Archie Dagg

[1] In the late 1930s, he was a member of the English Sheepdog Trials Team; when competing with them in Scotland, he would play Scottish tunes on the Northumbrian smallpipes, and found he would get a steady supply of free drams.

Dagg learned the fiddle from his father, who forbade him to play anything but hymns on a Sunday;[2] later he led the Hillbillies Dance Band during the 1920s and early 1930s.

He was also an early member of the Northumbrian Pipers' Society;[3] later he played as one of The Border Minstrels, along with Billy Pigg, John Armstrong (of Carrick), and Annie Snaith, from 1938.

[4] In a taped interview,[5] another Border shepherd, Willie Scott, recalled that traditional musicians were rarely influenced by records or radio, Archie Dagg the piper certainly wasn't.

Francis Wood, himself a pipemaker, writes that "Dagg's best reeds were scraped relatively thin, giving a clear bright tone with a very rapid response, highly suitable for original Robert Reid chanters and others made after this pattern."

In the interview cited above,[6] Willie Scott referred to "a tremendous set of pipes that Archie Dagg had recently made from ivory".