Celtic Connections review: Red Clydeside: John Maclean Centenary Concert, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Bringing together a stellar cast of musicians and poets, this tribute to Scottish socialist John Maclean was a big-hearted chorus of hope, writes Jim Gilchrist

Red Clydeside: John Maclean Centenary Concert, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall ****

John Maclean, the legendary Scottish socialist, teacher and revolutionary died in November 1923, aged just 44, his health shattered by imprisonment, hunger strike and forced feeding, following his active opposition to the First World War.

This centenary show tapped into folk music’s inherent political seam. As narrator Allan Henderson steered us through songs and readings, the repeated message was that Maclean’s principles seem as relevant today in a world rife with violence and injustice as they ever have.

Red Clydeside: John MacLean Centenary Concert PIC: Kris Kesiak

Notable performances, backed by an excellent six-piece band, included Paul McKenna’s ardent delivery of Matt McGinn’s Ballad of John Maclean, while Karine Polwart included Sidney Carter’s eloquent tribute to John Ball, the 14th century radical priest. From Ireland, Karan Casey favoured the Jute Mill Song (famously composed by Mary Brooksbank, a devotee of Maclean), Eddi Reader resurrected the condemnatory In Contempt from America’s McCarthy Era while Kapil Seshasayee combined West African-inflected guitar with a song of solidarity with his Dumbarton home.

Radical troubadour Billy Bragg gave uncompromising force to Power in the Union before Scotland’s own conscience-stirrer, Dick Gaughan, unexpectedly emerged from retirement, to a hero’s welcome, and led with Bragg a robust amalgam of The Red Flag and The White Cockade. The show’s organiser, Siobhan Miller, meanwhile, invoked the feisty leader of Glasgow’s 1915 rent strikes by singing Mrs Barbour’s Army.

Former Makar, Jackie Kay, read her fond tribute to her activist parents, Shoes of Dead Comrades, Raymond Williams gave an impassioned reading of Maclean’s accusatory speech from the dock, while intimate insight was brought, movingly, by Frances Wilson, Maclean’s granddaughter, reading letters to his family from prison.

A grand finale saw the Internationale followed by Hamish Henderson’s Scots counterpart, Freedom Come-All-Ye. Its final verse, enshrining Maclean, was left to the audience – a big-hearted chorus of hope against a sadly fractured world.