Moray Americana songwriter returns north for Belladrum

A MORAY musician, living in London for the last nine years, will head home to play Belladrum Festival this summer.

Malcolm MacWatt, a former journalist with The Northern Scot, is joining a line-up of trans-Atlantic roots musicians on the Medicine Show Potting Shed stage on Saturday, August 3.

MacWatt (56) has been steadily making a name for himself on the London Country & Americana music scene since 2017 with his band The Glass Mountains and more recently as a solo singer-songwriter.

"Playing with the band is always fun but it's really as a solo artist that doors have started to be flung open for me,” said MacWatt, who regular performs at some of the capital’s most iconic music venues.

"I'm lucky enough to be getting invited to all these amazing London gig spots – recently I was on the same stage in Camden where Amy Winehouse was a regular – but performing at Belladrum will definitely be the highlight of my year."

MacWatt left his home town of Elgin in 2010 to study guitar-making at Metropolitan University and after graduation worked as a Higher Level Teaching Assistant in inner-city London schools until January 2019 when he became a full-time musician.

He said: "Everybody tells me they are happy to see me living my dream but being a musician is a hard struggle on a personal and financial level. You need a thick skin to handle knock-backs, the confidence to keep writing and performing when your music isn’t in vogue and being prepared to plough every single penny you make back into recording."

Ahead of Balldrum, his music can be found on major digital platforms including Spotify, iTunes, Amazon and Bandcamp or visit www.malcolmmacwatt.com for links.

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