In terms of audacity, Thunderstruck arguably surpassed everything Gordon had produced to date, even his magnificently frantic Pressed For Time. By the time he unleashed Thunderstruck, Gordon’s tunes such as Andy Renwick’s Ferret and The Sleeping Tune were so popular with other musicians and folk bands that they had passed into the tradition, possibly the ultimate compliment for a composer in the traditional music style. Plenty of others did appreciate Gordon’s musicality and compositional flair, though. His first album, Just For Seamus, was dedicated to a piping competition adjudicator who had responded to Gordon’s free-wheeling brilliance by saying that if this was where piping was heading, he wished he himself had taken up the fiddle instead. Not everyone valued Gordon’s ability to play on the pipes apparently any piece of music – or any musical scale – he could hear in his imagination. It wasn’t such a daft comparison because Gordon took the pipes to a level of proficiency and expression up there with Dame Evelyn Glennie’s on percussion or Nicola Benedetti’s on violin. When Gordon Duncan introduced his arrangement for bagpipes of the AC/DC song Thunderstruck at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1999, he was probably expecting to make mischievous ripples rather than waves that have washed up on four continents and inspired an international award-winning play.Īn essentially shy, quiet man who had earned his own international reputation as a piper while holding down a job as a refuse collector in Pitlochry, Gordon was a self-effacing virtuoso.Ī journalist once described Gordon’s fluency on the pipes as akin to the great jazz musician Charlie Parker’s playing on the alto saxophone, only to be gently rebuked by Gordon’s suggestion that the journalist stop being so daft. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Information An icon of an information logo. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble.

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Thunderstruck bagpipe player