Music Road

music and telling the long story

2012-01-30T05:06:00.001-05:00

Telling the long story, the story that moves through laughter love, grief, loss, change, faith,. connection, friends, spouses children and grandchildren, peace, war, home, and travel: that’s how we live our lives. Your story won’t sound exactly like mine; the threads we weave of our experiences will be of differing weight and color. There will be things in common, though, even if we do not have the same experiences or share the same views of what happens in our lives.

You might find a bit of a laugh in the wry twist of ending in the song Johnny Be fair, from Ireland, and a fine celebration of holidays in the American West in Two Step ‘round the Christmas Tree. You could join in the anthems of We Shall Overcome, Bandera del Sol, and We’ll Sing It All Over. You could have fun teaching your children Froggy Went a-Courting and Mother Will You Let Me Go to the Fair? There are thoughts about the relationships between parents and children in songs including I’ll Go Too and All the Ways You Wander, and if romantic love is what you’re wanting to talk of or listen to, there are buckets of songs on that, among them My Love Is Like a Red Red Rose, and, if you look at it that way, Aanachie Gordon and Bay of Biscay The long story as told in moments, from the immediate moment of a lively jig and a slow air, songs of faith within and without church doors. songs of hope and peace -- and connection. Music is a way for us to tell the long stories of our lives.

Music helps us tell and listen to these stories, to connect through the differences, to celebrate the connections and the threads that pull through.

Music to go along with these ideas
Music Road: India to Indiana: Everything Is Everywhere from Carrie Newcomer
Music Road: Eddi Reader, Emily Smith, Robert Burns
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: teaching tradition

Celtic Connections 2012: the music begins

2012-01-21T03:49:00.010-05:00

January. Glasgow. Celtic Connections.

Celtic Connection's is Europe's premiere winer festival, and one of the top music festivals across the world. Both the Celtic side of things, with artists from all across Scotland, from ireland, the United States, Canada, and elsehwere in the Celtic world come to share their music, as do musicians from other traditions.

Celtic Connections 2012. The music begins...

with the Scottish Power Pipe Band playing to launch the first night of the festival, as the steps of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall are lit with fire and music

The fire continued inside on the first evening, as the main auditorium at the Royal Concert Hall was lit with music from Bela Fleck and friends.

More to come on this concert and others as the music continues.

photographs made with permission of the festival and the artists, and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

you may also wish to see

Celtic Connections:
an overview of events at this year's festival, at Wandering Educators
Music Road: Celtic Connections 2011: images

Songs of Love from the Celtic World: A Stor Mo Chroí

2012-01-14T17:05:00.004-05:00

Love: subject of eternal questions, eternal answers, and loads and loads of songs and tunes. Love from many directions is the focus of A Stor Mo Chroi, a two disc collection of thirty tracks. Artists from the varied worlds of Celtic music contribute music, among them Niamh Ni Charra, John Spillane, Capercaillie, Damien Dempsey, Loreena McKennitt, and Grada.

In case you were wondering what A Stor Mo Chroí means, it can be taken several ways. In Irish mo chroí means of my heart, and a stor may mean thing, treasure, value, and is sometime used as a shortcut for dear or darling. Listen to the songs and see which meaning suits you.

It’s a well sequenced collection in both sound and idea. The steady beat of percussion in Lumiere’s version of Fair and Tender Ladies, a song well known on both sides of the ocean, leads into the thoughtful work of Davy Spillane on pipes and Sean Tyrell on voice in the song Starry Night. Eddie Reader, from Scotland, is supported by her regular road band collaborator Alan Kelly on a graceful tale of friendship and love written by John Douglas called I Hung My Harp upon the Willow. John Spillane’s gritty take on his own song of lovers’ regret, When You and I Were True, illuminates the traditional tale of another sort of lovers’ parting, She Moved through the Fair, as presented by Loreena McKennitt. The sequence which leads from the tale of passing glimpses of a possible love in Spanish Lady (set in fine harmony by Maighread and Triona Ni Dhomhnaill) through the rambler song Free and Easy by Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh to the lively melody and enigmatic questions in in the song Wedding Dress from T with the Maggies will draw you in and make you think as well.

There are, as the subtitle of the collection promises, songs of both love and loss, and songs of reconciliation, reflection, and fun, as well. They come from well known artists, rising stars, and several groups and artists you may be less familiar with if you live outside of Ireland. All the tracks are worth your listening, though, and so is the sequence of tale and sound they weave. Colm O’Siochain, who thought up the album concept, is also responsible for the way the songs unfold. Even if you know all the artists, you will want to check out this collection to explore the way the songs illuminate each other here.

It’s good, too, the find the work of newer artists and well known musicians alongside bands and artists who have gone on to other things, such as a song from the short lived Skara Brae and and an early track from Paul Brady and Andy Irvine, as well as a classic take on Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh’s Raglan Road by the late Luke Kelly. It’s also good to see the collection wind to a close with Pauline Scanlon’s offering of All the Ways You Wander, a song John Spillane wrote for his daughter.

you may also wish to see
Americana and western songwriter Michael Martin Murphey’s song about
A Long Line Of Love
Music Road: a bouquet of Celtic love songs & tunes
Music Road: from Donegal: T with the Maggies

turning of the year and music: favorite stories and a hint of what's ahead

2012-01-09T08:30:00.009-05:00

At the turning of the year, Music Road and the journey of music winds on.
Among your favorite articles published this year were seasonal posts on Advent and music, the conclusion of the great American Road trip series, and these

Carrie Newcomer considers the sacred, the ordinary, and what she learned and is reflecting upon after an unexpected time spent sharing her music and ideas with people in India on India to Indiana: Everything Is Everywhere

Cathie Ryan speaks of her knowledge of and passion for sharing her music, and the legends and stories she draws on when presenting music of Ireland, in teaching tradition

A look at the many aspects of winter, the hope of spring, Celtic harp, folk orchestra and the occasional electric guitar held your interest as you read about Jennifer Cutting and the Ocean Orchestra’s work on Song of Solstice.

An American folk song book, a concert from the Highlands in Scottish Gaelic, a twist on traditional Irish music from a Boston based all star quartet, and a basketful of other journeys along the music road: Best Music of the Year, a regular feature each November along the Music Road, also continues to hold your interest.

The philosophical side of things and reflections on music and creativity do, as well. Rest in music, an article on the rhythms of music and conversation, proved a favorite, as did this reflection on the connections among friendship, time , and music: music, autumn, and a cup of tea

You also enjoyed this video of Emily Smith, from Scotland, singing a song of faith by an American songwriter, which comes with entirely appropriate shots of the Jacobite Steam Train (watch the video, you'll understand): Song for the weekend: Emily Smith: Glory Bound.

What’s ahead along the music road? Continuing travels in the music of Ireland, Scotland, Canada, and across the United States, as well as other landscapes on occasion, along with deeper excursions into the ways music connects us all and helps us understand life and each other. There might be a musical road trip across Canada, and there will be consideration of new music from favorite artists and from artists and projects new to the music road as well, thoughts on an album inspired by the writings of ancient Ireland, and a few surprises along the way too.

Thank you for being part of the Music Road community, It’s been nearly six years now (for the online part of it, that is), so there's a wealth of musical knowledge, inspiration, and reflection here which I encourage you to explore. The journey continues, and to borrow a song title from Texan songwriter Robert Earl Keen, the road goes on forever. Happy new year!

the photograph is of a fireplace in Louth, Ireland, and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting that.

to keep up with what's ahead along the Music Road this year, check out the sidebar on the right for ways to subscribe through email, RSS feed, and Kindle. thanks!

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Music for the first week in Advent: candle in the window
Music Road: Seven Stories

Winter's journeys and music

2012-01-03T12:37:00.005-05:00

Part of the work of winter is change. There are new beginnings, and looking for different horizons. The work of winter also includes quiet, reflection, and meditation, perhaps to integrate the lessons of the turning season, perhaps to find the light to follow those new paths. Music makes a good companion, for whatever directions this early part of a new year is taking you.

Music to go along with these ideas
Lee Hunter and Arvid Smith, who as a musical duo are known as Tammerlin, offer
WinterSong. True, it may be taken as a Christmas album, and as the title suggests, a consideration of winter that reaches beyond that celebration too. They include music that is both seasonal and holiday. As well, Hunter reads short selections from Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, and Henry David Thoreau, well chosen and well read words which stand gracefully among the music, as readings and words serve to illuminate each other.

Padraigin Ni Uallachain, who is a scholar of music as well as a singer, took as her inspiration for Songs of the Scribe lyrics, notes an poetry from scribes and poets of early ireland. There will be more to say about this recording in future. For now, though, you will find it a thoughtful collection which makes a good doorway for reflection whether you understand the words in Irish or not.

