John Wilson's Collection Book 2

Prolific piper in the early 20th Century, John Wilson has certainly left a legacy to the bagpipe world. Multiple winner of both gold medals, his life revolved around piping, and he took on a variety of jobs, from accounting clerk to male model, leaving as required to spend the summers playing the Games circuit.

He achieves sustained success throughout the 1920s and ’30s against the likes of Robert Reid, R. U. Brown, Willie Ross, J. B. Robertson and Malcolm R. MacPherson.

It was a Golden Age of piping, and John Wilson was one of the great pipers of the age. During 1936, he received 70 prizes in 72 events, winning first in 35 of them and second in 24. Two of these firsts included the Clasp at Inverness and the Former Winners’ March, Strathspey and Reel at Oban.

By this time he was flourishing as a composer, and his tunes were gaining in popularity. In 1937 he published his first book of bagpipe music containing original compositions not just by himself, but by John MacColl, G. S. McLennan, Roderick Campbell, Peter MacLeod Jr., and Ian C. Cameron.

This second of three volumes appeared in 1957 and a third in 1967. To this day the three John Wilson collections rank in stature alongside those of Willie Ross and Donald MacLeod.