Jim Lawson

Jim Lawson

Born back in the mists of time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth…well, the year that Sir Edmund Hilary climbed Mt Everest, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and when Watson and Crick unravelled the structure of DNA, The Ancient One truly lives up to his name.

After spending 33 years in teaching, the last 25 as Head of Biology, I successfully applied for early retirement and moved lock and stock (I didn’t possess any barrels at the time) to the beautiful Isle of Skye, off the west coast of Scotland, to join my partner, The Landlady.

As a retired person, I looked around the various voluntary openings that existed and one led me to the local radio station, Cuillin FM. I thought I might be able to help out sorting cds or something. Within a couple of weeks I was asked if I wanted to present a program and trained up as soon as I said “Yes”. Launched onto the airwaves was the show “Strangely Strange but Oddly Normal” and I was able to foist some of my shedload of music onto an unsuspecting public. From mainstream rock/folkrock the contents slowly evolved to full blown progressive rock with leanings towards the symphonic melodic areas.

The title of the show also changed to “Strangely Strange and The Ancient One”, which initially confused listeners as they expected 2 presenters, and thus the show title was shortened to simply “The Ancient One”.

The show has appeared on North Highland Radio, Pipeline Radio International, More Music Radio and is just about to take a break from Cuillin FM for a while.

The Ancient One show on Progzilla Radio will be a 3hr show going out fortnightly, highlighting the best in progressive music, so expect lots of modern progressive music, but with the odd excursion back in time to the classic works of the late 60’s/early 70’s, all showing a more symphonic nature. There will also be a feature on the latest cd being reviewed when I’m wearing my other hat, that of senior reviewer at www.progrockmusictalk.com

10 albums I really like…not necessarily THE best 10 or in a particular order.