His commercial success was limited, but he influenced many other artists, including most notably John Martyn, Billy Connolly, and Christy Moore.
He had his biggest hit in the late 1960s with Cod Liver Oil and the Orange Juice, a scurrilous and hilarious take on the American gospel standard "Virgin Mary Had a Little Baby" written by Ron Clark and Carl MacDougall.
For the last 18 months of his professional life, his stage partner was Kate Kramer, a Canadian fiddle player and singer who lived in Scotland, with whom he recorded his last CD, More and Merrier (1996).
[citation needed] Hamish Imlach was married to Wilma Dundas, who died on 10 March 2019 and had four children named Mairead, Fiona, Jim and Vhari.
Imlach's health deteriorated again towards the latter part of his life with bronchial troubles and obesity, and he died on 1 January 1996, six weeks short of his 56th birthday.