Little Win: Highland singer turns to joy and hope of music after loss

Marianne Fraser with her son Soren at the gig that inspired her to return to music.

Marianne Fraser spends each day looking for a little win – something simple that she’s achieved in the face of adversity.

At the start of last year, the Highland-born musician had welcomed new life into her family with the birth of her son Soren but, just days later, lost her husband Liam to suicide.

Amid a blur of every emotion imaginable, she found strength in her music and decided to move from her trad roots to a more uplifting pop sound, with her new superfan son in tow every step of the way.

And the name to release her new sound under? It had to be “Little Win”.

“Just after I had my son, I used to challenge myself daily,” Marianne explained. “That could have been anything from cooking a favourite meal or walking to my sister’s house, which is a big deal if you’ve just given birth.

“I still do that to this day. I wake up and think ‘what’s my little win going to be today?’.”

‘Music kept me going’

Marianne, originally from Spean Bridge, releases Castles In The Summer, her third single under the new moniker, later this month.

The inspiration for releasing music under the new name struck when she took Soren to his first gig at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, seeing Nickel Creek play at City Halls.

“He was very, very tiny,” Marianne recalled. “He was born five weeks early so, when we went to the concert, he was only just due.

“I remember sitting there in that moment thinking I need to go back and do this.

“It was incredibly healing. Without it sounding morbid, music’s one of the things that kept me alive, kept me going. It has that power.

“I had such a long-standing history of doing the trad stuff. I play the fiddle and have done ceilidhs, function dances and weddings for years as well.

“I just wanted it to have a totally different direction.”

Music has been vital for Marianne, who will release her first album as Little Win in September. It helped her through the dark days in the aftermath of Liam’s death to stay calm and present.

“I’ve leaned on it so much,” she said. “I’ve thrown myself back into it. My personality and character is all or nothing and it always has been.

“I was really keen to not make it a sad album. I’m keen to not make it about grief and death and more like absolute joy, hope, all of the things that can still be present even if you’ve gone through something like that.”

New album

Eighteen-month-old Soren, too, has been a light in her life – and his vocals even make a subtle appearance on one of the forthcoming tracks.

“He’s obsessed with music, he’s been to eight festivals with me now and came on tour with me,” said Marianne.

“He’s been to gigs at the Hydro, he’s been at camping festivals, he’s done it all.”

For the album, Marianne worked alongside JP Reid from the band Sucioperro and also one half of Marmaduke Duke with Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil.

“One really beautiful thing about completing this album with JP was that we weren’t trying to get No. 1 chart success,” she said.

“There was a purpose – getting through 2023. It absolutely did that for me. I did the journey from the Highlands to the studio in Ayr every three weeks, stayed down for two or three nights, and the people at the Premier Inn knew Soren by name!

“It was great. I was just looking forward to the next session, hearing songs and giving ideas back and forward.”

The album will be titled Open Hearts And Magic and sums up Marianne’s positive outlook on her and Soren’s future.

“Even if your life completely falls apart, there’s still hope,” she said. “It’s still possible to have a beautiful life going forward. I believe what happened to Soren and I is a big part of our life but I don’t believe it defines us.

“This whole album is basically joy and hope.

“I did it because I want Soren to look back when he’s older and think, ‘Well done, Mum, you really did a good thing here’.”

‘It takes a village’

Marianne and Liam were resident musicians at Disney Springs before moving back to Scotland from Florida at the start of the pandemic.

They were hailed as local heroes for delivering food supplies to people in need across Lochaber, co-ordinating support on social media and performing Facebook Live ceilidhs in their front garden.

That kindness during Covid was repaid by the community and wider music family after Liam’s death, when a fundraising page raised more than £50,000.

Marianne said: “Someone spoke to me not long after Liam died and told me something really comforting that I’ll never forget; that it takes a village to raise a child. I really felt that.

“I’ve since moved away from the village that I was living in, but I still have that community there and I’m starting to build a new one where we are now.

“Everyone held me in their arms and gave me that support I needed to push forward.

“It’s very vulnerable to put yourself in a public setting anyway, but to do so after something so traumatic happened, part of me maybe thinks that was a bit daft. But I’ve done it now.”

Castles In The Summer will be available to stream and download on all major platforms from July 12