from Scotland: Emily Smith: Traiveller's Joy

As is the case with most who follow music as a profession, Emily Smith finds herself spending quite a bit of time in travel. She often prefers to source the songs she does and ideas for the ones she writes from close by her home in the southwest of Scotland. For her album Traiveller’s Joy, she’s chosen to source songs and ideas from her time on the road, as well.

One of these is her own song Butterfly, enchanting images with a thoughtful story of thinking of those back home which Smith wrote while at a festival Goderich, in Ontario, Canada, looking out at Lake Huron and thinking of Scotland. A rather different perspective on a similar idea came to her during a day off on the road while in Australia, which turned in to the song called Take You Home. Lord Donald is a traditional song which holds a story which has made its way under several names through Irish and American tradition as well as Scottish: it’s a tale of a man whose sweetheart (may have) poisoned him with eel broth. Smith learnt her version while studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, from a tutor who had it from Jeannie Robertson, a tradition bearer form Aberdeenshire.

Gypsy Davy is another song that has made its way through many traditions. Smith learned this one from an American source, musician Tim Eriksen. Sweet Lover of Mine is a song from the tradition with tasteful adaptation from Smith, which had its origins as a lover’s riddle song from County Derry in Ireland. Roll on Lovely Doon came from closer to home for Smith, in several ways. She wrote the melody, to words from a poem by Argyllshire poet Robert Hettrick. Smith came by the book of Hettrick’s poems in which she found this from a local shepherd, who been carrying the book with him knowing Smith to be a musician interested in old books of songs and poems, and thinking he might bump into her as she walked the country roads in Dumfriesshire.

Each of these songs, and the others in the collection, show Smith’s thoughtful taste for melody and lyric, and her crystal soprano which well suits the stories and arrangements she chooses. Jamie McClennan produced the album, setting Smith’s voice gracefully in spare backing which includes his own guitar work, fiddle from Stuart Duncan, bass from Duncan Lyall, and percussion and drums from Signy Jakobsdottir.



photographs are from the CD release concert for Traiveller’s
Joy, at Celtic Connections in Glasgow. they were made with the kind permission of the festival and the artist and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

here is a short film of Emily speaking about the making of the album


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Music Road: Emily Smith, Jamie McClennan, and Robert Burns
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Celtic Colours Festival on the way

Cape Breton, in the far north east of the Canadian Maritime provinces, has sent its fiddle and piano driven music across the world, from Japan to Singapore to Germany to Brazil to every corner of the United States and across Canada, and back home again. It is a music which draws strongly from the heritage of the west of Scotland that settlers brought with them in earlier centuries -- so strongly, in fact that at times artists from Scotland have learned from Cape Bretoners how tunes and dances lost to memory back in Scotland are still done in Atlantic Canada. Cape Breton music is no museum piece though. It is rather a living and vibrant ever evolving tradition that finds that core of of west of Scotland music meeting up with music from the rest of Scotland, from Ireland, from other parts of Europe, from the First Peoples of Nova Scotia, and holding its own center, while being shaped by the lives of people who live closely connected to mountain and to sea, and to countries across the ocean as much and to home place near at hand.

Cape Breton musicians, both those who make those international travels and those who choose to stay closer to home, also form the core of the music that fills the air during the Celtic Colours Festival which takes place across the island each October. International stars of the Celtic world come to join in, as well, with each concert being a mini ambassador for the varied strands of the music. Each artist or group plays an individual set and then all join together for finales which often produce unexpected and exciting results, to the enjoyment of musicians and listeners alike.

Celtic Colours really is a community festival. Venues include performance centers, school buildings, churches, fire halls, and other sorts of places where performances may be held. There are community meals on offer, talks about the music, walks, art exhibits, and the always packed festival club, which begins at the Gaelic College in St. Ann’s just as the other gigs are winding down across the island. Through all this the vibrant energy of the music and the welcoming spirit of the people remain at the center.

The Festival will open this year with a concert in Port Hawkesbury on October 7 and close with a concert in Sydney on October 15. There will be 45 concerts in all, in towns including Albert Bridge, Baddeck, Boisdale, Cheticamp, Christmas Island, D'Escousse, Inverness, Iona, Judique, L’Ardoise, Louisbourg, Mabou, Main-a-Dieu, Marion Bridge, Membertou, North River, St. Peter's, Sydney Mines, Sydney River, Wagmatcook and Whycocomagh.

