Willie Hunter

In the liner notes of his final album, Leaving Lerwick Harbor, recorded several weeks before his death in 1993, Shetland fiddler Willie Hunter was praised for his "unrivaled vitality and lyricisim". In his early-sixties when he died, Hunter was a major influence on such Scottish fiddlers as Aly Bain of The Boys of The Lough and Tom Anderson. According to Musical Traditions, Hunter "was a musician with a formidable technical arsenal". Hunter, who taught in Shetland schools, had an extremely large repertoire that included original pieces such as the now-classic, "The Cape Breton Fiddlers Welcome To Scotland" and many tunes by James Scott Skinner. Although his masterful fiddling remained at the heart of his recordings, his albums were strengthened by the piano playing of his longtime collaborator Violet Tulloch.