ANGUS first picked up a fiddle at five years old. He was given a quarter-sized instrument by his uncle and the family were amazed when in just few days he had three tunes on the go. Perhaps they shouldn’t have been so surprised. As the son of the renowned left-handed fiddle player and teacher from Lochaber -Aonghas Grant - his destiny was to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Not that he saw it quite in the way Grant senior intended. In fact, his teenage years were full of filial rebellion, as he gave up the fiddle and took up the electric guitar. It was the time of punk and a do-it-yourself vibe. Spending hours practising pibroch and puirt tunes seemed less attractive than thrashing away at a guitar. In those days, playing fiddle was decidedly uncool, ironically something Angus did much to change in the next 30 or so years.
It was his school friend Kaela Rowan, now providing vocals for Shooglenifty, who persuaded Angus to dig out his fiddle again and go along to a session. Shortly after, Iain Macfarlane, himself a fine fiddler, persuaded Grant junior to join his band Pennycroft, with Kaela as third member. The threesome worked their way round the bars of Glenfinnan, Glenuig and Loch Ailort, not forgetting Fergie’s Bar in Mingarry, which was a particular favourite.