It is as always a stellar line up of artists, including many you have met here along the music road. The Black Family will come from Ireland, as will fiddler Niamh Ni Charra. Bruce Molsky will bring his old time music prowess from the United States. BeauSoliel avec Michael Doucet from Louisiana and Appalachian singer and banjo player Sheila Kay Adams will be there. Wendy MacIsaac, Ashley MacIsaac, and Andrea Beaton are among those from Cape Breton who will be on hand, as will Mary Jane Lammond. Inventive sean nos dancer Nic Gariess, an American now based in Ireland, will add his talents. Emily Smith, Jamie McClennan, Blazin’ Fiddles, and Kathleen MacInnes are among the musicians who will come over from Scotland to join in. More than one hundred musicians in all will take part.

details of all this, along with schedule and ticket information, may be found at the Celtic Colours International Festival web site

photographs of a Celtic Colours concert at Big Pond and of Kathleen MacInnes are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

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Music Road: Mary Black: 25 years 25 songs
Music Road: Music road trip: Cape Breton
Cape Breton autumn

music and late summer

Up here in the northern hemisphere (with a nod to the fact that Music Road has a number of regular readers in New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Chile, and other places to the south) the end of summer is at hand. That comes in all sorts of ways, perhaps with leaves already turning to fiery autumn colours, perhaps with just a hint of an edge in a breeze, perhaps with a different angle in the shadows as the light still lingers long of an evening.

There seem to be many places in the world just now where there is not time or focus to take in this quiet change. For those who haven’t that time or focus, a good wish is sent from here, and for those who do, take a moment to pause and join in that.



this bird is contemplating a lake in Florida's far northwest, and the photograph is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

music to go along with these ideas.
Music Road: Aoife Clancy: Silvery Moon
Music Road: from Donegal: T with the Maggies
Music Road: Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen
Music for late summer from Scotland’s Eddi Reader

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bagpipes with a different sound: Seudan

These days, the Highland pipes are most often heard playing military music, and even when they turn to laments, the pitch and timbre of the pipes tends to be quite bright and piercing, just because that is the way most modern pipes are constructed. This music is often quite melodic and stirring. There is an older sound of the pipes, though, with a bit of a different pitch and a different take on rhythm, and that is what the group Seudan offers on their self titled album.

Seudan (that is pronounced shayt-tan and means jewels in Scottish Gaelic) is pipers Calum MacCrimmon, Angus MacKenzie, Fin Moore and Angus Nicolson. Each of the four men plays a set of pipes made by Fin Moore and his father Hamish, pipes which are matched copies of 18th century Black sSet of Kintail pipes in the Inverness Museum. The pipes are made of ebony and with mounts in silver.


When they went to set up these pipes, they found that they play naturally at a lower pitch than the brighter sound which has evolved over the centuries as Highland pipes were found increasingly in military and exhibition situations. The men decided to take the sound of the pipes back to an earlier time in another way, as well, playing music which focuses on the rhythms of dance and Gaelic speech rather than march time pieces.


There are lively pieces which are part of and support the rhythm of quick step marches, step dancing, waulking songs with their work driven beat, and melodies which reference the nuances of Gaelic song and the sound of the sea. Many of these pieces come from the Western isles in Scotland, and a number of them come also from the island across the sea, Cape Breton in Atlantic Canada, where traditions of Scottish music have been handed down as strongly as they have within Scotland itself.

It is a program well worth the hearing all the way through, and more than once. Highlights, though, inlcude The Rock, which is a set of Cape Breton tunes, and Tha Mulad, which is a set of songs. Guests who sit in with the band include Mac Morin on piano, Donald Hay on percussion, and Allen MacDonald and Kathleen MacInnes, singers.

you may also wish to see


Music Road: bagpipes & bluegrass: Outlands from Fred Morrison
Music Road: Scotland & Cape Breton: tradition and innovation
Music Road: Celtic Connections 2011: images, part two

from Northern Ireland: Cara Dillon: After the Morning

On her album
After the Morning Cara Dillon includes original material, covers of songs by Scotsman Dougie MacLean and American writers Pam Rose and Mary Ann Kennedy, and traditional songs. It was a bit of a change up for the singer, who had been associated most strongly with traditional folk material, and it is one she handled well, at times choosing sparse instrumental backing for her graceful light soprano voice, and at others bringing in fuller sounds of strings, and percussion and yet at other times backing from keyboards from her husband Sam Lakeman, who produced the album, and traditional musicians Cathal Hayden on fiddle and Mairtin O’Connor on accordion.

