Reflections: five of the best

It’s halfway to Christmas, halfway from the new year, another season’s turn. A time for reflection, and for celebration. Here are five posts and a selection of photographs for you to enjoy as you do that. Here's to a wonderful year ahead for all of us. as well. Those of you who know why I notice this day, I’d like it if you’d raise a glass and send a good thought, and those of you who don’t, well, you're invited to join us anyway.

Ahead along the music road, as always, the best from Irish, Scots, and folk and Americana music, and about the creative practice of being an artist. There will be a continuing series on teaching and learning music starting this summer, and more interviews with your favorite artists coming up, as well as reviews, festival previews, and great photographs too. Is there an artist or recording you’d like to see featured? Leave a comment and let us know.

Carrie Newcomer: faith and laughter

Cathie Ryan: Irish and American

Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

ceol chairlinn: sharing music in winter

listening through the changes

creative practice: reading and landscape

Landscape and creative practice -- how the two interact is a subject that comes up often here along the music road. Recently, I’ve been reading A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World, in which author Tony Horwitz sets out to learn about people from Europe who came to America before Columbus, what they did, what happened to them, and how the landscapes where they traveled look today. Having a classical education in history and the arts, and, I discovered, growing up and traveling in the American south and southwest meant that most of what Horwitz discovered was familiar ground to me. Still, his mix of history, travel, and reflection is worth the read, and his extensive notes on sources (including a 'highlight reel' of the best ones) have given me new books to explore.


Landscape, this time of Vermont and of the world, is what informs scientist Amy Seidl’s Early Spring: An Ecologist and Her Children Wake to a Warming World. So do the perspectives of her young children. I’ve just started this, but so far Seidl reminds me of a gentler version of Scottish poet and essayist Kathleen Jamie. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out.


I’ve just recently re read Heaven and Earth (Three Sisters Island Trilogy). Nora Roberts knows how to tell a story, and to set a scene. Most of her books don’t do anything for me in terms of plot, however and take me about three pages to decide I've no need to read futher. This series, though, set on an island off the coast of Maine, gets setting and character and plot just right, for my taste. The main character, police deputy Ripley Todd, is a woman who sometimes strugggles with her gifts and with her demons, but faces them anyway, in a far from ordinary plot.


I’ve also been re reading Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters--and How to Talk About It by Krista Tippett. Tippett is the host of American Public Radio’s Speaking of Faith, and one of the most interesting thinkers around today, Of course I don’t agree with all her perspectives, but those I don’t share are as interesting as those I do. Though I'm not sure she always intended it, landscape plays a strong part in Tippett's reflections, too.

Monica Bhide is a storyteller, one who tells her stories through narrative and through recipe. That’s a major reason why I’ve been enjoying her book Modern Spice: Inspired Indian Flavors for the Contemporary Kitchen. I had the chance to speak with Bhide a bit about that, and that’ll form the basis for an upcoming article over at Wandering Educators.




Lately, I’vee been listening quite a bit to Matt and Shannon Heaton’s new album Lovers' Well. Look forward to more about that here ahead along the music road, and also there’s an extended review of the album in the current issue of the music magazine Dirty Linen. The Heatons have chosen music from the Irish tradition which illuminates many aspects of the landscapes of the heart's journey, often in unexpected ways.

you may also want to see
Songs for an Easter weekend

Music Road: Matt & Shannon Heaton: Fine Winter's Night concert

Music Road: Irish music, Irish landscape

Mary Ann Kennedy & Na Seoid

Mary Ann Kennedy & Na Seoid

What you hear, in the twelve tracks on this recording, is the sound of connection, conversation, stories told and shared and passed down, thoughts about the large and small things of life, challenges of work and weather, of love and family. You hear the sound of the sea, too, and the sound of the highlands. That’s as true whether you understand Scots Gaelic or not.

