The story of Jesse Rae is one of the most fantastic and unlikely in Scottish pop, that of a farmer from the Borders whose full clan regalia and videos shot in dramatic rural landscapes were alleged to have inspired the look of the Highlander films, of a longtime supporter of Scottish independence who ran for parliament in 2015 but wasn’t permitted to take his signature claymore into the polling station and, most bizarrely yet incontestably of all, of a self-styled funk warrior who forged strong bonds with the cream of America’s funk musicians in the late 70s and early 80s, penning Odyssey’s chart-topping hit Inside Out along the way.