“We always try to keep the song at the forefront of what we do, myself and Sam,” Dillon says, “because we both have such a great respect for the tradition. The way we kind of describe it to each other at times is like finding a really beautiful gemstone and trying to find the right setting for it, so that it’s the focus of everyone's attention. The setting is just as important for it to be seen. We work on the songs a lot, and sometimes people come up after the show and say, is that a traditional song, or a song that you’ve written? And to me, that’s quite a big compliment.”.

Dillon grew up in Dungiven, in County Derry, Northern Ireland, where she knew traditional music as part of her daily life. “You know I think kids growing up now think folk music is a bit uncool, but for us then, it was just the done thing, and I loved it,” Dillon says. She’s not speaking of some far bygone days, either: she’s is in her mid thirties now. Dillon was good at the music, too, winning the All Ireland prize for singing in English when she was fourteen.

It is to Derry and Donegal that Dillon often returns for song ideas, both seeking songs from the the tradition and seeking inspiration for the songs she and Lakeman write and arrange. On After the Morning, Brockagh Braes and Bold Jamie are two from the area’s well of tradition. The Streets of Derry, on which folk rock star Paul Brady, a native of Derry, joins in, is another. The Snows They Melt the Soonest is another from the tradition as well, with just Lakeman’s piano thoughtfully backing Dillon’s voice. The original songs include the bittersweet love song Never in in a Million Years and a quiet, reflective tribute to Dillon’s father, October Winds.

Though Dillon tours internationally, she’s not quite as well known outside Europe as she is within it. After the Morning is a fine place to make her acquaintance.

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Dillon in a traditional focus on her album
Hill of Thieves
video of Dillon singing There Were Roses at
Music Road: Ireland, north and south
Dillon and Gretchen Peters have toured together
Music Road: Gretchen Peters: Northern Lights

music and the unexpected

Whether you look first for patterns or for things that break a pattern, you will often find things you do not expect. Perhaps a happy surprise, perhaps a difficult one, perhaps something that is disconcerting, or maybe, joyous. Musicians consider all these things in their work, of course, and there are ways music both fits and breaks pattern, too.

While working at a classical music radio station, I was once asked to play an album by a composer whose work consisted of calling out Pythagorean theorems while playing notes and chords on the piano which he derived from these. That’s one way of thinking about the unexpected and, I’d imagine, creating unexpected experiences for those who heard his work.

His approach wouldn’t be mine. I would, however, suggest these pieces to accompany you on journeys expected and unexpected


Irish guitarist John Doyle has a lively tune called Expect the Unexpected on his album Wayward Son

Americana songwriter Carrie Newcomer looks at unexpected change from varied and at times subtle viewpoints on her album Before & After

A love song that is also a song about daybreak, and about change, Amanacer, from Mexican American songwriter Tish Hinojosa. I first heard it on her album Taos to Tennessee


The unexpected hearts on the brick wall in the photograph caught my imagination one day in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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music and summer's harvest

From the pages of the Wall Street Journal to the gardens of the White House, from food blogs to supermarket aisles, there is a buzz going around that we need to pay more attention to vegetables, and that 2011 is in fact the year of the vegetable.

If you’ve been thinking about vegetables, there’s a song for that. A really funny one, good for kids and adults both, it will have you singing along in two languages in no time. The song is called Barnyard Dance in English, El Baile Vegetal in Spanish, and it is by Tish Hinojosa. Follow the link there at the title to hear a snippet of it, and look for it on Hinojosa’s album Cada Nino / Every Child.