Hanneke Cassel is a composer and player of violin and piano whose work is grounded in Scottish traditions with the spice of Americana, bluegrass, and the music of other places she’s traveled. Her album For Reasons Unseen makes a fine companion to winter’s journeys of place and spirit.

the photograph was made early on a snowy morning as I waited for the commuter rail train in Natick, Massachusetts. it is copyrighted, and I thank you for respecting that.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Celtic Kenya musical connection
Music Road: Song of Solstice: music for changing seasons
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: teaching tradition

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

Auld Lang Syne

2011-12-31T02:02:00.007-05:00

It's a time of year when people all over the world join in singing Auld Lang Syne, a song Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote and adapted from an even older piece of music. Here's a fine version of it with Emily Smith taking the lead vocal, supported by Jamie McClennan and her own band members as well as members of the band Breabach. Smith, an award winning singer and songwriter, is from the area in the southwest of Scotland where Robert Burns made his home.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Song for the weekend: Emily Smith: Glory Bound
Music Road: Emily Smith, Jamie McClennan, and Robert Burns
Music Road: eddi reader, willie stewart, and the search for haggis

at the turning of the year: music and change

2011-12-29T14:58:00.006-05:00

The turning of the years is often a time of change, a time of looking forward and looking back, a time for forgiveness, for beginning anew. The sort of music we meet here along the music road speaks of all these things, at times. Here are several albums which make good companions for such reflection.

In the songs on her album Before & After, Carrie Newcomer invites consideration of the joy and hardship of change, and the mysteries involved with it

Tommy Sands knows a good bit about change as it plays out through politics, and through the movements of history. Take a listen to how he puts this into song on Arising from the Troubles

The gifts of winter and longing for spring are both part of the landscape Jennifer Cutting and her fellow musicians in the Ocean Orchestra explore through their music on Song of Solstice

Legend and myth, the natural world, and how those resonate with the courage it takes to risk change are part of what Cathie Ryan considers through the songs she covers and the songs she writes for her album The Farthest Wave

you may also wish to see
Music Road: rest in music
Music Road: Best Music, 2011

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T07:56:00.007-05:00

Christmas Eve. A time for quiet, for contemplation, for gathering in the strands of holiday joy and connection, for solitude, for reflection. A time for celebrating wonder. A time for music.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: fourth week in Advent: music and meditation
Music Road: Music for the first week in Advent: candle in the window
Music Road: music, autumn, and a cup of tea
at Perceptive Travel, a different look at Christmas Eve

fourth week in Advent: music and meditation

2011-12-22T07:03:00.006-05:00

Advent is a time of reflection, a time for seeking peace. It is a time for the work of solitude and the work of being in company. A time for preparation, quiet, and connection. Whether Advent is part of the faith you mark or not, winter is a good season for such things. Music is a way into into and through these ideas, as well.

Wintersong by Tammerlin makes a good gateway and companion for these journeys. From the opening song Winter’s Grace though the carol Silent Night, Lee Hunter and Arvid Smith. invite the listeners along on a journey well suits the contemplative nature of winter, with room for consideration of its changes and challenges along with its comfort and peace. In keeping with the music they’ve chosen, their arrangements are spare and rich at the same time. Hunter, who does most of the lead vocals, has a natural and relaxed storyteller's style which finds her moving through music from France, Appalachia, and contemporary folk as well as traditional carols which focus and grace. There are four brief spoken word selections included within the program as well, two from the writings of Henry David Thoreau and one each from Annie Dillard and Wendell Berry. In Hunter’s voice and in the duo’s choice of music, these prove natural extensions of their winter ideas, as they illuminate the the music and the music adds dimension to the words.

The music on Fine Winter's Night from Matt and Shannon Heaton illuminates the season, too. Sacred and secular aspects of winter dance with each other through the original and traditional music the two offer. Matt sings lead on his original take on a Christmas encounter a century or so ago in First Snowfall of December, and on the Wexford Carol, a hymn from twelfth century Ireland. Shannon takes a light touch with the tale of Julius the Christmas Cat preparing for the Holy Family, and offers a new setting to sixteenth century poetry for winter in her version of Star Song. There are a number of sessional instrumentals with Matt on guitar and Shannon on flute, as well as more carols, and original songs. These frame the centerpiece of the album’s idea and music, the title track Fine Winter’s Night, in which the connection and solitude of winter’s journey meet.

the photograph on the upper right is of holiday lights on Harvard Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting that.

you may also wish to see
Klezmer: Music for the Festival of Lights
Music Road: Song of Solstice: music for changing seasons
Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton

and

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

listening to Christmas: Celtic artists tell their favorite winter holiday music

2011-12-20T16:26:00.006-05:00

Those who make music for their work enjoy music of the winter holidays as much as those who are in their audiences.

Tommy Sands thinks of the connections music makes, Heidi Talbot is enjoying sharing holiday music with her friends on stage and her young daughter at home, and Cathie Ryan has an album that she finds to be good company as background for holiday gatherings as well as for quiet reflection by the fireside.

take a listen to what Tommy, Heidi, Cathie, and others have to say about how they enjoy music at the holidays by following the links to these holiday articles:

listening to Christmas: Aoife Clancy, Tommy Sands, Matt Heaton
listening to Christmas: Heidi Talbot, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Patty Larkin
listening to Christmas: Shannon Heaton, Cathie Ryan, Mary Black, Hanneke Cassel

Americana: gift ideas and seasonal music

2011-12-19T09:02:00.002-05:00

Melting pot, salad bowl, tapestry: the many and varied cultures and landscapes of the United States find voice in the music that has come to be known as Americana. At the holidays as well at other times of year, it holds many things to explore.

Ideas for gifts, and for Americana music for the winter season, as well:

Kyle Carey draws in her interests in the music of Scotland and Cape Breton with her knowledge a love for the music and landscapes of Appalachia on her debut album Monongah.

Suzy Bogguss is a gifted songwriter and interpreter of contemporary song. She started out singing American folk music and often includes that in her concerts, too -- and she became concerned when she noted that many members of her audience didn’t know the words to songs such as Red River Valley, Banks of the Ohio, and Wayfaring Stranger. Whether it proves a refresher course or an introduction, her album American Folk Songbook is a fine choice for gift giving and for adding to your own collection.

Matraca Berg writes songs that a long list of Nashville superstars record. Her album The Dreaming Fields is a collection of stories by turns funny, reflective, and thought provoking, tales of people of the American south which resonate with people across the globe.

Carrie Newcomer knows a bit about those across the globe connections. She had an unexpected chance to spend time giving concerts and workshops in India. She’s connected that experience with her midwestern Americana ideas in her album Everything Is Everywhere.

seasonal music
Kathy Mattea has two holiday albums well worth your attention, the southern gospel tinged Good News and Joy for Christmas Day, which holds both traditional and contemporary songs of Christmas. The title song of the latter speaks of the place of Christmas amidst the hard knocks of life.

Matt and Shannon Heaton make their music where Irish tradition meets Americana. To experience what that means, take a listen to their seasonal album Fine Winter's Night, which includes traditional Irish and Shetland tunes, an original song for which Matt got the idea from looking a Victorian house down the street, and a piece which is an African American song turned Celtic lullabye.

Gretchen Peters knows that the holiday season goes beyond jingle bells and festive Santas, too. On her album Northern Lights she includes traditional, original, and contemporary songs which look at the many sides of sides of the holiday season with a compassionate and thoughtful gaze. It’s all good stuff, but especially take note of her original song Waitin’ on Mary and her cover of Kim Richey’s Careful How You Go.

you may also wish to see
for more Americana holiday music suggestions
Music Road: listening to Christmas

third week in Advent: music and community

2011-12-15T08:41:00.002-05:00

Music is an art of both solitude and community. In creation, in practice, in performance, in contemplation, music is shared with and thought about on one’s own. The work of the Advent season, the work of winter, is like that too, a time for reflection as one walks the winter days or sits by the fire, and gatherings in company with many friends or just a few, to celebrate the season in good company. All good things to enjoy and remember this third week in Advent.

music to go along with these ideas

Music Road: 6 of the best Christmas Songs
Music Road: Best Music, 2011
at A Traveler’s Library Texas music fo a Christmas night

you may also wish to see
at Perceptive Travel wreaths, music, and legend
Music Road: music, autumn, and a cup of tea

song for an Advent weekend: Oíche Chiúin

2011-12-09T18:02:00.001-05:00

In the midst holiday preparations, take a bit of time for quiet reflection on the season. Whether Irish is your language or not, I think you will recognize the song.

Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, and Eleanor Shanley sing
Oíche Chiúin from Geantraí na Nollag, broadcast in Ireland on TG4 at Christmas 2010

you may also wish to see
Music Road: music, autumn, and a cup of tea
Music Road: listening to Christmas: Heidi Talbot, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Patty Larkin
Music Road: holiday gift ideas: Irish music

second week in advent & music

2011-12-07T17:35:00.006-05:00

The second week in advent brings with it a call to reflection, to mediation, to taking in of knowledge and seeing how all that may become wisdom. I’ve always found music, especially the music we meet and talk about here along the music road, a way into wisdom, knowledge, and contemplation. Whether you are playing or listening, this sort of music engages heart, mind, and spirit.

Ideas for music for the second week in advent

Matt & Shannon Heaton: Fine Winter's Night the title track, and original by Shannon, brings in connection and contrast between the wintry weather and the warmth of friendship, between the solitary and connected aspects of the work of winter, and of Advent. It is also one of my favorite Christmas albums

another album that makes a good companion to contemplation and reflection this season is A Mandolin Christmas. from Karen Mal and Will Taylor. though both are skilled on many instruments, they chose just mandolin and guitar for a journey ranging from traditional carols to popular seasonal favorites, from folk arrangements to ones with a a dash of jazz. this is a new release from Taylor and Mal this season, and looks likely to become a holiday classic

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Music Road: music, autumn, and a cup of tea
Music Road: 6 of the best Christmas Songs

holiday gift ideas: Irish music

2011-12-07T09:55:00.008-05:00

Music always makes a fine gift at the holidays, and Irish music all the more so. Whether you prefer to give and receive music that way or to create a mix of tracks on your own, here are suggestions for recent releases along with a several longtime favorites, and a book, as well.