Mary Ann Kennedy had been thinking about how singing in Gaelic seemed to be the province of women in recent years, and she missed the voices of men in Gaelic song that she’d heard as a child. But then, as her work as a musician and a broadcast presenter took her around Scotland, she began to learn of a rising generation of singers who not only sang in Scots Gaelic, but for whom it was a daily language, a circumstance that brought their work in music even more connections. So the idea for Na Seoid was born. Each of the seven men has a different and powerful sound and idea, as might be the case in a conversation around the room, and as in that conversation, they each listen to and support each other. Among them they have many band credits and prizes, as does Kennedy herself, and each plays one or more instruments and sings backing and harmony vocals as well. Kennedy does too, and although she’s by mo means putting herself out front -- the reverse, in fact -- the sound of one woman’s voice along with all the men adds a freshness and depth to each song. Calum Alex MacMillan, from Lewis, is known for his work in the band Daimh and other collaborations. Here he brings the song An Gaidheal ‘sa Leannan, which he learned from his father, and which tells the story of a man far from home missing his love. Norrie MacIver brings the song Mo Chailin Dileas Donn, from Wester Ross. Although the lyrics have nothing to do with it -- it’s the story of a faithful lover -- the melody holds echoes of the Irish and later American song of an unfaithful one, Lily of the West. Kennedy takes lead on a song which may also sound familiar, Sios dhan an Abhainn, which in English is the traditional gospel song Down to the River to Pray, heard in the film O Brother Where Art Thou?

Those three are just a taste of the fine singing, both lead and harmony, and the excellent playing on whistle, guitar, clarsach, and other instruments on every track, Though singing is the focus here, there’s a hidden bonus track, too, which is all instrumental. In addition to MacIver, MacMillan, and Kennedy, musicians include Angus MacPhail, Gillebride MacMillan, Griogair Labhruidh, James Graham, and Tormod MacArthur. Mary Ann Kennedy and Nick Turner produced this rather complex project with skill and thoughtfulness, allowing the individuals and the connections among them space to be heard.

you may also want to see

Music Road: Songs for an Easter weekend

Music Road: now playing: eist: songs in their native language

Music Road: Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

If you've come our way from A Traveler's Library or through Poetry Ireland, you're very welcome. Hope you'll stay around and explore -- more than three years' of music related posts for you to enjoy.

Saturday and Monday, I will be be doing guest posts over at A Traveler's Library. Host Vera Marie Badertscher usually tells her readers there about books and movies, but she's invited me to let them in on a bit about music. I'll be writing about Scottish music on Saturday, and Irish music on Monday. Come on over and join us.

Also, Music Road was recently noted as ‘one of the things we like reading’ in the newsletter from Poetry Ireland. Thanks! Go raibh maith agat!

heidi talbot: cathedrals

Heidi Talbot is working on her solo career after a stint as lead singer with the well known band Cherish the Ladies. Just now she's on tour opening for Scottish singer Eddi Reader, and singing backup with Eddi as well. Soon we'll have an interview with Heidi here at Music Road. Meanwhile, give a listen she sings one of her favorite songs, Cathedrals.





you may also want to see
heidi talbot: in love light

Voices: Cherish the Ladies
intersections: words, music, and Robert Burns -- and Eddi Reader

Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh: video

The recording Dual, in which Julie Fowlis, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Ross Martin, and Eamon Doorley join up to explore connections and differences in Irish and Scots Gaelic music, made our best of the year list here at Music Road.

They have just announced a run of new tour dates beginning later this month in Ireland.
Whether you can make one of the dates noted below or not, look in on them performinga song from the record at the launch of the Scottish language television network, MG Alba. Doesn't that look like an amazing space in which to play?



more about the recording
Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

new tour dates:

28th May. 8pm. Regional Cultural Centre, Port Road, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal

29th May 8pm. The Glens Centre, Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim

30th May, 8pm. An Droichead, Cook St, Belfast.

1st June, 8pm. The Crane, 2 Sea Road, Galway.

3rd June, 8pm. Linnenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, Co. Mayo

4th June, 8pm. Celbridge Library, Celbridge, Co. Kildare.

5th June, 8pm. Racket Hall Country House Hotel, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary

6th June, 8pm. Ionad an Bhlacaoid Mhóir, Dún Chaoin, Co. Chiarraí






you may also want to see

Music Road: best music, 2008

Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh: Daybreak/Fainne an Lae

a short film about julie fowlis

pipes, clarsach, Scots Gaelic and more: Young Trad Tour 2008 CD

TMSA Young Trad Tour 2008 Live



They come from Robert Burns country in Dumfriesshire, from the Western Isles off Scotland’s north coast, from Edinburg, Carrbridge, Dunblane and other parts of the Scottish compass, these eight musicians whose work is featured as recorded live during the Young Trad Tour in 2008. Individually, they’ve won competitions and played prestigious stages to be invited to the tour, and are all winners or finalists in the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician Award for 2008.

