Hi, I’m Willie Stewart. I was born and raised in Kilmarnock, birthplace of Rabbie’s first edition. A working replica of the printing press is to be found locally in The Dick Institute, which is just a couple of hundred metres from Loanhead Primary School, the place where at the age of eight I sang and recorded my first Burns song “Flow Gently Sweet Afton”. My music career has gently flowed through many differing scenes and stages, all of which have been pleasing and pleasant, just like the river. For five years I was the singer in a Scottish cabaret show which was fronted by Larry Marshall and housed in Edinburgh’s King James Hotel. Also for many years I toured with the international Gaelic singing star, Calum Kennedy. For two years I ran my own Burns show in The Land O’ Burns Centre, now known as Robert Burns National Heritage Park. It has taken many years of Burns suppers, being cajoled and asked, “Have you got a CD of yourself?” before I recorded this album. It is an intimate recording, where I want you to picture me sitting down beside you with my guitar singing some songs o’ the lassies. (Although I do play guitar while performing, this recording features the best session guitarist this side o’ the border, Duncan Findlay.) In it there is a selection of songs featuring lassies, some popular, some well known and loved, some original tunes from Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum, “The Bonie Lass O’ Albanie” to which I have set a popular folk song known as “The River’s Wide”, and the last being the original tune for “Auld Lang Syne”, which Burns took and so masterfully built on to create an international anthem. Is this a song about a lassie? “We twa hae paddled in the burn, We twa hae run about the braes.” Could this be an early childhood memory of a wee boy and lassie who grew both up and apart? I leave you to decide for yourself as we sit doon aside the fire and enjoy a sang or twa.