It's chilling to watch the film of Kennedy.
How well I remember the assassination. None who were old enough to remember will ever forget.
From a technical viewpoint, notice that from 0:15 to 0:31 you can hear the brass and pipes playing together but the pictures show the brass alone playing, with the pipers standing at attention.
The Black Watch were doing a North American tour in 1963. I have the programme of that tour in front of me, unfortunately it doesn't give the tour dates like most of the later programmes do.
Generally these tours would begin in New York or DC, go down the East coast, across the South to California, up the West coast to British Columbia, then across Canada and back to New York. So I'm guessing that the White House visit was at or near the beginning of the tour.
I have read that they were in the midst of the tour when the Kennedy family requested that the Black Watch play at the funeral. Nine pipers left the tour for that duty.
Here, at 22:42 you can see the nine pipers of The Black Watch at Kennedy's funeral
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KJQkn6zUvM
Not sure what they're playing initially but at 23:06 the sound becomes clear, I think the tune is The Badge Of Scotland.
At 32:27 a different pipe band is playing The Mist-Covered Mountains. I believe it might be the USAF pipe band.
Last edited by OC Richard; 7th May 21 at 08:08 AM.
Proud Mountaineer from the Highlands of West Virginia; son of the Revolution and Civil War; first Europeans on the Guyandotte
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