotland its unofficial national anthem in Flower of Scotland, he also points out it is just part of his personal story.
"I joined The Corries in 1962 and Roy died in 1990, and since then there’s been another 25 years, so that whole episode has only been one third of my life," he pointed out.
"A couple of reviewers said they could have done with more about Roy Williamson, but this is my autobiography, not Roy’s. And there is an awful lot about The Corries and The Corrie Folk Trio in it, I thought I’d done enough."
Fortunately, Browne did not just have to rely on his own recollections for the book.
"I’ve got my business diaries from day one of The Corries in 1962 right through to when Roy died and since and I have my wife’s personal diaries from 1973, so that was a great help. It was a boost to memory," he said.
"I found myself writing things and then referring to the diaries and realised I’d just written a lot of rubbish."
Among those memories is Browne’s emotional, and nerve-wracking, return to the stage as a solo performer for the first time following Williamson’s death in August 1990.
"I came off at half time and went into the dressing room and Pat was standing there with her back against the wall, rigid and crying like a baby. I thought somebody had hit her," Browne said.
"I asked her what was wrong and she said that all the years she had seen me singing with Roy and all of a sudden, seeing me on my own, it just got to her."
For any newcomers to The Corries whop wants to get a taste of how the duo sounded, there are plenty of recordings to choose from.
"Most of our records were live performances. That was down to me," Browne said.
"Roy would have loved being in the studio, but I don’t like it. I told him if we’ve done a song for 50 or 60 nights on tour, if it’s not right at the end of it, then there’s something far wrong. That’s why I said: let’s do it and forget going into the studio. Roy may not have liked it, but he did agree with me and that’s how it was."
His time in The Corries may have brought him international fame, but Browne takes a pragmatic view of his musical career.
"I’ve said all the way through the book that it was my job," he said.
"If I hadn’t made a living at the singing, I would have had to come out of it and get a job that pays money. There’s this idea that musicians should have this esoteric thing that they will play for anybody for nothing. Bugger that!"
The same attitude extends to Browne’s paintings — as a portrait painter he pints out that he receives his money up-front.
"I’m a working man," he explained.
"I’ve never thought of myself as anything else, even now. It’s not a creative drive. It’s just making money out of the things that I know I can do."
However, that should not give anyone the impression that Browne did not enjoy his job.
"Who wouldn’t get pleasure standing in front of 60 or 70,000 people in Hampden? That’s not the point. I wasn’t doing it for pleasure. I was doing it for work. But if you get pleasure while you are doing it for money, that’s fine," he said.
But Browne has made his last public appearance as a singer.
It came 21st July last year when he sand in front of the Scottish Commonwealth Games squad in the run up to the Glasgow games.
"The whole squad was there, 600 plus athletes along with their kids and their parents. Chris Hoy was there, Dougie Donnelly was there and I had to sing Flower of Scotland," he said.
"I knew, when I was looking down at them all, they were not seeing me. In their mind’s eye they were standing there with a Gold Medal round their necks and the flag going up as they sing Flower of Scotland. And I started to cry, because it was an emotional time. Being professional, I managed to get the emotion back inside my chest and finish the song, but it was difficult."
Browne has long had the power to stir up emotions in his audience, but when events got to him too, he decided that was a signal to call time on his performing career.
"Now, that’s the time to stop. I’m not going to go out there and break down in public," he stated.
Browne may not have written Flower of Scotland and is happy to give full credit to his late partner Williamson, but sees himself as its guardian.
Yet even he struggles to explain what it is about the song that allowed it to become such a key part of the Scottish consciousness.
""I don’t have the faintest idea, nor has anyone who asks that question," he said.
"It took on a life of it’s own. And over the whole world. Anywhere you go where Scots are, they all know the words.
"You can’t legislate for why Flower of Scotland has taken off. There’s no reason.
"But I never say: This should be our national anthem. It’s nothing to do with me. It’s up to the people to decide."
Having been a singer, artist, teacher and actor and now writer, Browne might yet be found pursuing another activity in any future autobiography as he heads into Indiana Jones territory.
"I love Egypt. I have a friend out there how is a painter/decorator and also a conservationist. He’s currently employed at the Chapel of Alexander the Great in the Grand Temple in Luxor.
"He is reviving the colour that was put on there 35000 years ago. I went out there with him and he gave me a shot. How’s that?
"A 77-year old sitting there with a piece of art thousands of years old coming to life in front of me. Fantastic. I’ve got an open invitation to go out there any time I like and help excavate the tombs of the workers in the Valley of the Kings. And if I can ever get over my aversion to snakes and scorpions, I’m out there."
• Ronnie Browne will be interviewed by broadcaster and music journalist Nicola Meighan at The Ironworks, Inverness, at 1.30pm on Wednesday 10th June. Please note only those registered with XpoNorth can attend.
He will also be appearing in Nairn in September to talk about his autobiography as part of the town's 12th Book and Arts Festival.
Ronnie Browne: That Guy Fae The Corries is published by Sandstone Press.
