Spectator interview with Eurovision winner's folky mentor, Fraser Neill

Fraser Nelson, the editor of the Spectator, is a wise man. When he watched the Eurovision song contest the other night and saw Emmelie de Forest win he wrote this piece, suggesting that Denmark takes folk music seriously - its own and everyone else's - and this is why it won.

I got a call early on Monday asking if I would try to track down and interview the man he mentions in that blog - Fraser Neill, the Scottish folk musician who's been playing and performing with Emmelie de Forest in Denmark for the last five years - for this week's magazine.

24 hours later it was done, mainly through the magic of Twitter. I'd like to thank everyone who retweeted my request for information and particularly the person who runs the Tonder Festival's twitter account, because they directly facilitated my conversation with Neill.

And what a delightful man Neill is. The pride and admiration he felt at Emmelie de Forest's Eurovision win shone out of him during our 30 minutes or so on the phone.

Here's the interview in the Spectator that resulted. It appears as the arts lead in the this week's Spectator magazine; if there are any glaring errors I can try to get them fixed online.

I'd like to wish Fraser Neill the best of luck finding a deal for the unreleased album.

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