Gordon Duncan reshaped what the Highland pipes could sound like. "Just for Gordon" is a posthumous archive of competition sets, BBC sessions, and concert recordings that lets you hear why a generation of pipers still cite him as the line between before and after.
Gordon Duncan (1964 to 2005) is the piper most contemporary players name when asked who changed their mind about what the Highland pipes could do. His compositions pulled jigs, reels, and rock hooks onto an instrument that most people still associate with parade grounds and funerals. "Andy Renwick's Ferret," "The Belly Dancer," and his pipe arrangement of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" are the obvious reference points. Listen to the way he phrases and you hear a player treating the chanter like a jazz soloist treats a horn.
"Just for Gordon" is not a conventional documentary. It is an assembled archive, compiled after his death from BBC Pipeline sessions, the Scottish Pipers' Association Knockout, a 1990 cassette-only release, the Festival Interceltique in Lorient, and a solo appearance at a Vale of Atholl concert in Motherwell in 1996. Profits support the Gordon Duncan Memorial Trust.
We think it is worth your 90 minutes because every piper arguing about tradition versus innovation in 2026 is arguing downstream of decisions Duncan made in the 1990s. Hearing the source material, including the rough edges and the compositions still finding their shape, is more instructive than any retrospective written about him.