Long Time Courting: road trip visits New Hampshire

Long Time Courting is a four woman band which features four equally strong instrumentalists, fine lead singing, inventive harmonies, and music which is based in the traditions of Ireland and includes original music as well as songs and tunes from Scotland, Appalachia, Quebec, and Cape Breton. Fast flying jigs and reels along with ballads and songs with soaring four part harmonies are the group’s trademarks.

It’s not as though any of the four women were exactly at a loss for things to do when they decided to join forces. Guitarist Liz Simmons [who provides the New Hampshire connection here; she grew up in the state and is still based there -- and LTC performs often in the state too] plays in the band Annalivia; Ariel Friedman teaches cello and performs in a duo with her fiddle playing sister Mia; Ellery Klein, for seven years fiddler with the top touring band Gaelic Storm, now teaches in a mother and child music program and is herself the mother of toddlers; and Shannon Heaton, who plays flutes, whistles, and accordion, tours internationally as a duo with her guitarist husband Matt. Founding member Klein will soon be leaving to group to move overseas, and Sarah Blair, top traditional Irish style fiddler who plays often for contra dances with her band The Sevens and also teaches, will join the group.

All that means that the women bring powerhouse musical and creative backgrounds to Long Time Courting. It also means they balance their work in LTC with other demanding commitments. That’s one of the reasons they have not, at this writing, as yet made an album. Their concert tours, mostly in the New England area, are short, focused, and well worth catching. You can find out more about the band and their tour schedule at their web site.

For a taste of what Long Time Courting is like live, check out the video here

photo courtesy of Long Time Courting

you may also want to see

Ellery Klein & Ryan Lacey: Kick into the Beat
Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Cherish The Ladies: A Star in the East
Music of Maine: Lissa Schneckenburger

This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will still find the journeys through music interesting.

For more about this (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

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