The mother of a 40-year-old Monifieth musician and academic who died the night after playing a comeback gig has paid tribute to her ”great storyteller” son.
Blair Kerr, who played with the band Kates’, passed away suddenly in the early hours of Sunday morning. Paramedics attended his mother’s house in Ferry Road around midnight but despite their best efforts were unable to save Blair.
”They are thinking it could be in the brain or heart but he had had no difficulties before,” Blair’s mother Aileen Kerr said. ”He was very fit.”
Blair had shown no signs of illness at the gig in Drouthy Neebors on the Perth Road on Friday night.
Mrs Kerr said: ”His friends were saying they had never seen him so happy. They said he looked 20.”
Tributes have poured in following Blair’s sudden death.
Longtime friend, DJ and radio presenter Jim Gellatly said: ”It’s difficult to fathom, especially because he looked so young on Friday.”
Friend Ian Deveney wrote on Facebook: ”I just heard the sad, sad news, I really can’t believe it. Blair was a true legend or a ‘leg-end’ as he liked to say. Blair you will be missed, my friend.”
Brought up in Broughty Ferry, Blair attended Dundee High School. After school he studied history and politics at Aberdeen University before things took off with his band Yellow Car.
Blair’s love of history was carried through to one of the band’s early CD covers.
Mrs Kerr said: ”He loved Dunnottar Castle and in the early days the band were all strategically placed at the castle on the CD. I went up there a few weeks ago and I was going to have a photo of the castle made into a painting for him.”
At the height of their success Yellow Car shared the bill with the likes of Green Day and Manic Street Preachers and they moved to LA for a time. When he returned home Blair started up business Swordsman Tours, promising to tell the true stories behind some of Scotland’s most famous historic figures.
”He was passionate about Scottish history, especially Jacobean history and Bonnie Prince Charlie,” Mrs Kerr said. ”It was only seasonal but he loved going through Glen Coe and Glenfinnan. He was a great storyteller.”
Blair completed a Masters in Scottish history research at Stirling University in 2006/7 and it was while he was researching his dissertation he stumbled across a scroll that had been lost for over 300 years.
Mrs Kerr said: ”He found the most important piece of history for a decade to do with the Darien Venture. He said it had been misfiled and lost. It was like a missing piece.”
What Blair had discovered was a lost petition relating to Scotland’s ill-fated attempt to establish a colony in Central America in the 1700s. Mrs Kerr said that was just one example of how he excelled in everything he turned his hand to.
Blair was the monument manager at Edzell Castle when he died but before that had worked at Scone Palace.
”I was very proud when I spoke to the staff there and they couldn’t speak highly enough of him,” Mrs Kerr said. ”One of them was saying ‘I could listen to Blair forever.’ He was an academic. Anything he did he did well.”
Originally a drummer, Blair taught himself guitar and when Yellow Car reformed recently as Kates’ he took on the vocals.
The grandson of former Dundee United FC manager Jerry Kerr, Blair’s mother recalled the speech he made at Tannadice when a stand was dedicated to his grandfather.
Mrs Kerr said: ”The stadium was packed but Blair took it in his stride. He made a wonderful speech short and sharp. He said: ‘Jerry will be looking down, pipe in mouth, smiling.”
Despite his grandfather, though, Blair was an avid Dundee FC fan.
Mrs Kerr said: ”He wasn’t a sheep, he did his own thing. He blazed his own trail.”
A spokesman for Tayside Police confirmed there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding Blair’s death and a report would be submitted to the procurator fiscal.