YOU would assume that folk legend Jimmie Macgregor would credit his career longevity - he's still performing sixty years on - to his sheer love of music. You'd imagine the tartan troubadour perhaps to have been whisked along on a willowy cloud of lyrical wonderment, seduced by the thrum of plectrum producing the pleasing chord . . . or even the consonance of voices in vivid harmony.

You'd be partly right.

Just ten minutes into the chat, what emerges is the Scots musician, who's just celebrated his 85th birthday, is driven by another passion; the lassies. In his cosy kitchen in Glasgow's West End, where he serves up tea and caramel wafers, Macgregor however doesn't go all Nick Clegg or Richard Madeley and come out with actual numbers. His chat is not some misogynistic boasting of bedpost notches. Jimmie Macgregor, it's clear, loves women. And he just happens to have loved quite a lot of them.

"Well, I do like ladies a lot," he says, grinning. "And it's not that I chased the dolly birds. The women who attracted me were intriguing, and more, well, womanly."

The very youthful Macgregor, who still has his Tony Curtis curls, doesn't set out to tell his life story via the ladies he's known. But it sort of comes out that way. "I had lots of girlfriends growing up - and great fun," he recalls, "yet I had no idea I'd become a musician. Teachers at Albert Senior Secondary (in north Glasgow's deprived Springburn area) thought I could perhaps become a journalist, but that was just too fantastical an idea. However, any thoughts of following my dad into the local steelworks disappeared after I visited him at work one day. It was like Dante's Inferno."

Aged 18, Macgregor was dragged off to do National Service, ("A pointless exercise") but the idea of becoming an artist had descended and he spent much of his time painting the nearby Romney Marshes. Macgregor sent his efforts to Glasgow School of Art and was accepted to study Ceramics. "I had a great time at Art School," he says grinning in recall of this bohemian world. "I was like a fox in a hen house."

The fox in tight trousers would go on to teach at Art School and somehow found himself engaged to a 'lovely' girl called Jean. In 1956, however, having bought a cheap guitar at Paddy's Market, Macgregor heard the call of the wild and hitched to London where he joined the emerging folk scene. (Jean was left wondering when, if ever, Jimmie Mac was coming back.)

"If you knew a few chords you could earn enough to survive," he recalls of the club days, "but I could also harmonise, thanks to growing up listening to family members who were chorus girls."

Yet, he still hadn't considered a career in entertainment. The original rolling stone, who had enough likeability and charisma to fill a dozen guitar cases, drifted along happily. "I joined the Chas McDevitt Group, who went on to have a worldwide hit with Freight Train, but I didn't mind missing out because by then I'd left to join the City Ramblers, and I really fancied their washboard player, Shirley Bland."

At that time, young men tended to marry their first serious girlfriend? "Yes, especially if they tended to be a bit pregnant," he says with a wry grin. "The marriage lasted just a couple of years because I was still racketing about in the music scene. But Shirley did give me a lovely daughter, Fiona."

The wandering minstrel floated along, playing and 'racketing'. And somehow, music and success knitted together faster than an Arran jumper the week before a birthday. In 1959, young Macgregor appeared at the Vienna Youth Festival, where he was partnered with fellow Scot, Robin Hall, a relationship that lasted 21 years and produced almost as many albums. Did the sum of the parts prove to be greater than the individuals?

"That was definitely the case," he admits in self-effacing voice. "I could harmonise and arrange songs while Robin had a far better voice than me." He pauses for a moment; "I've never said this before but I guess people liked me more on stage. I had more of a personality and that helped the duo."

The good-looking duo appeared at the Cavern in 1962, where folk and pop sat nicely on the same bill and produced cosy chats with the Beatles. By this time however the pair were nationally famous, thanks to their nightly appearances on BBC's The Tonight Show (the One Show of its day, but with A Levels) singing the likes of Football Crazy to 10m armchair fans.

Macgregor was now making serious money, but he didn't take his cash too seriously, or indeed worry about the precariousness of the business. "I didn't give a shit about whether folk music would evaporate," he admits. "My accountant did though. He told me to buy a house because at this time I was renting a room in Hornsey. But the landlady and I had a thing going, and it was only costing me a few quid a week. So what did I need a house for? Security?"

Thankfully, the live-in-the-moment mentality was defeated by the insistent auditor. The highly accommodating landlady was waved goodbye and the folk star bought a huge nine-roomed property in expensive Highgate. And bought into (sort of) a new relationship.

"Binx was gorgeous, a big woman, about five eight, and strongly built," says the five foot seven incher. "And because I was so easy-going she moved herself in. She really looked after me but I felt too curtailed and we split. However, we had a son, Gregor (who now lives in Montreal) and that was great."

Success with Robin Hall continued and the pair travelled the world, from Alaskan concert halls to kibbutzim in Israel. But as success soared Hall's alcohol consumption - and propensity to offend - grew exponentially.

"I was a heroic whisky drinker at the time, but it didn't affect me adversely. Robin however upset people regularly. He was pompous, and always knew better than everyone. And I had to step in a couple of times to stop guys flattening him."

Indeed, Macgregor, who boxed in the Army, admits he flattened his partner once himself. "He was being rude to people in a show and I decked him," he recalls shaking his head, reflecting his regret. "I should never have done it, and the next day I apologised profusely to the cast and to Robin. Thankfully, his response was; 'These things happen, Jimmie. What do you want to drink?' But when I said sorry to one of the girls in the show, a very soft, sweet girl, she said simply; 'What took you so long?'"

Was Hall fundamentally unhappy? "That's exactly it," he says, emphatically. "And self-destructive. But it affected me to the point I'd go home and take my frustration out on my partner at the time."

The partners in Macgregor's life changed as often as a Strip The Willow. "They did," he says with a shrug. "And it didn't matter the shape or the size."

He glides over the names of the enchantresses such as Sharon, in Dublin who was six feet and a half inches tall, the Indian lady who wanted to take the Scot home to live with her, the gorgeous Dane . . . the wealthy women he's courted, the showbiz performers. . . "I didn't really want to hold onto one woman," he says, by way of explanation rather than apology.

What he did want was to enjoy the musical journey, fuelled by the fun of meeting the next wondrous female. The only real hint of ambition emerges when he talks about parting from Robin Hall in 1998. "The West Highland Way had just opened and I called Radio Scotland with an idea for a programme, where I would walk and chat to people. The idea worked so well we had enough for ten programmes."

The folk star from Springburn was clearly a television natural and the series led to a new career as a broadcaster. Today, Jimmie Macgregor MBE still walks as much as a cartilage-worn knee will allow and still performs on stage, (appearing at Celtic Connections this year).

And he has an energy, a sheer delight in life which suggests few regrets? "Maybe I'd liked to have studied Zoology - I find it fascinating - or perhaps I wish I'd kept more showbiz memorabilia." His blue eyes twinkle as a memory flashes by; "I do have Marcel Marceau's autograph, given to me by a young Israeli lady who was in his mime troupe. She was a lovely mime, but could make a noise when the occasion demanded."

Macgregor still loves the ladies. "I've got a girlfriend who lives in Kilbarchan, and she is the kindest, most supportive person I've ever met in my life. And I think 'How lucky can I get.'"

He adds, breaking into a laugh. "And now I'm old enough to realise I've had a great time. I could have been stuck as a school teacher for Christ's sake. But really the great thing about getting older is you're not thinking entirely through your trousers."