Edinburgh pubs: Barbara Dickson 'upset' by musicians 'making a racket' in famous Edinburgh pub

Fife-raised chart-topper Barbara Dickson, who now lives in the Capital has said she gets “very upset” when she hears fiddle players in Sandy Bell’s “making a racket” and feels like telling them to “shut up”.

The multi-million-selling artist, who recently announced her Farewell Tour, was a regular at the famous Forrest Road pub back in the mid-1960s. But Dickson, 77, told the 'A Kick Up The Arts' podcast that “everybody has a completely wrong idea of what Sandy Bell’s was”, adding that “it was not a music pub”.

Recalling what the boozer was like in her younger days, she said: “The first archway, forward of that to the door was all regulars, like crusty old guys with flat caps on with their pints of light, probably in those days. They had nothing whatsoever to do with the arty-farty crowd at the back.

Edinburgh pub Sandy Bell’s is considered to be something of a local institution - but singer Barbara Dickson is less than impressed with some of the musicians it attracts today. | Third Party

“We would meet at the back, by the ladies’ loo door, there could be 20 of us. We would be Edinburgh people and also people coming through like Billy Connolly, Gerry Rafferty, Tam Harvey and people from Glasgow, and we’d all just stand with our pints at the back.

“Nobody took out instruments and eventually somebody – usually someone like the late Derek Moffat, who was a wonderful member of The McCalmans – would burst into song a capella and we would all join in. That was Sandy Bell’s to me.

“We did that all over the place. You didn’t presume to take a guitar out of a case, it was like taking the mickey.”

Dickson continued: “This is why I get very upset when I hear rather lamentable fiddle playing in Sandy Bell’s. I feel like going up and saying ‘excuse me, do you think you could just shut up, because that’s horrible, that racket you’re making. You need to go and listen to Aly Bain, and then come back’.”