harvest time
Part of the work of autumn is gathering and sorting. Part of that is reflection, as well. These photographs, which were taken in Tallahassee, Florida, and Austin, Texas, remind me of these ideas and this work.
Music to go along includes Hanneke Cassel’s album Some Melodious Sonnet, and Jay Ungar and Molly Mason’s The Lovers' Waltz
.Neither of them is meant to be descriptive of autumn, but each holds within ideas which go well with this turn in the year's time. Ungar, who plays fiddle, and Mason, who is a guitarist, draw on landscapes and reflections and history to create a tapestry interwoven with searching, consideration, discovery, and continuation. Especially take a listen to Mountain House and The Contradance.
Hanneke Cassel’s music is grounded in Scottish style fiddle with flavors of American folk tradition and Irish music added to the mix. That is all well apparent on Some Melodious Sonnet
from the lifting pace of the set that opens with Pauline Connelly's and continues through Dog Bites Chapman, and the set that links the Scottish trad of Pigeons on the Gate to Cassel’s original Mrs. Joyscream. There are quieter pieces as well leading to the closing hymn from which the title phrase arises, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. You need not know tune names or style, though, to find this recording, and Lovers’ Waltz as well, good companions for autumn’s work.It is the turn of the year in Celtic legend, too. If you would care for some Irish music to go along, here are ideas for that.
you may also wish to see
Music Road: Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen
Music Road: reflections with Adrienne Young
Music Road: season of change: music for autumn
and Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday
Labels: americana music, autumn music, composer, fiddle, guitar, hanneke cassel, jay ungar, molly mason, Scottish music, songwriter
Pastures of Plenty, or even a recent commercial about kids going back to school. Award winning country star Reba McEntire is from Oklahoma too, as is top songwriter and singer Vince Gill. All of them have music well worth your listening as the Great American Road Trip winds through 
which makes a fine soundtrack for travel through the Sooner state. Side note: if you ever get the chance to see LaFave live, take it.
“The only instruments used in this recording were fiddles,” they write in the liner notes, and that’s enough. Each man has deep background in the music of the west of Ireland and has experience playing in professional settings across the world as well. They bring th
include music she’s learnt from musicians who are pipers, flute players, fiddlers, and composers on the harp, and 
you can hear that, and you can also hear other sources and other adventures. All of this, mixed and mastered through Derrane’s Irish roots, his life in 
). He made a series of popular recordings in those days. As the halls declined, he switched to other sorts of music, and other ways of making a living. Several years after he thought he’d retired from music, those early recordings were reissued, and he was invited to perform at Wolf Trap, in Virginia, for what he thought would be a one off gig celebrating his history. His music was so well received, though, that a whole new phase of his career began.
he writes of farms to day, farmers in the past, harvests, a farmer’s view of weather, the generations of families on the farm, and crops brought in and those that were not. His song titles include Pray fro Rain, Heart of Winter, Autumn Garden, and Pumpkin the Cat.
and the title track is in some aspects a contemporary song of immigration and emigration, and on the separation from those we love that goes along with that, and the hope for good things that goes along with that sort of change as well. It makes for a fine opener to a set of songs that are introspective while still allowing the listener room to come in, poetic and filled with strong stories at the same time. Blackberry Time is a song of love and connection, and Ciara is a celebration of that, while Love Is a Place I Dream of takes a bit of a different view. The person the singer is speaking with in Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself is someone we have all known, or been, at some point along the way. Acoustic Motorbike is a view of the Irish 