Long Time Courting is a band of Boston women musicians, each of whom has a strong career in other musical endeavors. The four friends really liked the way they sound when they play and sing together, though, and they wanted to share that. Their debut album Alternate Routes made the best music of 2011 list here at Music Road.

It’s been a while -- six years -- since Mary Black has released a studio album. The Dublin based singer offers Stories from the Steeples, a new collection which shows that she is still following the path of unique and adventurous song selection, with a taste for contemporary songwriters and a bit of tradition as well. Duets with the likes of Finbar Furey and Janis Ian feature on this album along with Black’s always distinctive voice. Between this and her last studio release, one of the things Black did was put together a compilation album 25 years 25 songs , which would also make a fine gift for yourself or anyone on your list who enjoys good singing.

Jennifer Cutting has a musical imagination which deepens Celtic music by illuminating it through voice and instrument with her group the Ocean Orchestra. Together they have made the album Song of Solstice: Celtic Music for Midwinter. Original and traditional song and tune including a lively piece honoring the Green Man of Celtic legend and a graceful take on the seasonal song In the Bleak Midwinter are among the choices. Solstice, too, was a pick for best of year 2011 at Music Road.

Songs from the tradition in English and Irish, classy contemporary songs, and original music that engages aspects of Irish myth and nature with daily life today, not to mention a fine voice, thoughtful interpretation, and great backing from the likes of John Doyle and John McCusker: The Farthest Wave from Cathie Ryan would make a fine gift for an Irish music lover on your list, or someone you’d like to introduce to Irish music.

How about a Christmas album or two?. Cherish the Ladies have two holiday albums out, and they’d both be good selections for giving and for your own listening. A Star in the East finds lead singer Michelle Lee Burke having a fine time with All on a Christmas Morning and Home on Time for Christmas, while the always stellar musicianship of this group shines on the Greensleeves Jig and The Frost Is All Over. On Christmas Night also from CTL offers a lovely version of that quintessential Irish song of winter, The Castle of Dromore, with Heidi Talbot as the singer, along with well chosen selections of seasonal song and tune, including an understated version of the often overstated O Holy Night, with Talbot again on voice.

If tunes are what you are looking for, Shannon Heaton’s album of original and traditional music on the flute The Blue Dress is just what you’re looking for. The folk as RTE Lyric fm have put together Masters of the Irish Harp which makes a good choice too. It’s a gathering of tune and talent that’s both instructive and enjoyable, with a wide ranging group of players who are truly masters at what they do.

If reading about Irish music is to your gift recipients’ tastes, then you’ll want to consider Bright Star of the West: Joe Heaney, Irish Song Man. Joe Heaney was a legendary sean nos singer from Connemara , in the west of Ireland. He was also a complicated and complex man living at a time of transition for Irish and Irish American music. Though the prose is more than a bit dry and academic, authors Sean Williams and Lillis O’Laoire, professors as well as musicians, take the facts of Heaney ‘s life into discussion of sean nos, Irish traditional music, the role of men in Irish traditional culture, the nature of Irish American life, and other subjects.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Best Music, 2011
Music Road: holiday gift list: music of Canada
Wreath, music and legend

Music for the first week in Advent: candle in the window

2011-12-01T11:01:00.001-05:00

There is a tradition in Irish households, in Ireland and through the Irish diaspora across the world, to leave a light in the window on Christmas eve, and at times during other nights in December as well. This is meant to show that the holy family, on their journey seeking shelter that Christmas eve in Bethlehem, would be welcome. It’s also meant to show that Christ is welcome here, and that strangers weary on the road this Christmas season find welcome at this home. The Christ candle, we always called it when I was growing up.

Moya Brennan and Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh grew up in Donegal, in the north west of Ireland. They went their separate ways into top level careers in music, Brennan playing the harp and singing with the group Clannad and Ni Mhaonaigh singing and playing the fiddle with the band Altan. Each has had success as a solo artist, as well. In this video, they are taking a walk on a winter day in Donegal, and they sing a song Mairéad wrote, called Soilse na Nollaig, which you might translate to English as Christmas lights or December lights. It’s a fine song to hear during this first week in Advent.

Moya and Mairéad recently joined forces with two other childhood friends to form the group T with the Maggies, and they’ve so far released one album. They have done several Christmas concerts in Ireland, so perhaps a holiday album may in future. Music Road: from Donegal: T with the Maggies

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: teaching tradition

Cathie Ryan: teaching tradition

2011-11-28T08:48:00.008-05:00

“I love teaching Irish music to adults, or even teenagers, because I know they go out -- even with little kids too, so I can say teaching singing across the board -- because I know they’re going to go out with a whole song that they have learned, at least one, and they’re going to be able to share that with other people. They're going to have confidence to do that because they’ve worked on it in class. Just singing with other people in class gives you confidence, you know. So that is a joy.” That is Cathie Ryan talking. As part of her work as a professional touring musician, she also teaches.

What she teaches is traditional Irish singing and performance, and also Irish folklore and mythology. She has given week long workshops at the Swannanoa Gathering, worked with the Lincoln Center Institute, taught at Ceol Chairlinn, and given workshops at music festivals as well as taught in schools and community centers. “One of the lovely things about Irish traditional music is that you don’t have to have an advanced degree from Julliard to teach it -- you get to teach workshops!” says Ryan. who herself holds a degree in English literature. With fifteen years of a highly respected solo career in music as a performer and songwriter and before that eight years as a lead singer of the well known band Cherish the Ladies, she has certainly put herself through graduate level learning on musicianship, and her own research into songs and songwriting, as well as time living in both Ireland and America, have deepened her interest and knowledge in music and folklore as well.

Music and stories called to Ryan from her early years. Growing up in Michigan as the first generation child of Irish immigrants, Ryan took in stories and songs from Irish tradition, Irish popular music, Motown, and American country music as well. ”The Gaelic League was always our social word,” she recalls, and she learned about the music of Appalachia from the family of a childhood friend.

All these things found their way into her own thirst to know about music. She learned music from sharing songs and tunes with other musicians, and chose to study English literature at university. “I’ve always been a very analytical person, and that’s probably why I majored in English literature, so I could explicate stories and analyze characters. Why did the writer choose to do this, and why did they choose to do that? Also I really love Jungian psychology, and Joseph Campbell’s ideas on mythology as well, the whole idea of archetypes, “ Ryan says. “I really believe we are connected to the ancestors, and it’s up to us to look for what these connections are.”

Those are ideas which move through Ryan’s performing and her teaching.
“When I teach mythology, that starts by the telling of a story -- the telling one of the tales, for instance, from the Tain, and then explicating that text with the class, going back to the beginning of the story and looking at the characters and archetypes. What is this character going through right now? why? what’s relevant about that to us right now? and then relate that back to the landscape of Ireland, which just resonates with the mythology and so it encompasses the sweep of centuries. You’ve got land that is still living that was inhabited by these kings and queens and goddesses and gods, and then you’re talking about what do they mean to me today. But then again, someone from the class could come up with some wonderful reading of the story and we might go in that direction -- if it’s compelling, and if it’s intelligent, and if it lights up the class, I’m going there, let’s follow that road,” she says. For her students Ryan wants to open doors in how they think and what they know about mythology. Thinking about the story of what’s going on and the people who are involved in it is her way of bringing them into this. When she’s teaching singing, the idea of connecting with story and character also applies.

She teaches technical aspects of singing traditional music as part of her workshops, but she goes beyond that. “It’s great to work with a class on honoring the song,“ she says. “ In order to do that, you really have to think about what do I want to bring to this song? If it’s an historical song, what was going on in this period of history? What did this person, the narrator, think about? What were they going through in their lives that brought them to express these feelings and emotions?” Opening doors for her students to think about making music, and listening to music, in this way is is what makes teaching a part of her work Ryan feels called to do -- that, and honoring the songs and the stories and the connections they create.

On her albums and in her concerts, Ryan most often chooses a mix of song, including songs in Irish and in English from the tradition, folk song from North America, songs from contemporary Irish and Scottish musicians such as Karine Polwart, Luka Bloom, and John Spillane, and songs she writes herself. On her album The Farthest Wave she recorded a song by Spillane called The Wild Flowers.

“I love that line from The Wild Flowers,” Ryan says “ which says ‘they were there before you, they’ll be here after you’.” For her students, she wants them to come away with the idea that “these songs and stories lived before you, and someone will tell them and sing them after you. This is your time time with this song and this story, and it’s an honor to be a part of that tradition.”

Cathie Ryan performs her music and teaches internationally. At the time of this conversation she was preparing for a workshop in Michigan to work with teachers about using music across the curriculum in different subjects, and she has performances at arts centers, universities, and with symphony orchestras scheduled in the coming months. You may find out more about what’s coming up for her here: Cathie Ryan’s tour schedule.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Songwriter
at Perceptive Travel Cathie Ryan: An Evening in Belfast
Music Road: listening to Christmas: Shannon Heaton, Cathie Ryan, Mary Black, Hanneke Cassel
Music Road: ceol chairlinn: sharing music in winter

music and Advent: preparation

2011-11-25T15:46:00.006-05:00

This is a season when rush and hurry and many things which have to be done may quickly come to seem as demands. They do not have to seem that way, however. The work of winter and of Advent is also drawing in, and that work includes contemplation and rest as well as celebration and gathering together. Sometimes, even, celebration as contemplation and contemplation as celebration. That has always seemed to me a good way to think during Advent. Music is both direct and indirect path into such thoughts.

the photograph is of snowfall in Banff, Alberta. it is copyrighted, and I thank you for respecting that.

