P/M Willie and P/S Alex Ross's first-ever recording session from 1909

Usually when a favorite vocal artist uploads something I would often upload something in return to "cash back", as it were, their fandom. In this case, one of my favorite singers Sneha Prakash just uploaded a SUPER HOT short (which I don't like Shorts because I never get notifications!). Because I'm running out of cool shtuff to upload, it might be a better idea to just wait for any of my favorite artists, from Christine Elise to Madilyn Bailey to Lauren Alvarez to Sneha, to upload something which would be the cue for me to upload another cool recording.
Anyway, this past weekend I was surfing Archive.org for any other possible old records they've digitized - especially in terms of bagpipes. And I actually found two very interesting sides.
These recordings weren't documented very clearly in the Scottish Discography by William DeanMyatt, but I can still tell who these pipers are just by their actual playing. Apparently, Willie Ross and his younger brother Alex along with a drummer made a session in 1909!!!!!! So technically, Willie Ross's first recording session was not from 1910, but 1909!!!!!!!!! Both brothers are situated so that the horn picked up both sets of drones and both chanters equally, and the drummer is likewise in the background. Like I said, I can tell who they are by the playing, so that's definitely a giveaway. All it credits them as are just "Pipers and drummers", but I can tell by the particular arrangements of the tunes who they are. The Ross pipers had a very different arrangement of the tunes compared to Henry Forsyth, and usually Henry Forsyth was the Pipe major. But not here, in this 1909 recording.
This record has two sides. The first side is an arrangement of "Flowers of the Forest", which is a lament used at funerals, and the interesting thing about the drum-score is the fact that all it is is just a constant roll, with one or two staccato notes at the end of each part / repeat. So the drum score is kind of boring.
The other side of the record is a march / strathspey / reel set consisting of "The 25th King's Own Scottish Borderers' Farewell to Merut", composed by John Balloch (1860 - 1947), followed by their arrangement of the strathspey "Tulloch Gorm", and then to finish with several repeats of their arrangement of the "Reel at the church of Tulloch", with just the two parts. Now on this side the record actually skips (BLEH!!!). So just be prepared for that.
Technologically, this record suffers from a few skips, as well as being absolutely unacceptably SCRATCHY at the beginnings of both sides. This makes the pipes sound AWFUL, but remember, these recordings were made in 1909, so don't expect a perfect quality even with all the modern AI-based software packages that can try to restore old recordings. The first side also suffers from this HUGE ANNOYING WARP which of course I had to correct. In fact, I'll also upload the raw original version, with clicks and crackles and whatnot so you can hear how much work went into remastering it. Obviously the clicks and crackles have been cleaned up using ClickRepair.
Thanks and enjoy! Feel free to comment!
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