There are other songs which include vegetables. James Taylor has Sweet Potato Pie, Marcia Ball has Red Beans and Rice, Tim O’Brien offers Cornbread Nation This year of the vegetable and time of late summer harvest might be just the right moment to be pulling up these to listen to.

Once you check out Baile Vegetal, you may never think about those vegetables sitting quietly (it seems) in your kitchen the same way again.



you may also wish to see
songwriter Tish Hinojosa, at Perceptive Travel

My Kids Eat Squid, a resource for learning about food and having fun with your family in the kitchen

for ideas about what to do with those vegetables when you’re not dancing with them (and other practical ideas about ways your daily choices can help the planet), check out the patchwork living blogging bee, a project from Kris Bordessa of Attainable Sustainable and Melanie McMinn of Frugal Kiwi. Melanie has been kind enough to feature this post as one of her favorites at Frugal Kiwi.

a book about a year of eating food sourced locally at
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

and to help out those who are hungry while having fun learning about languages, geography, and other things click on this logo to visit

music and stories from Scotland: In Our Day

Songs arise from day to day living, from the stories we tell ourselves and each other as we make our way through the day, the seasons, the year.

They might be, at times, wildly abstract, and at other times down to earth and quite concrete. Music, certainly the sort of music we talk about here along the music road, continues the conversations of daily life and, if it is doing its job well, turns a new light on the events, emotions, connections, and memories of the day.

That is something Margaret Bennett and Doris Rougvie know well, and it is an aspect of music and of history that comes through clearly in their book'In Our Day...': Reminiscences and Songs from Rural Perthshire. Bennett is a folklorist and musician; Rougvie is a musician and artist. Both traveled their home ground of rural Perthshire in central Scotland, gathering memories and stories from farmers, shepherds, crofters, trades people, professionals, gardeners, housewives -- all sorts of people, really. The memories they gathered are for the most part those which are beginning to be at the edge of forgotten time: day to day stories of how people lived their lives and made their days in the 1920s, and thirties, and forties, and what they remember now, what stories they’ve told their own children.

It is clear that Bennett and Rougvie went at the task of seeking out and speaking with these folk with great care and concern, and respect for their stories. They have chosen excerpts of the transcripts of the stories to make up this book, and what is more, the two of them, along with several friends and some students from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, have recorded fifteen songs that come in for mention in the book, and a CD of these is included with it. It is not a song for every story, story for every song sort of thing, but rather a fine interweaving of song and story. There are fifteen tracks on the CD altogether, including the Loch Tay Boat Song, Queen Among the Heather, and The Lass of Glenshee. The book’s text is also enhanced by the occasional engaging illustration drawn by Rougvie.

You do not need to be acquainted with rural Perthshire to appreciate what Bennett and Rougvie offer here. It is a fine tribute to the interconnection of music, memory and day to day life, whatever the location.

You may follow the link to Amazon, above, or alternatively write to gonzalo at gracenotereading dot co dot uk for further information about where to purchase In Our Day

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Music Road: season of change: music for autumn
Music Road: Music for St Andrew's Day: music of Scotland
Music Road: Julie Fowlis: Live at Perthsire Amber

Song for the weekend: Emily Smith: Glory Bound

Emily Smith and friends with Glory Bound, which was recorded for the program Songs of Praise, which aired in the UK




coming up soon here along the Music Road, a review of Emily Smith's album Traiveller's Joy and here it is Music Road: from Scotland: Emily Smith: Traiveller's Joy

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Emily Smith, Jamie McClennan, and Robert Burns
Music Road: Emily Smith: Too Long Away

music and troubled times

Music, especially the sorts of music we talk of here along the music road, is a good companion in times of sorrow as well as times of joy, in times of sorting things out as well as times of moving forward.

There are many sad things going on in the world, and in our day to day lives, as well. let us remember the joy and comfort music brings in all sort of circumstance.







music to go along with these ideas

Music Road: listening through the changes
Music Road: Carrie Newcomer: Before & After
Music Road: Seven Stories
Music Road: cathie ryan: the farthest wave

speaking of finding hope in troubled times, you may like this video, too, which is courtesy of Mary Allen, America's Inner Peace Coach


photographs are from Ireland, Scotland, and Canada, and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

Long Time Courting: Alternate Routes

Alternate Routes:
that is the name of a tune, a set, and a new album from the band Long Time Courting. It also works to give a hint of the music within, and the routes the four women of the band took to get to it.

