[3] The family experienced considerable poverty, but the area they lived in possessed a strong community spirit and many of Gaughan's songs celebrate his working-class roots.

In 1972, before his album was released, Gaughan joined Bain, Cathal McConnell and Robin Morton, all of whom he had known from his Edinburgh Folk Centre days, in their group The Boys of the Lough.

[5] Gaughan resumed his solo career and on his next album, Kist O Gold (recorded in 1975), he sang mainly traditional songs, using only his guitar as accompaniment.

He recorded four albums with Five Hand Reel (three under their own name and one in collaboration with the Danish folksinger Alan Klitgaard), as well as two solo ones: the all-instrumental Coppers and Brass (1975), and Gaughan (1978), on which he played both acoustic and electric guitars.

[4][8] Five Hand Reel was more popular in northern Europe than in the UK, so he had to spend a lot of time on the road away from his family, and an excessive consumption of alcohol and generally unhealthy lifestyle began to take their toll, both physically and mentally.

He left the band but found it difficult to get solo gigs and by the end of the decade he was only playing occasionally, supplementing his income by writing articles for the magazine Folk Review.

[9] The album contained a strong set of traditional and contemporary songs, including several which have remained part of Gaughan's core repertoire, such as Robert Burns's lyrical "Now Westlin Winds", the feisty "Erin Go Bragh", Phil & June Colclough's evocative "Song For Ireland"[10] and his own reworking of the traditional "Both Sides The Tweed", which calls for Scottish independence without sacrificing friendship with the rest of the UK.

He had never hidden his strong socialist beliefs and all his albums had included songs by such writers as Hamish Henderson, Ewan MacColl, Dominic Behan, Ed Pickford and Leon Rosselson.

Now, however, he felt that "It was quite clearly time to stop reporting and start participating"[9] and his next album, A Different Kind of Love Song (1983) was, he said, "a full-frontal onslaught, basically an anti Cold War polemic".

[12] All of its songs, which were performed in a variety of styles ranging from acoustic folk to electric rock 'n' roll, exuded political commitment.

By the early 90s Gaughan was again feeling the need to work regularly with others, so he invited seven other well-established Scots musicians to form a group called Clan Alba.

The original line-up consisted of Gaughan, singer-guitarist Davy Steel, harpists Mary Macmaster and Patsy Seddon, multi-instrumentalist Brian McNeill, piper Gary West and percussionists Mike Travis and Dave Tulloch.

Along with political anthems such as Pete Seeger's "Waist Deep In The Big Muddy" and Brian McNeill's "No Gods and Precious Few Heroes", the record also featured Gaughan's interpretations of more mainstream songs, including Jagger/Richards's "Ruby Tuesday" and Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning.

Gaughan continued to regularly play solo gigs and for a while presented a weekly music programme, "Crossroads", for the Scottish radio station Black Diamond FM.

[22] An MRI scan the next month confirmed the stroke,[23] and in November of that year a benefit concert, featuring Aly Bain, Phil Cunningham, Billy Bragg, Karine Polwart and Eddi Reader, was held for him in Edinburgh.