JIM KIMO WEST & DAVID VITO GREGOLI feat. MB GORDY, "Highland Life"

This past year, the lovely and intricate complementary strings of Grammy winning slack key guitarist Jim “Kimo” West and producer, multi-instrumentalist and renowned “sound painter” David Vito Gregoli have taken listeners on quite the multi-faceted journey. On their Kimo Vito album, they took us “On the Road To Windham,” to a magical “Southern Coast” and a mythical “Land of Dreams,” following those ventures up with a majestic re-imagining of Toto’s classic “Africa” and most recently, a trip to the majestic San Juan Islands for a day out strolling in “Friday Harbor.”

Because the intimate interplay between their individual array of stringed instruments and famed percussionist MB Gordy’s shaker and bodhran (a circular, single-headed Irish frame drum) on their single “Highland Life” makes for such a soulful, soothing and adventurous experience, perhaps it’s not necessary to delve into the history of the of Scottish Highlands to explain Kimo and Vito’s inspiration. But it’s there for those who are curious. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term “Highlands,” which literally means “the place of the Gaels,” is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault.  

As we listen to the duo’s charming, lilting and lyrical expressions, we can feel their individual emotional ties to the region. Kimo first traveled to Scotland as a tourist in the 90s and toured the countryside, as well as Edinburgh and Glasgow. He’s been back several more times on musical tours but usually for a single day – and he speaks quite fondly of visiting castles in Glasgow, dining at the Butterfly and Pig pub and enjoying a single malt scotch. He always longed to visit the Highlands but never did – and we can feel that sense of longing, plus the energy of curiosity and his imagination in his dreamy, lyrical acoustic and soprano guitar playing on the track.

An unapologetic history nerd, Vito’s more inclined to share his own take on the history of the Highlands region than share specific personal experiences there – though he is happy to recommend, like Kimo, a single malt scotch at the Butterfly and Pig pub! To wit, “We have a country named after an Irish tribe, the Scotti. They moved to Scotland during the 5th century into the Western areas. I’m not sure how they became the new name ‘Scotland’ but it was formerly called Alba.

The second thing is that England had been attempting to control Ireland by moving English nobility and in the 17th century introducing lowland Scots into the region – so you have the Scotti coming back to Ireland after hundreds of years in Scotland.” While he apologizes for sounding as “boring as your history class in junior high,” what’s definitely more dynamic is listening to and taking to heart all the passion in his strum and plucky intricacies of his fretless bass, 12-string guitar and Irish bouzouki (a mandolin styled instrument) and a gently wafting alto flute solo that adds to the exotic mysticism of the musical piece and the region that inspired it. So raise that glass of scotch and immerse yourself in the sparkling Kimo Vito interplay once again!