Music to go along with these ideas
Music Road: Song of Solstice: music for changing seasons
Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Music Road: trilogy: 2000 Years of Christmas

the photograph is of snowfall among the trees in Banff, Alberta, in western Canada. it is copyrighted, and I thank you for respecting that.

you may also wish to see

Christine Kane, who is a musician as well as a life coach
offers a thoughtful article about gratitude

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

music and late autumn

2011-11-18T07:46:00.006-05:00

Miracles are everywhere. So is music. So is friendship. This is a time of year to invite and be open to and to celebrate all these things.

the photograph is of leaves in frost in Kelvingrove, in the west end of Glasgow, Scotland. it is copyrighted, and I thank you for respecting that

Music to go along with these ideas
Music Road: music, autumn, and a cup of tea
Music Road: music and the unexpected
Music Road: Best Music, 2011

you may also wish to see

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

Best Music, 2011

2011-11-17T07:02:00.006-05:00

This is a time of year for gift lists, shopping lists, and best of lists.

All the music you meet here along the music road is music of substance, created by artists who care about the musical conversation with listeners, each other, music, and time. It is, as Emmylou Harris once said, music, not a horse race. Still, it’s good to look back across what been said musically in the last year, and to consider what you might enjoy exploring at this time for giving and receiving. India to Indiana, Donegal to Tennessee, Dumfriesshire to Boston,all these places are on the journey through these best recordings of 2011.

Follow the links in the titles of these recordings for longer reviews and links to places where you will be able to hear bits of the music, as well.

Carrie Newcomer had an unexpected chance to do a musical residency in India. A meeting of her Americana and Indiana background with the life of India forms the substance of her album Everything Is Everywhere.

Matraca Berg often writes the songs which country stars make into chart topping hits. It’s been quite some time -- fourteen years -- since she recorded a solo album of her own. The true to life stories told with poetic vision and sung with grace make The Dreaming Fields more than worth the wait.

John Doyle is one who often works behind the scenes, too, playing guitar with artists including Alison Brown, Cathie Ryan, LIz Carroll and Joan Baez. His deep focus on Irish tradition comes out in his album Shadow and Light through songs he has written himself, and it’s fine to hear this aspect of tradition well carried forward. He is also a master guitar player.

Jennifer Cutting draws on Celtic tradition too, for Song of Solstice. With the the songs she composes and arranges for her Ocean Orchestra, she brings in ideas from Shetland, France, and Ireland as well as Americana and folk rock elements. Exploration and celebration of what is to be learned from the winter season is a focus of this fine gathering of music.

Liz Simmons, Sarah Blair, Ariel Friedman, and Shannon Heaton, the four musicians of the band Long Time Courting, each have strong careers with other musical endeavors. Still, they knew that the music they made together called to them in its own right, too. The result is their debut recording Alternate Routes, a collection of songs and tunes in the Celtic tradition well worth repeated listening.

That’s true of all the recordings in this list, in fact.

It is no mean feat to make a live album which carries the essence of connection with the audience in the moment and reaches listeners to the recording clearly enough to invite repeated listenings. That is what Julie Fowlis has done with Live at Perthsire Amber though. Her songs are in Scottish Gaelic, but if that’s not a language you know, listen anyway: you’ll get the emotions of the songs clearly, and there are notes on the stories of the song in English included.

The lively and engaging song The Wedding Dress, in English, opens T with the Maggies. Many of the songs are in Irish, though. If that’s not your language, do not let that deter you; you’ll understand the stories and the fine harmonies and great playing the four women have to offer. After becoming childhood friends through sharing music in Donegal in Ireland's far northwest, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill, and Moya Brennan each went separate ways into solo careers and work with groups including Altan and Clannad. T With the Maggies is the first time all four have recorded together, and it includes both music from the tradition and songs the women have written.

When she’d include American folk song favorites such as Red River Valley and Shenandoah at her concerts along with her country and Americana hits, Suzy Bogguss saw that everybody loved to sing along -- except the children and young people who didn’t know the words. She decided to make an album to share pieces of this handmade Americana music. Whether you are learning them for the first time or reconnecting with well loved memories. you will likely find yourself joining in with her warm, engaging take on seventeen American classics on American Folk Songbook. These include Froggy Went a-Courting, Banks of the Ohio, and Wayfaring Stranger.

The Unusual Suspects have traditional music on their album Big Like This, too. In their case it comes from the music of Scotland. Under the musical direction of Corrina Hewat and David Milligan, this folk big band, which comprises fiddlers, pipers, accordionists, horn player, drummers, percussionists, harp players and others from across Scotland, turns tradition on its ear while completely respecting too. There’s very fine original music from members of the band along with the traditional music, also. If there’s a person on your list who thinks folk music is stuffy or outdated, any of the recordings here should change his or her ideas on that, but especially this one. It will make a great choice for those who enjoy jazz, as well.

The bright sound of the little fiddle and the dark tones of the big fiddle -- the cello -- are in lively conversation in the hands of Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas, respectively, as they travel across the landscapes of Celtic music in Highlander's Farewell. The title track, for example, follows a tune which begins in Scotland and moves across Ireland and over to America, telling its engaging tale all the while.

Emily Smith knows a good bit about travel, as do most professional musicians. Though she often sources material for both songs she writes and songs she seeks out from near her home in the southwest of Scotland, for Traiveller's Joy Smith has taken the traveling aspect of a musician’s life into account as well. There are songs she’s learned on the road as well as ones inspired by her travels.

As you make your own travels this winter season, be they to around the corner or across the world, these recordings will make excellent companions along the road.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: artists of the decade
Music Road: Best Music, 2010
Music Road: holiday gift list: Irish music

Music, harvest, and time

2011-11-11T16:11:00.004-05:00

Martinmas: falling as it does in mid November, it used to be a time a time that the year’s rents were settled,. the gathering in from the harvest sorted, and plans made for the drawing in of winter.

Harvest: the word suggests a natural unfolding of things, a place for time and space and taking in and transforming. Not unlike the process of creating a song or a poem or a story or a painting, or building a house, or nuturing a friendship. or raising a child, or building a community. Or any number of other things. the prosper with time, attention, thought, and care.

That time for growth and reflection, the telling of the long story, the connection with a past that is more that five hours or five years ago, seems to be less common in the present day. Short story and immediate response have their place, but theirs is not the only place, or necessarily the right or the best one.

There are a number of ways this connects to music, especially the sort of music I introduce you to here along the music road. Lively or quiet, most of it is necessarily contemplative and a way of connecting with the longer thoughts of the day and the year.

You’ve met songwriter and singer Cathie Ryan here along the music road. As part of her work as a musician she teaches workshops on singing, and on Irish mythology. “I think we are connected to the ancestors,” she says, “and it’s part of our work to find out what that connection is. That’s in the stories of the myths, and it’s in the songs too.”

Music to go along with these ideas
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Songwriter
Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Music Road: music, autumn, and a cup of tea

Celtic music and Nordic music meet: Fribo

2011-11-09T15:58:00.003-05:00

The name of the band Fribo means open house, and the name of their most recent album, Happ, means be of good cheer. That’s a welcoming and inviting description of the music they create, a music born of intersection of past and present, of culture and land and style, of voice and instrument.

Fribo is a collaboration of talents from Norwegian singer Anne Sofie Linge Valdal, Scottish fiddler Hannah Read, Liverpool born Ewan MacPherson on guitar and Swedish percussionist Magnus Lundmark. Valdal, MacPherson, and founding band member Sarah Jane Summers, a fiddler and composer from the Highlands of Scotland, sat around a kitchen table in Edinburgh several years ago and started exploring the musical connections between Nordic lands and Celtic ones, and what they could create with those ideas. Three albums on, Happ sees the band adding light and energy to what's become known as Nu Nordic music, a style that explores the present, respects the past, and at times suggests the future of Celtic and Nordic traditional music.

Happ comprises eleven tracks, many of them sets which pair compositions by band members with traditional tunes. MacPherson, Valdal, and Summers (who rejoins the group for a number of the tracks on the album) each contribute compositions while all band members add to arrangements of contemporary and trad pieces. There are waltzes and lively dance pieces, quite song and driving tune. Playing for dancing is a big part of the music in the Scandinavian countries as well as in Scotland, and one of Fribo’s strengths is a fluid integration of the varied strands of dance music ideas in a way that respects and suggests the tradition while offering a sound not quite like what has been heard before.

Notable tracks include a set which joins the traditional tune Pipevise with Outlaws Don’t Dance Waltzes, written by Summers, and a set which finds MacPherson singing the Robert Frost poem Miles to Go paired with his own winter reflecting tune The Promise. All the tracks are keepers, indeed, and it is an album that’s meant for more than one listening to reveal all its depths, as well.

