Song of the Day: Bill Barclay and Mr Sax. In search of a singer and a song
March 04, 2025
Bill Taylor writes: take it from me, when you’re getting well into your 70s, it’s a bonus if you can remember what you had for breakfast.
Don’t push me on that, though I know it always includes coffee. And as the caffeine was kicking in the other morning, a memory – or at least most of a memory – hit me out of nowhere from more than half a century ago...
A terrific song, Mr Sax, with spooky overtones, performed by a Scottish singer at the Sunday evening folk club Colin Randall organised at the Aclet Hotel, Bishop Auckland. This would have been in 1971. Being devoid of musical talent but having a big mouth, I was the MC.
I thought the singer might have been called Barclay. Colin supplied his first name – Bill – and said he was a comedian as well as a musician. But he couldn’t remember Bill Barclay ever gracing the Aclet’s makeshift beer-crate stage.
It was certainly him, though, because I was also now recalling him as very funny. And I’m pretty sure we had him there more than once, because he was a guaranteed crowd-puller.
(Bill Barclay, as I almost remember him: from the album cover)
Meanwhile, I’d managed to dig up a recording of the song.
It wasn't Barclay’s version – which I later tracked down to an album, Almost Live, he put out in 1974 – but the original, written by Ian Rankin (not the bestselling crime novelist, who is now Sir Ian) and performed by his trio, Rankin File. They were short-lived as a group, touring the UK and Europe between 1971 and ’73 and recording two albums.
Mr Sax is the title track of the second one.
So, when Bill Barclay took on the song, it would have been new.
He clearly must have known Rankin File well. Like Barclay, Ian Rankin hailed from Edinburgh, and lead guitarist Tony Mitchell grew up there.
Rick Nickerson, bass player and backup singer, was Canadian, born in Nova Scotia and raised in Ontario. He went on in 2007 to be elected a councillor in the Shetland Islands, where his wife hailed from.
Barclay himself, with more than 60 years as an entertainer under his belt, is apparently still in demand as a comedian and after-dinner speaker.
He’s toured the world, appearing on the same bill as Rod Stewart, Elton John and others, and been a radio presenter and TV actor, appearing in shows such as Taggart and Rab C Nesbitt.
Hollywood, too. Director Martin Scorsese cast him as the leader of the Shirt Tails gang in the 2002 blockbuster movie Gangs of New York, which starred Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz.
Not too shabby. But it’s as a folk singer with an endless string of one-liners that I remember… sort of remember him.
It took a while to find this, but here are all 54 minutes of his Almost Live album. Mr. Sax is at about the 23-minute mark. But the whole thing is worth a listen. It whisked me back half a century. It's very much of its time. There again, so am I.
I could almost picture that beer-crate stage.
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