Long Way Home: Glaswegian rock legend Frankie Miller. An interview with author Davy Arthur.

Jan:  Davy, when did you first experience Frankie's music? Was it live or on record?

Davy: In 1956, our family had moved to a very large housing scheme on the outskirts of Edinburgh, where I attended the local primary school, where football was the main focus. Then in 1965, when all my football friends joined the local Secondary School, I went to a Senior Secondary in town (Boroughmuir), where one was able to study up to A Level standard.

One of the exciting aspects was that I was immediately thrown into a “melting pot”of different young people from all over the city. Over the next couple of years and from a musical point of view, 2 stood out. Gordon McIntosh and Billy Lyall.

Gordon was a guitarist in a local band called Leathur Soul then found fame with Bilbo Baggins. Billy Lyall was in the Bay City Rollers then moved to Pilot with David Paton. They had huge hits with ” Magic” and “January”. So from 1967 onwards, these two were mainly responsible for introducing me to the live music scene around Edinburgh where I met dozens of amazing people.

I first saw Frankie Miller perform live in June 1968. He was eighteen years old and I was fifteen. The occasion was our school ” Basketball Dance “. 

Teargas and The Stoics were both on the bill. It was life changing for me in that I had never seen live bands of this calibre before and I have kept an archive of Frankie Miller cuttings and memorabilia ever since.

Over the next 25 years I never missed a Frankie Miller headline tour again. 

I went on to start a fan magazine and a close friendship developed from that. 

From backstage chats etc, it developed into regular telephone contact which often led to Frankie allowing me to hear new songs he had written.

Life changed for us all in 1994 when Frankie was perhaps reaching a peak in his career.

Jan:  As I understand it; you've spent a lot of years staying in touch with Frankie through his health difficulties and have built a true friendship.  Can you share the process of how this book developed? 

Davy: The fan magazine,( rough and ready as it was at the time---the internet came later ! )  brought me in touch with some fantastic people. 

One of these was Professor Mark Todd from San Marcos Texas. Design Professor, at Texas University.  

I stopped the Mag. after Frankie took ill and lost touch with most of the people. 

One evening in Scotland at a very small intimate venue, 

( probably around 2005) we were with Henry McCullough and his band.  We noticed during the first half of the show that there was a couple singing along to all the songs ( which was rather unusual ). 

At the interval there were a small group of people hanging around and chatting with Henry. 

One of them asked about Frankie and Henry said  " Oh, you'll have to speak to Davy Arthur about that". 

Then this American accent shouted out. " You mean THE Davy Arthur?" 

It was Mark Todd who had flown over with his wife Krystal to see Henry play. 

It turned into a party that night, believe me !

Mark visited my home and was thrilled to look through my

 " Frankie Miller Collection" of cuttings and memorabilia. 

" You have enough for a book here " he said.

So the first design drafts were done way back then which I was eventually able to show Frankie. He loved them !!

http://frankiemiller.net/index.htm

https://www.waterstones.com/book/long-way-home/davy-arthur/9781915975232