Fribo have been nominated for recognition at the Scots Trad Awards, and voting is open through 18 November. Should you take a look at that site you’ll find Emily Smith, the Unusual Suspects, and others you have met here along the music road up for awards as well. Best wishes to all.

you may also wish to see
Sarah-Jane Summers shares the best of the Highlands
another Fribo album The Ha' o' Habrahellia
Music Road: from Scotland: Emily Smith: Traiveller's Joy

music, autumn, and a cup of tea

2011-11-04T00:02:00.005-04:00

Late autumn, early winter: as the winter holidays and the turning of the year approach, it is a time of many activities, a time of bustle and a time of quiet, a time of solitude and of being with others. It is also a time of year when it’s good to take those moments, expected and unexpected, to have a bit of solitude, or perhaps a quiet loving conversation with a friend.

A good cup of tea helps, too. A musician I know says that though she has to be involved in a lot of social networking on line in her profession, a big pot of tea, a good friend, and plenty of time to talk make up all the social networking she really needs. I think she has a point.

A sunny winter morning in Massachusetts is where this cup of tea found me, as I’d arrived a bit early for one of those good conversations with a friend. Both the time for reflection and the time for conversation were blessings on that winter day. I wish both of these things for you as this holiday season begins, and continues.

Naturally, I think music goes along with this idea, too.

Harper Tasche is a musician from Washington State whose reflective recording Long Night Bright Star goes especially well with this time of year. It’s an instrumental recording, mainly harp, with music that gently yet powerfully suggests the season. If you’re in the mood for Christmas music, you’ll want to listen for Tasche’s album called Wintermas Moon, too. Click on the link in the title to hear a bit of it.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Music Road: winter music

and

Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday

ideas for sustainable living at the Patchwork Living Blogging Bee, from Attainable Sustainable and Frugal Kiwi

India to Indiana in song and image

2011-11-01T17:36:00.009-04:00

Singer and songwriter Carrie Newcomer had an unexpected opportunity to go to India, and to share her music and ideas there. The experiences she had in India have come through in songs she has included on her latest album Everything is Everywhere.

A while back, I told you a bit of the story behind this album, and Newcomer's collaboration with the Khan family, who are masters of the Indian instrument called the sarod. Now here is a video for the title track of the album. Take a listen, and a look.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: India to Indiana: Everything Is Everywhere from Carrie Newcomer
at Perceptive Travel, a bit more of the back story of Everything is Everywhere

Harry Potter, imagination, and music

2011-10-27T00:02:00.003-04:00

Recently, I’ve been reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In connection with a project I am working on, I’ve spent the last month or so reading through all seven of the Harry Potter books, actually. Quite a lot to take in there in the way of imagination, story, and character, not to mention parallels and suggestions of myth and history. Not long after I finished Deathly Hallows, I came across a television show on the making of the music and sound effects for the Harry Potter movies, and I thought I’d watch. But I didn’t stick with it.

That wasn't because of the the stories about the sound effects. I’ve worked in both music and television production, so I was familiar with how those were done. I thought the interviews with the composers and the actors were quite interesting too. But, when they started showing clips from the movies with the fantastical creatures -- I discovered I had my own ideas of how they looked and since I’d just read the books, I wasn’t at all ready to take in someone else’s versions of them.

That got me thinking about a conversation songwriter Jeff Talmadge and I had had a while back. Jeff, who is a poet and a lawyer in addition to being a musician, was thinking that one sort of unintended consequence of music videos is that now, when someone hears a song, he or she has the same pictures in mind as does the next person, whereas before each person created his or her own patchwork of visual ideas. He has a point.

Of course, you could regard that shared view as a shared connection. Most of the videos to go along with music I write about here are of artists in performance, which is another sort of thing entirely. Interesting to think about how imagination, music, and visual image connect to each other, though, and what we share and what we don't in those areas.

[is that a photograph of Hogwarts up on the left? no, but some say those buildings at the University of Glasgow were JK Rowling's inspiration for it. I find that quadrangle welcoming, myself, and appreciate your respect that the photograph is copyrighted]

you may also wish to see

Music Road: music and the unexpected
Music Road: Seven Stories

Fiddle Masters in action on dvd

2011-10-25T00:02:00.002-04:00

There is nothing quite like the experience of being present in person for a concert of music, whether it be music you love, a musicians who is well known to you you, or a musical adventure into something you’ve not heard.

That said, high quality, thoughtfully shot, well recorded, and well edited taping of such concerts offer a quality experience too. That’s definitely what’s going on with Fiddle Masters Concert Series, Volume 3.

There are twenty four sets taken from five concert recorded at the Violin Shop in Nashville, Tennessee. Players who take center stage include Casey Driessen, whose eclectic style crosses bluegrass, folk, jazz, and other things of his own invention, Daniel Carwile, a multi instrumentalist and educator who shows off is contest winning style on a series of rags and a haunting take on Midnight on the Water, Gabe Witcher, who is also a contest veteran and a current member of the hot acoustic group The Punch Brothers, and
Hanneke Cassel, former Scottish style national fiddle champion who offers fiery Scottish tunes and her own inspired compositions. Cellist Natalie Haas adds her unique style of rhythm on the cello to accompany several of Cassel’s tunes, and teams up with her sister Brittany for a medley of tunes from Norway. Young player Tatiana Hargreaves adds a classy take on the folk standard Pretty Saro, and joins up with Alex Hargreaves for Dusty Miller.

The Violin Shop is a place where musicians often meet up, a place where they know they can find quality instruments and get work done on the ones they already treasure, too. So it was a natural thing when the shop’s owners added an small space for performance to the place. That’s where these concerts where shot, and well done they are. Whether you are a player yourself, a fan on one or more of these artists, or just enjoy fine acoustic music, Fiddle Masters Concert Series, Volume 3 is well worth your time.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Three Fiddle CDs for Fall
Music Road: Highlander's Farewell: Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas

music for memory, and for dance

2011-10-20T00:02:00.001-04:00

As the slant of light turns towards autumn across the northern hmeisphere, as the edge on the wind heralds the drawing in of colder weather to come, it is time to go on a musical journey, as Robin Spielberg takes fresh view of familiar classics, and Lissa Schneckenburger invites to the heart of history, and of dance.

Home on the Range, Aura Lee, Danny Boy, In the Good Old Summer Time: these are melodies and songs that cross generations and cultures and suggest a hand of comfort and connection from past to present. Robin Spielberg knew these songs growing up, and when she began teaching them to her daughter, she started to think of making an album of this music. Spielberg’s instrument is the piano. She’s known as a gifted composer with more than a dozen albums to her credit, sold out concerts at at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and an extensive touring schedule in the United States and abroad.

Spielberg brings her gift for melody to the well known songs on Sea to Shining Sea: A Tapestry of American Music, creating and recreating memories and melodies, presenting them without words and giving space for listeners to add their own stories. There are twenty tracks on the disc, including three Spielberg originals, which stand up in good company with the well known pieces. Though she’s best known for her solo piano work, she heard these songs as ensemble pieces. She’s well supported by Catherine Bent on cello, Kate MacLeod on guitar, fiddle, and vocals, Nancy Rumbel on oboe, Paul Henle on percussion, and her daughter, Valerie, on marimba and bells. It’s a fine recording to just play through as it stands, but especially worth note are a lovely reinterpretation of The Water is Wide, the lively I’ve Been Working on the Railroad paired with the quiet Oh Shenandoah, and the original Circle of Life.

Lissa Schneckenburger offers an instrumental journey as well, into the heart of New England fiddling. She grew up in Maine, absorbing the mix of Irish, Scottish, Quebecois, Cape Breton, Appalachian, and other styles that swirl together there. Some of her earliest experiences were playing at contra dances - something she still enjoys -- and for her album Dance she has gathered a fine collection, featuring tunes both lyrical and lively. Her sure touch on the fiddle leads the way through the Huntsman’s Chorus, the Lamplighter's Hornpipe set, Eugenia’s Waltz, and seven more equally engaging tunes, well suited for listening and dancing. She brings along an ensemble of musical friends as well, several of whom you’ve met before along the music road. They include Bethany Waickman on guitar, Keith Murphy on guitar and piano, Eric Merrill on viola, and Corey DiMario on double bass.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: creative practice: early autumn
Music Road: Mother: music celebrating mothers and motherhood: McKeown, Ryan, Spielberg
Music Road: Music of Maine: Lissa Schneckenburger

Ghosts and stories

2011-10-19T00:02:00.006-04:00

Halloween is coming up, and it is certainly a time of year when imagination, shared or individual, plays a part. Someone asked me the other day if I knew any songs about ghosts.

There are whole genres of ghost lover songs in folk traditions, no doubt at least in part a consequence of times not that long past when a person would set out on a journey -- down the road or across the sea -- and never be heard from again. The Bay of Biscay and She Moved Through The Fair come to mind. There are other ghosts in song too, usually of folk who have come to a bad end at some one else’s hand. There are ghost trains and ghost ships, not to mention ghost cattle herds. The spookiest song with ghosts in it, to me, is called Greenwood Side, also known as Cruel Mother. Details vary through the traditions and I'll let you seek out the story on your own if you've a mind to, but the last verse of the way I learned it always got to me as a kid because of the years of things the woman in the song had to face as punishment for murder (the ghosts of those she murdered were the ones who let her in on this stuff, too). As an adult I’ve thought, on a more hopeful note, that this woman has great faith in the power of forgiveness. The verse goes

...I’ll be seven years a bird in the wood
seven years a fish in the flood
seven years the tongue in the warning bell
and God save me from the flames of hell.

then there's the story told in Wind and Rain, in which the murdered one's bones turn into a fiddle. about those ghost cattle herds? Johnny Cash knew about those.

