''The Big Wheel'' is a studio album by the Scottish
Celtic rock
Celtic rock is a genre of folk rock, as well as a form of Celtic fusion which incorporates Celtic music, instrumentation and themes into a rock music context. It has been extremely prolific since the early 1970s and can be seen as a key foundat ...
band
Runrig
Runrig were a Scottish Celtic rock band formed on the Isle of Skye in 1973. From its inception, the band's line-up included songwriters Rory Macdonald and Calum Macdonald. The line-up during most of the 1980s and 1990s (the band's most succe ...
, released in 1991. The album peaked at No. 4 on the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
.
Critical reception
''
The Kitchener-Waterloo Record
The ''Waterloo Region Record'' (formerly ''The Record'') is the daily newspaper covering Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada, including the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, as well as the surrounding area. Since December 1998, the ''Re ...
'' wrote that "Donnie Munro's vocals drive the songs, but Iain Bayne's superbly produced drums power the band itself."
The ''
Calgary Herald
The ''Calgary Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Publication began in 1883 as ''The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate, and General Advertiser''. It is owned by the Postmedia Network.
History
''The ...
'' labeled the album "an inoffensive, watered-down brand of Celtic rock... Uninspiring but professional."
[
]
Track listing
All songs written by Calum Macdonald and Rory Macdonald.
# "Headlights" - 5:09
# "Healer in Your Heart" - 5:34
# "Abhainn an t-Sluaigh" (The Crowded River) - 5:17
# "Always the Winner" - 5:41
# "This Beautiful Pain" - 4:15
# "An Cuibhle Mòr" (The Big Wheel) - 6:07
# "Edge of the World" - 5:00
# "Hearthammer" - 4:27
# "I'll Keep Coming Home" - 2:33
# "Flower of the West" - 6:36
Personnel
;Runrig
*Iain Bayne - drums
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...
, percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...
* Malcolm Jones - guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...
s, banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
, accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
*Calum Macdonald - percussion
* Rory Macdonald - bass guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...
, vocals
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...
*Donnie Munro
Donnie Munro (Scottish Gaelic: Donaidh Rothach /dɔnɪ rɔhəx/) (born 2 August 1953) is a Scottish musician, and former lead singer of the band Runrig.
A native speaker of Scots Gaelic, much of his work is in that language.
Early life
Munro ...
- lead vocals
The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...
* Peter Wishart - keyboards
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
References
Runrig albums
1991 albums
Chrysalis Records albums
Scottish Gaelic music
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