Capercaillie are a Scottish folk band, founded in 1984 by Donald Shaw and led by Karen Matheson, and which performs traditional Gaelic and contemporary songs in English.

[1] Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the band gave their last performance on 17 August 2019 at the Festival des Filets Bleus in Concarneau, Brittany, France.

After a further nine months off the road the band resumed touring, and between April and August 2022 performed in France, including Paris, Condette, Pas-de-Calais, Hauts-de-France, Lorient in Brittany, and on the Tatihou islet in Normandy.

Capercaillie's first two albums, Cascade and Crosswinds featured few modern instruments and the tunes and songs were played in a more traditional arrangement.

[1] However beginning with later albums such as Sidewaulk, and the soundtrack of The Blood Is Strong, Capercaillie began to experiment with adding funk bass-lines into certain tracks, as well as synthesisers and electric guitar.

The opening track from their 2000 album Nàdurra, "Skye Waulking Song", was used in the Edexcel Music GCSE Specification from 2009 to 2016.