There are other ways to consider the unknown and scarier parts of life in song, though
To take a turn to another train of thought, take a look at

A song which came out of another sort of reflection in a graveyard, Audience of Souls from Emily Smith
another way to look at uncertainty, and to celebrate another season: Music Road: season of grace
a different thought about ghost trains

[the photograph, of a twelfth century ruin in Ireland, is copyrighted, and I thank you for respecting that]

Music of Healing: Arising from the Troubles from Tommy Sands

2011-10-18T12:48:00.004-04:00

Musician Tommy Sands is a gentle man with a powerful message, a songwriter who talks of hurt and healing, division and reconnection in his songs. He has taken his songs of peace and justice from prisons in Nevada to community groups in the Middle East. The heart of his music, though, comes from his home country County Down in Northern Ireland

Down lies right along the border with the Republic, a borderland that has seen more than its share of bloodshed and division among folk who would otherwise be a community of neighbors. It is a beautiful place, a land of mountain and water, legend and story. From these wellsprings, Tommy Sands draws his music.

In Irish history and legend, there comes a time when leader Fionn MacCumhaill is talking with his people of music. “What is the most beautiful music in the world,?” he asks them, and they speak up for the songs of birds, the laughter of a girl, the baying of hounds. Fionn agrees that they are all good, but he says. “The most beautiful music of all is the music of what happens.”

“Growing up, I heard songs all around me, songs of emigration and things that were very meaningful to those who wrote them, traditional songs. Then there were things happening around me, and I felt, as a songwriter, that I wanted to write about what was going on around me. I don’t know how historical Fionn MacCumhaill was exactly, “ says Tommy Sands, “but sometimes mythology is truer than factual stuff.”

For his album Arising from the Troubles, Sands has gathered together eighteen songs, some of which he’s been singing live for years but has not before put on record. They come from and speak of the political and personal aspects of the troubled times of Northern Ireland, the history and the present day. As well as the hard times, anger, and pain, they speak too of the possibilities of hope and peace,

Sands is joined on the album by his son Fionan and his daughter Moya. Moya takes the lead in singing on A Stone’s Throw. In four verses, Sands and his daughter illuminate the idea of communities of people who grow up separately together, and the changes that have taken place from the time Sands went to school with that situation to the time his daughter did. If you are familiar with American songwriter Kate Campbell’s work, you may see parallels with her song about growing up separately together black and white in the American south, a song called A Cotton Field Away.

We’ll Sing It All Over and You Sold Us Down the River are both anthems of a sort, from differing perspectives. Sing It All Over is a forceful statement of principles of the civil right movement in Northern Ireland (part of the words you hear in the background are ‘one man one vote one one vote’), while Sold Us Down the River is a song Sands wrote after speaking with a Protestant neighbor and thinking about the man’s feelings of being expected to be loyal to the crown and then let down by the actions of the British government.

Sailing Through the Sky explores a poetic, thoughtful, and bittersweet idea about being in prison. Troubles recalls the uncertainty of years when a strange car coming down the road or a word spoken at the wrong time might lead to fear and even death.

The sadness, pain, anger, and fear is context, though, for hope and even humor. The Mixed Marriage, a duet with Dolores Keane, finds the two singers poking fun at differences. Pete Seeger joins in for The Music of Healing, a song which became the genesis of an annual event exploring and celebrating ways music can reach across troubled times. In the opening verse, Sands writes

Don’t beat the drum, that frightens the children
Don’t sing songs about winning and losing
Sit down beside me, the green fields are bleeding
Sing me the music of healing.

and in the chorus repeats

Ah, the heart’s a wonder
Stronger than the guns of thunder
Even when we’re torn asunder
Love will come again.

It is a song Sands has sung across the world, and in his hometown of Rostrevor in County Down. As Sands was growing up there, the violence and division of the Troubles was coming on, but he saw another side, too. “When my parents played music -- my father played the fiddle and my mother played accordion -- people would come into the house, and it didn't matter what religion you were, what politics, soon I’d see their feet tapping in time, all to the same tune,” he says.

With songs that put poetry in politics and politics into poetry, and music into both, Tommy Sands keeps carrying that idea on.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Tommy Sands: Let the Circle Be Wide
Music Road: now playing: Radio Ballads: Northern Ireland
thoughts about the summer riots in Belfast, at Perceptive Travel,

music and intention

2011-10-16T18:06:00.003-04:00

In her song Stones in the River, Carrie Newcomer sings

...today I’ll drop stones into the river.
And the current takes them out into forever.
And the truth is most of us will never know,
Where our best intentions go.
Still I’ll drop another stone.

Intention is always a subject for reflection and contemplation and question, in music and in other parts of life. Then there’s the whole aspect of the space between intention and action -- and the spaces around both of those. No accident, I think, that Newcomer chose to place this song on the album she named Before & After.

What does all this have to do with music? Ideas about that

Music is a handed on thing, a shared art, from composer to performer to those who listen -- even those at times that may be all the same person.

Every person who goes to a concert has a different experience. In part that holds because of what each brings to the time, and in part that is because of what each hears, and what each takes away.

What each remembers comes into it too. Songwriters -- any sort of writers, really -- know they cannot control how someone will take what they have written, how they will understand it, and what they will make of it. It is as Newcomer suggests in her song, a balance between creating and letting go. Leaving space for whoever receives your art make it part of his or her own life.

Try this: think of the last three songs (or if you prefer, other things you have read or heard) and write down one thing that you remember most from each. How has that become part of your life? What do you learn from thinking about that?

photograph of stones is copyrighted. thank you for respecting that.

here is a video of Newcomer singing Stones in the River

you may also wish to see
Music Road: India to Indiana: Everything Is Everywhere from Carrie Newcomer
Music Road: reflections with Adrienne Young
Music Road: Shadow and Light: Irish Music from John Doyle

holiday gift ideas: early edition

2011-10-11T10:48:00.005-04:00

It is a time of year when travels, visits, and friends and family gatherings come along, as well as many holidays. Music is is always a good gift, and easy to carry along with you, great to share. As you may be beginning to choose gifts for those holiday visits here are suggestions to get you thinking. Follow the links in the titles of these albums to learn more about each of them.

If you’ve someone who enjoys quiet meditation in his or her music, Bill Miller’s Spirit Wind East could be just the thing. Miller is Native American, of the Stockbridge-Munsee-Mohican nation. He has worked with artists in many areas of music and created his own albums as well. For this one, he uses the breath of his flute to reflect on the spirit, landscape and lives of the tribes of the northeastern United States. Music includes Where Waters never Still, Eastern Woodland, Nighthawk, and Founding Brothers.

If you’ve a person on your list who enjoys songs which are like three minute movies, filled with character and story, then Matraca Berg’s album The Dreaming Fields is a good choice. Berg’s stories will make you think as well as entertain you, and she is a fine singer as well.

New parents as well as lovers of Celtic music on your list will enjoy Lullabies for Love. On it, musicians including to Irish band Altan and Scottish style composer and fiddle player Hanneke Cassel join up for a collection of songs for children and parents. Proceeds from the album go to help a project for children in Kenya, too.

Those Celtic music lovers will also like Shannon Heaton’s The Blue Dress, which comprises traditional and original Irish music on the flute. In fact, if you’ve someone with adventurous music tastes on your list, why not choose both
Miller’s and Heaton’s flute music for them. Perhaps add Fred Morrison’s Outlands for a taste of innovative music from Scotland on the bagpipes, too.You could add in Everything Is Everywhere from Carrie Newcomer, as well, an album in which Americana and the music of India meet.

How about seasonal music? Jennifer Cutting’s Ocean Orchestra has that covered, with Song of Solstice. Music for the light and dark of the holiday season and the turning of the year, quiet pieces and ones to sing along with are just a taste of the interesting and lively music on this disc. Perhaps you’ll get Song of Solstice for yourself as well, to get you in the festive mood as you prepare for the winter holidays.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: holiday gift list: American harvest
Music Road: Best Music, 2010

music and finding time

2011-10-07T00:02:00.001-04:00

One of the interesting things about music is that it is both immediate and offers a long view. To play and to really become absorbed in listening to music, you have to be in the moment, with focus on what you are doing. Listening to and playing and sharing music also becomes a conversation with memory, across time, whether you are doing it in company or on your own, creating the music or creating the listening.

In a world which often seems to live at an ever increasing speed of technology, where gifts of solitude and contemplation, and connection at the natural pace of face to face conversation are at times challenging to find, music -- at least the sort of music we consider here along the music road -- is a way to make space for all those things, a threshold to them, if you will.

the photograph is of a view which has often struck me as a connection between present moment and ancient ones: winter winds kicking waves high in Carlingford Bay, with the mountains of Mourne as backdrop. the photo is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

On the American Public Media radio show Krista Tippett On Being, Tippett had a conversation with scholar Sherry Turkle with the two of them thinking about ways to integrate technology into living an examined life. You may listen to this conversation and read more about the background to it at the On Being web site.

music to go along with these ideas

Dancing Into Silence Carlos Nakai, William Easton, and Will Clipman use Native American flutes, harp guitars and other stringed instruments, and world percussion in exploration of Native American based sound and melody which they evolved in free form over recording session.

Music Road: Carrie Newcomer: Before & After other ways to look at being in the moment, recognizing that the next moment tings change. Newcomer has a new album coming out soon in which she explores her recent encounters with India. more on that to come. It will be called Everything Is Everywhere.

