Dick Gaughan

Dick Gaughan is a Scottish singer-songwriter.

Richard Peter Gaughan was born in 1948 in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, where his father was temporarily working as an engine driver. One and a half years later the whole fam

Dick Gaughan is a Scottish singer-songwriter.

Richard Peter Gaughan was born in 1948 in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, where his father was temporarily working as an engine driver. One and a half years later the whole family moved to Leith, a port on the outskirts of Edinburgh. He has never returned to Rutherglen. Richard's mother was from Lochaber, and was a native speaker of Gaelic. As a child in the 1930s she won a silver medal at the Gaelic Mod. His father was an Irish speaker from Mayo, who played the fiddle. He was the eldest of three children. Dick Gaughan took up the guitar at the age of 7. Although he later sang in Scots Gaelic it remained a foreign tongue to him, an echo of a distant past, with only the occasional word or phrase having meaning. He sang in Edinburgh folk clubs and became professional in 1970.