What they offer here is a lively, sparkling program of ten sets during which they play in varying ensembles and connections, featuring pipes, clarsach, singing, guitar, accordion, whistles, and bodhran. The music they choose is varied too: there’s a strong base of traditional Scottish of all flavors, seasoned with contemporary trad music from Jim Malcolm, Gordon Duncan, and Angus Lyon among others, and there are tunes from Ireland and Cape Breton as well. Each of the eight join in on the Opening Set, which includes Merrily Danced the Quaker’s Wife, Thorton’s Jig, and Mary Mack. Steven’s Highland Pipes finds Steve Blake and Innes Watson on a set that mixes trad and newer pipe tunes, while Scots Gaelic singer Catriona Watt. anchors A Chailin Alainn/ The Beautiful Girl, and Scots singer Amy Lord leads Jim Malcolm’s song The Battle of Waterloo. Ewan Robertson, 2008 Young Trad winner on guitar plays and also sings here; other artists are James Duncan MacKenzie on pipes and whistles,
Robert Menzies on accordion and piano, and Ailie Robertson on clarsach.
The project was produced by top harpist and composer Corrina Hewat.

It’s the year of Homecoming Scotland, with events, including Young Trad concerts, all across the country through November. Each of these artists appear solo and with other bands and ensemble too, all well worth your listen. The future of Scottish music? A good snapshot of it, anyway. Whether you make any of the concerts or not, this isc is a good introduction to what's going on with rising artists in the Scots trad music scene just now.

If you’re interested Scottish music, you’ll also want to learn about the Traditional Music and Song Association, which sponsors the tour.

you may also want to see
malinky: flower & iron
four Scots musicians
eddi reader, willie stewart, and the search for haggis

saltwater music: del suggs

Saltwater music specialist Del Suggs will be one of the artists taking part in a new series we have on tap here at Music Road. Starting in late June, we'll be running a regular series on teaching and learning music, with ideas from Del Suggs and other artists you met here along the music road, plus a few new guests as well. If you teach music, study it, think you would like to, or know someone who is a muscian, you'll find much of interest to look forward to. We'll be talking about both the creative and the technical side of things. Stay tuned here at Music Road for details.

And just what is saltwater music, anyway? Read on.

A Del Suggs set might include James Taylor's song Fire & Rain, Procol Harum's A Whiter Shade of Pale, or the traditional folk song Shenandoah, but most of the songs you’d hear him do are his own, a Jimmy Buffet meets James Taylor meets Gamble Rogers sort of blend that Suggs calls saltwater music. "I've been influenced by all that great music of the sixties and seventies. People ahd much more diverse tastes then. I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, and right away I knew that's what I wanted to do," he says. He’s has taken those early influences on to build a career as a singer, songwriter, and lately, as a motivational speaker too.

Suggs grew up in Panama City on Florida's panhandle coast. Florida, the Gulf coast, and the Caribbean, all feature in his songs, which have titles like Caribbean Money, Hurricane's Comin', Break in the Weather, and Standing in the Rain, and his albums include Floating on the Surface and Wooden Boat. "I had a real, professional band from the time I was about fifteen, in tenth grade, I guess," he says. "We were called the Haze, as in Jimi Hendrix and the Purple Haze. We went around and played high schools, military bases, all over the area. We played rock 'n' roll." Suggs played bass in the group, a role he also took on with his next band, Cross Creek, which lasted through undergraduate and master's degree studies at Florida State University in Tallahassee. They played a mix of what today would be called Americana music. The band broke up eventually, and Suggs, who'd always played guitar and written songs on the side of his band projects, decided to go on his own as a solo artist.

It wasn't a decision he came to lightly. He'd seen some of the darker and drearier sides of the music life through his touring with his bands,. He'd seen good sides too "I was really fortunate early in my career to meet a couple of people who really had a lasting impact on me. Steve Meisburg, of the duo Meisburg and Walters, was one of them, just the epitome of a gentleman and really changed my idea of what a musician could be. The other was Gamble Rogers, who was just as good to me as anybody has ever been." Rogers, known for his cracker barrel humor and fine singing gand playing, opened doors for the young musician professionally and personally. "I'd call places looking for work and say I'd opened for Gamble, and they'd say, oh, okay, you can come play," he recalled. "If I was out on the road somewhere and I'd pop in to see him play, he'd always notice me in the audience, and point out 'oh, Del Suggs is here.' They had no idea who I was, of course, but just by the fact that Gamble had pointed me out from the stage, they noticed me -- he always did things like that."

