Composer Information: Graham Barbour

Graham Barbour was born in 1943 and started playing the piano accordion at age 11 years, taking lessons from Jim Mason, a music teacher from Dumfries.   The lessons progressed until the age of 16 years, by which time Graham had left school and joined his father in his blacksmith’s business.

By the time Graham was 13 years old however, he was already playing publicly along with local dance bands and continued like this for a number of years. At about the age of 22, he decided to set up his own band and along with some friends created the ‘Graham Barbour’ band, and became involved in the dance scene for three or four years. 

When Graham's father died he gave up commercial playing to spend more time in the family business. But the urge for music however wouldn’t go away and within a couple of years or so he was back in the dance scene with a new ‘Graham Barbour’ band which continued for around another 10 years and intermittently thereafter. During the existence of the Graham Barbour bands, my friends and I were involved in various broadcasts both on radio and television.

Graham first started writing tunes around 1972, though sporadically in the beginning, what with the band work and of course the day job plus family commitments. However, in latter years the music writing has become more prolific and thus this collection!

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