Close to Home on the Celtic side of things, Donal Clancy offers a meditative take on well known and lesser known Irish tunes. just the man and his guitar.

you may also wish to see

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

Shadow and Light: Irish Music from John Doyle

2011-10-03T00:02:00.000-04:00

A tale of an Irish American regiment during the American Civil War, an emigration from Ireland to America that never quite happened, a quiet reflection on the love of a child, the way a lost love drove a man into the American west: you could think all these songs come from Irish tradition, and in a way, they do: each is a song John Doyle composed for his latest album Shadow & Light.

John Doyle is a Irishman long resident in A,erica, a creative guitarist and composer who has worked with artists including Alison Brown, Michael Black, Tim O’Brien, Joan Baez, John McCusker, and Cathie Ryan, to mention just a few. He is a founding member of the landmark Irish American group Solas, worked with Susan McKeown in the band Chanting House and released a duo album with Karan Casey. So the man stays busy enough.

Though he’s written and co written songs for other artists, on his earlier solo albums Doyle has focused mainly on songs from the tradition, with deft and original guitar playing and arrangement which make them sound as fresh as though they’d been newly written. Here, he reverses the choices he made on his earlier projects: there’s one song from the tradition, Bound for Botany Bay, and nine originals, seven of them songs and two tunes in which his guitar work comes especially to the fore.

It’s all good stuff, strong material with stories well told, melodies creatively played, and words sung in a voice that well fits both. Doyle’s arrangements balance his voice and guitar just as they need to be to serve the stories and the music. Alison Brown on banjo, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Todd Phillips on bass, and Kenny Malone on percussion are among the artists who sit in with Doyle on the project, which he produced himself. It’s all well worth your listening. Several cuts to take especial note of, though, are Little Sparrow, which Doyle wrote for his daughter, Liberty’s Sweet Shore, inspired by the Irish emigration experience at Grosse Ile in Quebec, and and the instrumental Killorgan’s Church/Swedishish.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: exiles return: karan casey & john doyle
Music Road: John Doyle: Wayward Son
Music Road: Liz Carroll & John Doyle: Double Play

Celtic music for autumn

2011-09-30T00:02:00.003-04:00

The cycle of seasons turns toward autumn here in the northern hemisphere. As the angle of shadows changes and the quality of light takes on a different aspect, as the stars across the night skies wheel in a changed patterns, it’s a time for contemplation and preparation, thought and action and enjoying the world of nature.

As good companions for those journeys, here are three Celtic recordings

Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas cross the Celtic world in the tunes which comprise the title set for their album Highlander's Farewell, moving across meter and time and space from Scotland to Ireland to the mountains of the American south in that story. Fraser, on fiddle, and Haas, on cello, specialize in exploring the lively and thoughtful dialogue which may be created in conversation between the big fiddle and the little one. Here they do that through several of Fraser’s own tunes, as well as music from Scotland, Cape Breton, and Galicia.

Aoife Clancy holds equal love for the music of her native land, Ireland, and her adopted homeland of the United States. Both loves come through clearly on her album Silvery Moon There’s a song which talks of the deepest gifts of love by American songwriter Mark Simos, called Giving. There’s a song which talks of the troubled conflicts in Ireland and sees a way beyond, called Hope, written by Aoife’s cousin Robbie O’Connell, and the lilting rhythm of dance in the melody of a song which would fit on both sides of the ocean, Rosehill Fair.

Moya Brennan, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill and Mairéad Ní Dhomhnaill each count time spent in Donegal, in the far northwest of Ireland, as part of their years growing up. In Donegal Irish is spoken as readily as English, and the music includes fiery fiddle playing along with songs in English and Irish shaped ny the rocky coast, the wild mountains, and the the border with the North. All of that comes in to play on the album the four women have made together, T with the Maggies. That’s also what the four call themselves when they play music together. After those childhood sessions in Donegal each went her own way. They all have made high level professional careers in music, and as they crossed paths across the years. they’d think of getting together again to sing. T with the Maggies is a result, a project grounded as much in the spirit of long time friendship as it is in the spirit of longtime love for the music of Donegal. There ae songs in Irish and in English, music from the tradition and music they’ve written. Through the album, their harmonies both respect and extend their individual voices. It’s all worth the hearing, but standout cuts include Wedding Dress, Mother Song, and Domnach na Fola.

the photograph is of a hillside in Louth, in Ireland, on an autumn day -- a rare clear day. it is copyrignted, and I thank you for respecting that

while you are thinking of things Irish and Celtic, letting you know that Music Road has been nominated for Best Arts & Entertainment site, at the Irish Web Awards

thanks for the nomination, and welcome to all who have arrived here by way of that listing. judging is taking place at present and results will be announced later in October.
and note: our friends at
Irish Fireside, Shalom b&b, and Altan are also nominated in various categories. congratulations to them, and to all the nominees.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh: Daybreak/Fainne an Lae
Music Road: Altan: 25th Anniversary Collection
Music Road: Song of Solstice: music for changing seasons

and

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

India to Indiana: Everything Is Everywhere from Carrie Newcomer

2011-09-26T14:10:00.017-04:00

“I think I have a very midwestern voice,” says Indiana based musician Carrie Newcomer. “ As I’ve gone on in my career, that voice has become stronger and deeper, and I’m happy with that.” Happy, in Newcomer’s case, includes being freer to explore ideas and questions which intrigue her. “ I think I’m really restless an artist,” she continues “ There are themes that I keep thinking about, ideas that fascinate me. Finding something sacred in an ordinary day, something extraordinary in the day to day, that’s a topic that keeps coming back to me. The idea of the moment, of being present in every moment of our lives, that’s another thing I keep coming back to.” Those ideas run through the work on Newcomer’s album Before & After

But what happens when you take that midwestern voice, that thirst for spiritual inquiry, the reflective nature of a writer and musician, and add in an unexpected month of teaching, touring, music making and experiencing the vast country that is India?

Everything is Everywhere, Newcomer’s latest album, is one result. On it, Newcomer brings in the gifts of master sarod players Amjad, Amaan and Ayaan Ali Khan along with her Indiana based musical friends Gary Walters on piano and Jim Brock on percussion. What these artists create together are songs which are distinctly in Newcomer’s artistic voice but with added colors and dimensions of what she learned and experienced in India.

The title track begins by evoking the sounds and tastes of a sunset on the Arabian sea and the colors of India, and moves to the sounds and sights and corn and beans of a farmer’s market in Indiana and a comforting bowl of soup shared with a friend, drawing these vivid journeys together with the reflection that

There is still so much work to do
Armloads of sorrow yes this is true
But I take heart when I despair
Miracles are everywhere

That interest in being in the moment comes through in a song called May We Be Released, which might be a prayer, might be an anthem, could be a comment on daily life, in India and in Indiana. As with all the songs on this album, the words are clearly Newcomer’s vision, set in melody and rhythm that both honor and extend her ideas. The sarod is a stringed instrument from India capable of great emotional depth and resonance, to which the Khans bring centuries of family immersion in playing classical Indian music and thinking about the connections among music and spirit. That is a shared connection that made it seem right to follow up an afternoon of sharing music in India with a deeper collaboration as Newcomer began to write the songs which would come out of her time in the country.

Not that she went to India seeking inspiration for a new album: Newcomer was in the midst of finishing up work on Before and After and scheduling tour dates to support it when the call came from a family friend inviting her to be a artist in residence during a week focusing on peace and justice at an international school in New Delhi. Then, the American Center learned of her invitation and started talking with Newcomer about visiting other places in India as a cultural ambassador in a program sponsored by the US State Department. All of this was coming up in a short window of time around which she had intense work planned “but I thought, I’m not going to say No! I’m not going to India! I’ll make this work,” Newcomer says. She had a question for the officials, too. “I have to say my first thought was: do you know what I do? This is
the state department, right? and I’m an activist folk singer type...” As it turned out the people at the American Center and the American Embassy in India did know. “The answer came back, and it was beautiful,” Newcomer recalls. “They said, we’re looking for music that builds bridges. There’s plenty enough walls out there, we’re looking for music that builds bridges, and your music does that.”

So she went, for what would prove an intense and moving month. “During the day, I’d be visiting schools and community service organizations, sometimes two and three in a day, and then in the evening give concerts,” she said. “And they sent me all over the place! I was in Kolkata, I was in Delhi, I was in Bengal, I was in the central part, I was in the very south, I was in Chennai, I was in Mumbai. India is a huge country, and just like the United States, different parts all have different foods, customs, dress, politics. It was an amazing experience. It was a life changing experience, and one I think I’ll be processing for a long time.”

Newcomer brought with her her own songs of family, the search for peace, reflection on the spiritual in the everyday, “and I found when I sang about those things, about grief, about family, about love, that the thread pulled through. The thread of connection pulled through. I have a song called Geodes, about Indiana rocks. It’s also about finding the shining heart of things, and that connected.” She also found listening to be part of her work.

“I’d go into these situations asking asking myself how can I serve? What am I here to give? and sometimes it was just to bear witness. They need to be heard, they need me to hear them and take that hearing and seeing them on, “ she said. She recalled a time when she’d been to a home for women and girls who were making new lives after difficult circumstances. “They sang songs to me in Hindi, and then they sang We Shall Overcome to me in Hindi and I sang it back to them in English, and we sang together. And I cried! I think I wept so much they were probably saying what is it with this American woman, she weeps, she sings, she weeps --”
Newcomer says, laughing. “But I think part of the work of the artist is to bear witness, too.”

