You can now buy the Royal Oak CD from any high street music shop. Launched in 2008, the CD has been a great success and has had fabulous reviews.

A CULT Edinburgh music pub is to feature on a new CD.  A “best of” album has been

made for The Royal Oak, a popular venue for the city’s folk music lovers. It was produced by music Graduate Calum Wood, 22, who fell in love with the Infirmary Street pub as a student at Napier University.

He has since set up his own label, Magic Park Records, and persuaded crime writer Ian Rankin to write the sleeve notes for The Royal Oak: Best of Folk CD, which was recorded live at the Pub.

He said: “It was more difficult trying to find Ian Rankin than it was getting him on board.

“I spent weeks sending e-mails to his publishers and I eventually contacted him. I was a bit bold with him and asked him if he would write a Rebus story on the sleeve cover, but he wasn’t too Happy about that.”

EXTRACT

Taken from Ian Rankin’s sleeve notes for the album Folk At The Oak

I’ve had many a good night at Edinburgh’s Royal Oak. I like my pubs small, intimate, and filled with regulars. But I also like a bit of chat and a bit of music (and I have a dislike of puggies and doormen both). The Royal Oak fulfils this remit--and then some. I even placed it in one of my books. Detective Inspector John Rebus is on his way home one evening but decides to have a nightcap. He’s shocked to walk into the Royal Oak and find that his nemesis is singing a song there. As far as Rebus was aware, Big Ger Cafferty (the gangster who owns Edinburgh) was in jail for the duration. But Cafferty has been released and the Oak is his first stop. I forget now what song he sings--I think it was Rabbie Burns--but he points to the sense of true democracy in the bar:if you have a song in your heart and a burning desire to belt it out, no one’s going to stop you.

   (But  you better be good mind.)

Cult pub hits right note with CD