Before long, Suggs was building his own reputation. He's played many kids of venues and his music has received airplay from Eiuope to Australia, but he decided years ago to concentrate on playing at colleges. "For one thing, " he says, laughing, "if only a few people showed up, the activities director would apologize to me and promise to have more people when they brought me back." Working at colleges also fit with Suggs' easy going personality, the stories he loves to tell about his songs, and his interest in teaching. That master's degree he earned at Florida State was in education. It surprised him, though, when one of the organizers of a college conference where he'd been booked to play suggested he ought to be giving one of the talks. He decided to pursue the idea, though it scared him at first. "Getting up on stage with just a microphone, no guitar, just to talk for forty five minutes, no singing, that was terrifying," he says. Why did he take the risk? "I think because I felt I had something to say, something to contribute. I've got techniques I've used and applied in my own life, and seen how they work, ways to set goals and achieve them." He must have been right. His talks on setting an achieving goals have become popular at colleges across the country and he now speaks on several related topics as well. He's written regular columns for publications for college administrators, also, and is currently mulling the idea of turning these into a book.

Music is still at the heart of it, though. In addition to writing and performing, he collaborates on and produces projects with other artists including Carrie Hambly, Mimi Hearn, and Tammerlin. The song writing is a continuing journey too. On his most recent album. Living Deliberately, Suggs challenged himself to add new flavors to his Gulf coast gumbo, writing a starkly moving piece called Standing in the Rain which touches on the life of the homeless, and kicking things up in lively fashion with a Cajun flavored song called Bayou Josie. There's also a cover of the Gram Parsons song Brass Buttons, and a bit of mid life reflection in the title cut. Whatever it is, it's still Del Suggs, and it's still saltwater music.

Next up for the Florida based singer and songwriter are more college tour dates and some speaking engagements. He's also producing a collection of Christmas songs based on an annual tradition he shares with Pierce Pettis, Danica Winter, and other musicians, The Almost Christmas Concerts. You may find out more about Del Suggs and his music at his web site

for more songs of the sea and the waters, you may also want to see

Music Road: now playing: Jennifer Cutting & the Ocean Orchestra

Music Road: now playing: Cathie Ryan: The Farthest Wave

Music Road: now playing: Souls of the Sea

stephen bruton

Stephen Bruton, guitarist who worked with Kris Kristofferson, Bonnie Raitt, Betty Buckley, Marcia Ball, and many others, died yesterday of cancer. A good and gracious man, as well as a good and gracious musician.

story from Stephen Bruton's home town paper, the Fort Worth Star Telegram

playing with the angels tonight, Stephen. go in peace.


my favorite of Stephen's solo albums
Spirit World

he recently produced Marcia Ball's Peace, Love & BBQ

Mother: music celebrating mothers and motherhood: McKeown, Ryan, Spielberg

This music is traditional, from Ireland, and original, out of the lives of the three artists who created this record, Susan McKeown, Robin Spielberg, and Cathie Ryan. It is music you probably have not heard before. It’s a powerful and loving celebration of the connections and disconnections and understandings that motherhood and making all life’s transitions invites. It’s also music that allows much as much space for the listener as it does for the artists who created it.

Mother comprises fourteen songs. It works well to let the whole process of the album unfold, from McKeown’s opening remembrance of her mother, who died when the singer was fifteen, to a close with Ryan singing a song for Spielberg, one the pianist wrote wrote to welcome her own daughter into the world. In between there are lively tunes and gracious ones, simple ones and complex, ones presented with sparse accompaniment and those with intricate acoustic support. Spielberg’s exploration without words of a walk with her mother is especially fine, McKeown’s evocation of older times comes through strongly in Ancient Mother, Ryan’s Grandma's Song is a lively dance evoking the joy of both child and grandparent as the younger Cathie Ryan recalls and pays tribute to the fiddle playing grandmother for whom she was named and who gave her her love of music.

