Robbie Shepherd
Music presenter on BBC Scotland and advocate for the Scots Doric language of the Northeast
This article about the late Robbie Shepherd was published in the winter 2010-11 issue of Scottish Life magazine; please keep that in mind when reading the present tenses below! Shepherd hosted his radio progran until 2016.
Take the floor. It's what dancers do when the music starts up. It's also the name of a radio program that has brought the bounce and good cheer of Scottish dance music into Scottish homes every weekend for 30 years. Take the Floor and the energetic voice of its presenter, Robbie Shepherd, is a mainstay of Scottish culture.
Shepherd's enthusiasm for the dance music is contagious, and many Scots have been introduced to the genre through his program. Jimmy Shand, Ian Powrie, and Jim Johnstone are some of the icons of Scottish dance music from the 1950s and 1960s that can still be heard on the show. Their danceable accordion music, with its strong swing, is the core of the program, but a variety of singers and contemporary musicians are also heard and interviewed during the programs. Shepherd considers himself an enthusiast of fiddle music as well, and has served as the emcee for performances of the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra throughout the U.K.
The original version of the radio program was simply called Scottish Dance Music. Begun in 1936, it was BBC Scotland's first entertainment program. Some four decades later, it was renamed Take the Floor by a new presenter, David Finlay, who was a pianist with the Olympians dance band. In 1980, after Finlay's tragic death in a car accident on the way home from the radio show, BBC turned to the talents of Robbie Shepherd, who was known for hosting an Aberdeen-based radio program called Shepherd's Tartan.
Take the Floor airs on Saturday evenings and repeats on Sunday afternoons in Scotland, but each show can be heard at any time online until the next week's show comes on. On occasion, Robbie enjoys taking the show on the road, which has proven very popular. One time, Take the Floor attracted 1600 people to a midsummer show featuring the Iain MacPhail band at the Princes Street Ross Memorial Bandstand in Edinburgh.
Shepherd often brings on musicians to talk about and play recordings of their work. During the summer, he enjoys meeting up with musicians at their homes, and visiting their favorite places to have an on-air chat. This is a great way to learn more about the musicians than they might discuss in a studio setting. For example, last summer, Shepherd traveled to Oban and Loch Etive to chat with Donald Shaw and Karen Matheson of the band Capercaillie. As they walked along the beach, they came across the very spot where a cover photo for an early album had been taken, and as a result, carried on a spirited conversation about their early musical work.
Summer interviews on location used to be a regular feature that Shepherd included in another weekly radio program of his, The Reel Blend. For a long time, Take the Floor focused mostly on traditional dance music, while The Reel Blend included a variety of music and culture. Shepherd once said, “The Reel Blend is all about tradition, all about the different aspects which includes the dialect, includes the genuine tongue." The two programs were folded together into Take the Floor in the fall of 2009.
When Shepherd first was proposed as the presenter for Take the Floor, some at BBC wondered whether Robbie's strong Aberdeenshire accent might be an impediment to the show. He was born in Dunecht, about 12 miles west of Aberdeen. His language is Doric. Some consider it the Aberdeenshire version of Scots but Robbie calls it Doric for a simple reason: that's what his father and grandfather called it.
An advocate for the language, Robbie writes "The Doric Column" regularly for the Aberdeen Press & Journal. Here's a wee sample: "I jist hid tae see it for masel fin pickin up last Setterday’s paper tae read that the Broch wis in the tap three seaside toons on the crest o a wave for gettin the best oot o life." For more, take a look at his book compilation, The Doric Columns, or one of Shepherd's collections of stories in Doric, featuring the wit and wisdom of Scotland's Northeast.
Connecting his passions for language and music is essential, Shepherd says. “It's interwoven with our culture. Take our dance, our song, our poetry, our music and our landscape – it needs the language too.” Needless to say, 30 years on, worries about his accent proved groundless. Shepherd's warmth and enthusiasm, and the music itself, made Take the Floor a long-lasting success.
Outside of the music and the language, Robbie is well known for another pursuit: for over 40 years he has served as a commentator at Highland Games, including more than 30 years at the famous Braemar Gathering, which is attended by the Royal Family.
Over the years, Robbie has seen Scottish music grow and change, and his program has reflected that to some extent, but still the thread is the same. He dismisses talk of a musical divide between east and west in Scotland. He cites the prevalence of festivals, traditional music schools, the Accordion and Fiddle Clubs, and similar venues where tunes and styles are swapped back and forth with mutual appreciation.
If there's any divide in the dance music, he says, it's between the style and attitude of village hall (ceilidh) dancing versus that of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society (RSCDS). Shepherd grew up with the village hall dances, high energy community events with a grand march, Gay Gordons, Strip the Willow, Eightsome Reel, and other popular dances, along with old-time round-the-room dances such as slow foxtrots. The RSCDS dances are more formally structured, and standardized so as to be available round the world. Top RSCDS dance bands travel abroad, though at home some also play for ceilidh dances.
Shepherd was honored in 1998 with an award from the RSCDS for his loyal support of their dance music. He often plays RSCDS dance music on his program, though he doesn't partake in that style of dancing himself, preferring the greater freedoms of the village hall dances he attended as a youngster.
About once a month, his father used to bring home records of some of the great dance bands. By the time Robbie became part of the music scene himself as a radio presenter, he was in awe of the great musicians. He tells of his first meeting with the famous Sir Jimmy Shand. Before the radio show, he explained that he would announce the tune and then Jimmy would play. Jimmy replied that unfortunately this would not work, as the name of his first tune was far too long! But Robbie practiced, announced it, and to this day has never forgotten “Dr. Ross's 50th Welcome to the Argyleshire Gathering.”
Subsequently, he and his wife became good friends with the Shands. In fact, Shepherd says he has seldom met any musician he has disliked. “Scottish music is a great leveler,” he says, “as is golf.”
For his services to Scottish dance music and culture, Shepherd has received many awards, including an MBE from the Queen, and induction into the Scots Trad Music Awards Hall of Fame. Other recognition has come from the National Association of Accordion and Fiddle Clubs, the RSCDS, and Aberdeen University, which gave him a Masters for his work with Doric and culture of the Northeast.
While working tirelessly to promote an appreciation for Scottish music and culture, Shepherd has himself become an integral part of it. When there's no dance hall nearby for you to take the floor, you can always Take the Floor with Robbie Shepherd.
Shepherd retired from his BBC Scotland radio program after 35 years, but Take the Floor continues. Since 2016, it has been hosted by accordionist Gary Innes, famous for his championship shinty play (ancient Gaelic sport similar to the Irish hurling) and a founder of the popular band Mànran. Robbie Shepherd passed away in 2023.