The McCalmans, who retired in 2010, made 26 albums and recorded over 400 songs in their 46 years as professional musicians. Twelve of those albums were on Greentrax during the 24 years The Macs remained loyal to the Scottish label, plus the double compilation CD The Greentrax Years, released in 2009.
Finding new songs was a group passion and because of the constant influx of material, many songs never made it on to a Macs album. This album has studio recordings, rehearsal recordings, live concert songs, songs from the Macs’ DVD The Final Concert Uncut - The Good Old Days , plus a couple of ‘cassette copies of cassette copies’, of which Ian McCalman says, “Please don’t sue us for the occasional hiss or bump: consider it as the gift of third generation analogue”.
Lost Tracks contains 19 tracks of the first, the second and the final line-up of the group and it is quite remarkable that there were only two line-up changes in 46 years, especially when you consider that one of the changes was due to the untimely death of the great Derek Moffat. The album includes tracks from the three line-ups, plus a guest appearance by the wonderful Barbara Dickson who often sang with the Macs in their early days.
