With a background ranging from driving Glasgow buses to community arts, Colin McEwan’s material is a scrapbook of his life – sketches of women he’s loved, jobs he hasn’t, things that have moved, confused, amused, angered, or annoyed him, and in some cases still do. Tuneful and original, engaging and varied, reflective to wryly humorous to mildly raucous, they are delivered with engaging assurance.

Yvonne McLeod’s skill, sensitivity, warmth, and wit as an accordion player has been honed through years of playing for audiences from Arisaig to Adelaide, Barra to Baku, Luxembourg to Luthrie, where she’d just moved to rent a room from Colin and his partner when Boris announced lockdown.

They’d already made a start on arranging a couple of tunes by then, melodies that Colin had written out using notation software just to get them out his head. Setting out arrangements for Yvonne were to Colin like being handed a box of crayons, adding colour and tone to pencil drawings, then setting the pieces in a frame.

They were then joined by Martin Dibbs who, with a long and illustrious career playing and teaching, added his crisp solid drumming to give the pieces a tight foundation. Pete Harvey of Pumpkinfield Studio, as well as recording the album, added some fine bass, plus a little cello fairy dust.

The title of the album is a line from the song “Stronger.” Written with women in Edinburgh prison, it describes their fears about the prospect of leaving, confronting the circumstances that brought them there in the first place, and their determination to arise above them.

I may be broken in a thousand ways,

But I will heal

Hear me say,

I may be broken in a thousand ways

I’ll mend

Stronger than before.

Available from all major download and streaming platforms.

Available on CD from Amazon and Birnam CD.