The story of Maggie Dean starts things off. Maggie disguises herself as a man to sail away on a ship bound for America, not, as is common in such songs, to follow her man, but rather to seek a trade. She ends up making a life on the sea, not, as is also common in such tales, rescued by becoming the captain’s wife, but rather learning the seafaring trade herself and marrying a fellow sailor. A traditional melody carries this turn on the familiar story in words composed by Shannon Heaton.

Heaton plays flutes and whistles with Long Time Courting. Sarah Blair is on fiddle, Liz Simmons plays guitar, and Ariel Friedman plays cello. All four of the women sing. The New England based musicians also have other commitments from teaching to touring to playing in duos, trios, and other bands, and among them they have worked with artists ranging from the Eagles to the Clancy Legacy.

What they have created with Long Time Courting is not so much a blend of talents as it is a tapestry, with bright threads of voice and instrument weaving in and out, coming to the fore and supporting in the background through a series of musical conversations that comprise both song and tune. LTC is rooted in Irish music, but they bring in American roots and on occasion other threads of music as well. The song Barbara Allen is well known on both sides of the Atlantic and in many different styles. LTC offers it in slowed down form, almost as a lament, with a nod to Johnny Cash as as well as to tradition. It is also a very fine instance of how the women’s singing creates a whole that is more than the sum of its parts.

Their collaboration through their instruments is equally strong The Alternates Routes set, which bookends Heaton’s original title track with two traditional pieces, finds the meeting of rhythm from Simmons guitar, breath of Heaton’s flute and dialogue between the bright sound of Blair's fiddle and the darker tone of Friedman’s cello all carrying the story with no words needed. The York Street Stepper set is another place to note this, as the title tune from LTC founding member Ellery Klein kicks off the journey and weaves in to two pieces from the tradition.

Each of the songs -- there are five of them, including My Johnny Was a Shoemaker, from the tradition, and Islander’s Lament, a contemporary song written by Robbie O’Connell -- offer strong story, engaging voice, great harmony, and thoughtful playing. The six tune sets deliver as well, and all show greater depth which each listening. A well woven tapestry, this, and a thoughtful musical journey, one which reveals more color and depth with each listening.


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Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Music Road: The Clancy Legacy
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Blue fiddle, and Ireland's northwest

Lunasa has been a powerhouse band in the Irish music scene for going on fifteen years, with high energy, crisp musicianship, and musical connections which make every recording and each convert an adventure in both tradition and creativity. It has been reported that President Obama includes tunes from Lunasa as part of his music when he works out.

But before there was Lunasa, founding member and fiddle player Sean Smyth released his debut album. called Blue Fiddle. It quickly gained notice in Ireland, marking him as a player of sure tone and touch, and one who was not afraid to take his fiddle playing a bit beyond the tradition while staying anchored in it. You might figure that from title of just a few of the tunes he includes, Soweto Slides, Welcome to Shetland, and Jamaica Jam alongside Tulla Moondance and Tommy Peeples Reel, a tune he dedicates to his Granny and Granda.

It’s a well chosen set that marked Smyth’s future interests. The Mayo native chose his guests well too, among them his sisters Cora and Breda, who have themselves made professional careers in music, ace box player Martin O’Connor, and Steve Cooney, who wrote the title tune.

listen to samples from The Blue Fiddle here

Blue Fiddle is one of the recordings I’ve come across recently which had fallen to the back of the shelves. Finding it not only reminds me of the times I’ve seen Smyth play, but also of the shop in Letterkenny, County Donegal, where I bought this recording years ago. Letterkenny isn’t really a tourist destination, but rather more of a work a day Irish town, up close along the border between the north and the republic. I’ve spent a good bit of time there over the years, but I’m thinking it’s been far too long since I’ve been back.




photographs are from Saint Eunan’s Cathedral, and from the main street in Letterkenny, and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.


you may also wish to see
Music Road: Irish landscape: Davy Spillane's A Place Among the Stones
Music Road: from Donegal: T with the Maggies
Music Road: Three Fiddle CDs for Fall

and

Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday.