On 21st June 2010 the much loved singer, actor and stonemason Tam White passed away.
Born Thomas Bennett Sim White in Edinburgh on 12th July 1942, White was primarily known as a blues vocalist with a trademark gravel-voiced voice, big names he worked with during his singing career include B.B. King and Eric Clapton.
White also took to acting, you might remember the MacGregors appearing in the middle of the night into Wallace's camp, Tam White was at the head of the clan, Wallace tells them to go home to which Tam/MacGregor replies "We'll have no homes left when the English garrison from the castle comes through and burns us out! And they will!".
The son of a lorry driver and a cleaner, he grew up in Edinburgh, living above the White Hart Inn, in Grassmarket, where Robert Burns had stayed in 1791. (White would later set Burns's poem The Slave's Lament to music for a track on his 2004 album Hold On.) The Whites were a musical family: Tam's grandfather was a bandmaster and his mother, Marion, was a fine singer. At Darroch secondary school in Edinburgh, White sang in productions of The Beggar's Opera and The Mikado, and he auditioned for the Edinburgh Opera Company.
American popular music was soon to claim him, and he sang Buddy Holly numbers in a skiffle group, but after hearing Ray Charles singing he said " that turned me on to rhythm and blues."
White began a solo career which initially took a pop/soul direction, redolent of Long John Baldry. He then completed a debut album in 1969, but the set owed more to prevailing hippie-folk trends than his fiery, early work.
In 1974 White won a UK television talent contest New Faces, and secured a recording contract with producer Mickie Most (one of the panel of judges). The singer scored a minor hit the following year with ‘What In The World’s Come Over You?’, with the song he was the first person to sing live on Top of the Pops, but he was uncomfortable with the cabaret balladeer direction this ushered. In the 80s White returned to Edinburgh where he became a popular attraction, performing the blues-edged material he obviously prefered.
He remained a gifted singer and his voice was used in the highly successful BBC television drama series Tutti Frutti, it was then he started turning his hand to a bit of acting, on the big screen he appeared in the excellent film Orphans with Dougie Henshall, on the small screen roles in Taggart, Rebus and Eastenders are among his credits, although making a living with bit parts and his singing Tam never gave up his "full time" job as a stonemason. One of his final albums was Stone-masons Blues in 2007.
A fitness enthusiast, he died of a heart attack after a gym session in Edinburgh on this day 2010.