In the liner notes, each artist offers a short insight into why she chose or composed each song. These are all well worth reading, and thinking about. Each woman was a at different point in her own experience of motherhood as they worked on this project. Together and separately they’ve each added gifts of understanding to it.

you may also want to see

behind the scenes at the making of the Mother album

Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Irish and American

If you're coming over from the link at Poetry Ireland, you might be especially interested in this Music Road: intersections: words, music, and Robert Burns. It's part of series about the connections between writing songs and writing poetry, as is this. Thank you for stopping by -- stay while and explore.

creative practice: healing

“Gradually, I have been able to understand healing, like faith, as paradoxical, most effective when it incorporates what is broken rather than denying or curing it,” Krista Tippet writes in Speaking of Faith.

The best music holds that within and makes a space for that to be learned and shared, also.

you may also want to see

Every end has a beginning, from Shannon Heaton's blog Leap Little Frog


music to go along with these ideas

Cathie Ryan: Irish and American

now playing: Carrie Newcomer: Angels Unaware

Matt & Shannon Heaton: Fine Winter's Night

Tish Hinojosa: Our Little Planet

Our Little Planet



Tish Hinojosa has always been an adventurous musician, combining her interests in country and folk music with her heritage as as a first generation Mexican American. Texas, New Mexico, the borderlands, northern Mexico and life on the road are all part of her musical imagination here, as are country music, swing, polka, and folk ballad, along with love songs and songs of social justice and social commentary. That sounds like a lot of ground to cover in one record, and it is. Hinojosa has long been adept at getting all these ideas and flavors to work together for her unique vision of life, though. Twenty one years ago the title cut of her first recording, Taos to Tennessee, framed love, journeys, and choices in southwestern mountain landscapes and the scent of pinon fires; the title track of this latest one sees her looking for and finding hope and connection amidst life’s changes and challenges while swirling across the dance floor to a polka beat, and in two languages.

Hinojosa offers clear eyed comment on the way of the world today in We Mostly Feel That Way, a song which includes fine accordion work from Chip Dolan and outstanding duet singing from Rosie Flores. What Our Hearts Can’t Say is an understated and quietly reflective love song set in vivid descriptions of the natural world. Roadsongs and Bygones finds the artist riding down the road looking at the changes in the countryside the and thinking about the deeper lessons to be taken from looking at the passing scenes; Mi Pueblo, with very fine duet singing and violin work from Carrie Rodriguez, finds the singer considering the pull and the power of love through life’s journeys.

It’s a fine next step for Hinojosa, who two decades into her career has never sounded better. She co produced the project with long time musical collaborator Marvin Dykhuis, who shows up on backing vocals and about a dozen different instruments -- really. Hinojosa will be touring behind the US release of the record this summer: catch her live if you get the chance.

Hinojosa’s tour schedule is availble at her website

An extended interview with Hinojosa including comments on the making of Our Little Planet is available in print in the current issue of the folk and world music magazine Dirty Linen. More about where to find that here.


you may also want to see.

Cathie Ryan: Irish and American

ten songs

Christine Albert: Paris, Texafrance

songs of place: Canada

Ten songs with a place name in the title or content which is about a place: that was how travel writers Sophia Dembling and Jenna Schnuer started the discussion they've been hosting about songs for road trips over at Flyover America at World Hum. Many people have commented -- I’ve added a few from folk and bluegrass -- but it also occurred to me while reading the choices that they are, with the exception of one excursion I’ve seen to Mexico, all about the United States. Up Canada! I started to think. Here are ideas for songs of Canadian places.

*Alberta Bound from Gordon Lightfoot is not only a great song but a great sing along song for a road trip, as is
*Four Strong Winds from Ian Tyson
*Rolling Home Canadian from Eileen McGann takes in the Maritimes, Laurentians, the Shield, the Plains -- it’s about the Canadian Pacific Railway
*Canadian Railroad Trilogy, from Gordon Lightfoot. Every time I fly from Ireland to the United States I get to a point where the landscape out the window makes ‘up the Saint Lawrence all the way to Gaspe’ play in my mind.
*The Island, from the Barra MacNeils, is about Cape Breton
*We Were Good People, from Maria Dunn, is set in Edmonton
*Farewell Nova Scotia, from Ian and Sylvia
*Yellowhead to Yellowstone, from Ian Tyson
*Un Canadien Errant, Ian & Sylvia
*Two Rivers, Ian & Sylvia
*Apple Blossom Tyme, Aengus Finnan

What would you add?

photograph is from a concert at the firehouse/community center in Big Pond on Cape Breton

you may also want to see

music for a spring road trip: six albums
Cape Breton Radio Live take 02
now playing: Matt & Shannon & Ian & Sylvia