That is part of what is going on in Everything Is Everywhere as well. With the music on it, from the vivid images in the title track to a song about forgiveness inspired by a poem from American poet Mary Oliver to an Indian raga from the Khans to consideration of love, hope and mystery wrapped in images of the everyday in I Believe, what Newcomer offers is an unfolding, a celebration, and a different way of seeing things in the world that connect us, across language and country and time and faith. Music that builds bridges, indeed.

You can hear excerpts from the music on Everything is Everywhere at Carrie Newcomer’s web site.

You may also listen to excerpts from the songs on Everything is Everywhere at Amazon.

Proceeds from Everything Is Everywhere will go to benefit the Interfaith Hunger Initiative, a program which works to end childhood hunger in Indiana and overseas.

photograph of Carrie Newcomer by Kerry Dexter and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Carrie Newcomer: Before & After
Music Road: season of change: music for autumn
Music Road: Songs of the Immigrants

Song of Solstice: music for changing seasons

2011-09-22T09:59:00.009-04:00

What is the sound of seasons changing? It could be what you hear as you listen to Song of Solstice from Jennifer Cutting’s Ocean Orchestra.

With a gathering of music from Celtic traditions along with songs she’s written, Cutting offers a vision of that which invites contemplation and celebration, consideration of darkness and light in both spiritual and natural realms that accompanies the turn of earth’s time from autumn through winter and back to spring again. To do this, she weaves in strands of musical ideas from Celtic to classical to steampunk, and creates a sound that’s immediately inviting.

Drawing on the gifts of artists from her own Ocean Orchestra as well as a range of guests, many of them from the thriving Washington DC area music scene, Cutting offers complex and layered arrangements which serve the music and open new ways of hearing it. Complex does not mean stuffy or hard to understand: there’s a very good chance you’ll be singing along with several of the pieces, and that the music will stay in your mind long after you've played the recording.

Song of Solstice, the title track, offers a rousing take on celebrating the joys of the colder seasons of the year, and gives a nod to wisdom to be gained from contemplation and patience in the calendar’s darker seasons. As well there's an affirmation of the joys of friendship, whose gifts are often strengthened by winter’s connections. Christmas Day in the Morning, a traditional tune from Shetland set as a quiet instrumental with harp from Sue Richards and bodhran from Myron Bretholz, leads into Song of Solstice, a paring which enhances both.

Green Man is another piece you’ll not forget, a lively song whose origins Cutting drew from ancient Celtic tales as well as ideas that appear in the story of King Arthur. You do not have to know anything about either of those, though, to enjoy Steve Winnick’s cheerful and inviting lead vocal. He is backed by Highland bagpipes, bouzouki, electric guitar, fiddle, bodhran, other percussion instruments, and vocal harmony. Turning of seasons, death and rebirth, and the vibrancy of nature in the midst of winter are just a few of the things touched upon in the song, which offers a fine mood and beat for dancing and drumming as well as for singing.

Time to Remember the Poor suggests a different avenue for contemplation. Gothic steam punk psychedelia fusion is what Cutting had in mind. The words are from a Victorian era broadside, set to a haunting soundscape of voice, guitar, keyboard, samples, bass, and drums, It all seems quite contemporary yet evokes the the atmosphere of Victorian times and the thoughts in the lyrics as well. Lisa Mosciatello is the voice, Al Petteway plays electric and acoustic guitars, Juan Dudley is the drummer, Rico Petrocelli plays bass, and Cutting provides the samples and plays keyboards on the piece.

Putting classic, folk -- especially Celtic -- and rock ideas in conversation and collaboration with each other is a a way of approaching music which has long interested Cutting. For ten years she was bandleader for the award winning Washington DC area based British folk rock group The New Saint George. Later, Jennifer founded The Ocean Orchestra, which has allowed her to take her composing, arranging, and performing ideas of creating music drawing on varied genres in a more Celtic direction, and to invite in the talents of changing casts of musicians in the United States and overseas. “Celtic music for ancient moderns” is how she describes her work.

“I think of myself as a soundscape architect -- I try to get the structures and textures from my imagination out onto the recorded sound canvas, with the help of many amazingly gifted people who all add their own genius into the mix, “ Cutting says. “Creating a song or an arrangement is a lot like putting up a building or designing a landscape, except that my materials are instruments and voices. Hearing it build layer by layer is the ultimate thrill.”

Listening to the result is fascinating, too. Song of Solstice includes six originals by Jennifer Cutting, and varied other works, among them pieces from Celtic tradition including music from France and from Shetland. As with a well designed building or landscape, all the elements enhance each other and invite repeated exploration.

Listen to excerpts from Song of Solstice

photograph of Jennifer Cutting by Irene Young

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Music Road: Oceans & Journeys: Road Trip in Maryland
Music Road: late summer, early autumn, music, Ireland

music and healing: September memories

2011-09-15T00:02:00.003-04:00

These recent days, people across the world have been remembering and reflecting upon the attacks in the United States on 11 September ten years ago. One of the interesting stands of reflection is that in the aftermath of the attacks, as people came to terms with the effects both personally and in a wider sense. they chose to and were able to turn to the arts -- music, Theatre, visual arts, dance, writing -- both as ways to help understand their own and others’ feelings and thoughts about the changes these events brought, and also at times to take a break from wrestling with that. It was a sense of community that brought people out to Broadway when the lights went back on several days after September 11, and it was a sense of hope and healing that brought them to the large benefit concerts and the small coffeehouse gatherings where people shared music and poetry and stories, at that time, and since.

September eleventh is, in my life, also two friends’ wedding anniversary, a child’s birthday, memories of making food for a Mexican American fiesta with friends in Texas, and the day before another friend’s birthday. That reminds that we do celebrate, and learn, and go on from hard experiences, both personal and global. Music and all the arts help us understand, connect, and heal.

Music to go along with these ideas:

one of the songs I turned to on 11 September ten years ago was Amy Grant’s recording of This Is My Father's World. I didn’t go seeking it, it just to came to my hand. It is on her album called, appropriately enough for the circumstance, Legacy: Hymns & Faith

Irish music has a good way of taking in both the sorrow and the joy of life. I found Mary Black’s By the Time It Gets Dark and Out and About from Cherish the Ladies to be music good to listen to back at that time, too and still.

As for music which has come as a response to September eleventh, a song which stands out is I Heard an Owl, by Carrie Newcomer. It is on her album called The Gathering of Spirits and you may listen to a bit of the song I Heard An Owl by following this link

the photograph is of flowers and a stone wall in Country Donegal, Ireland, another way to look at renewal. it is copyrighted, and my thanks to you for respecting that.

Masters of the Irish Harp

2011-09-12T00:02:00.001-04:00

If you have an Irish passport, there’s a harp on it. If you’ve coins from Ireland in your pocket, there are harps on those too. Then there are the pubs, the beer, and the tea towels: the harp is a powerful symbol of Ireland.

The power of the sound of the harp is a focus on Lyric RTE fm’ s collection Masters of the Irish Harp. There are sixteen cuts on the album, with music which ranges from Bach to O’Carolan, from newly composed works to those which come from ancient sources.

It is a varied and wonderful range of players represented on Masters of the Irish Harp as well.
You’ve met a number of them here along the music road, while others may be new to you. It goes from Grainne to Grainne in terms of players, opening with Grainne Hambly’s sparkling take on The Geese in the Bog and closing with Grainne Yeats’ reflective Carolan’s Farewell to Music. Both harps and harpers range across background, from concert harp to clarsach, from classically trained players to those from traditional background, and many who cross borders among those fields. Some of the pieces are newly recorded for this project, while others are selected from the artists’ previously released recordings. It is a well chosen and well sequenced collection, with appeal for those who know the Irish harp and its players well and for for those who are new to the sound of the Irish harp.

It’s certainly worth listening all the way through and as sequenced. That said, notable tracks include Maire ni Chathasaigh’s Reel for a Water Diviner, Cormac de Barra’s Monaghan Jig, Michelle Mulcahy’s Green Mountain set, and Siobhan Armstrong's Da Mihi Manum.

follow this link to listen to excepts from the tracks Masters of the Irish Harp and follow the link below which is called Elsafty Armstrong Browne to see a video of Siobhan Armstrong playing the wire strung Irish harp

you may also wish to see

Music Road: Scotland on the harp: Corrina Hewat
Music Road: harps and Celtic Connections
Music Road: Elsafty Armstrong Browne

Songwriters gather in Minnesota

2011-09-08T00:02:00.004-04:00

It has been ten years since top Nashville based songwriter Jon Vezner first came across the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minnesota. A Minnesota native himself, Vezner found that the school's setting in historic buildings on the shore of Lake Superior and its mission resonated with his life and the way he approaches writing his songs. That mission is to enrich lives and build community by teaching traditional northern crafts, and to use heritage crafts as a way connect past, present, and future. So the idea for benefit concerts was born.

Ten years on, there’s a celebration called Northern Harvest coming up on 15, 16,17, and 18 September, with performances by many artists you’ve met here along the music road. In addition to Vezner, those include his fellow Minnesota native Sally Barris, also a top songwriter whose work has been recorded by many artists in country music, and well known folk and Americana musician John Gorka. Top notch guitarist and composer Bill Cooley will be there, along with Grammy winning singers and songwriters Tim O’Brien and Kathy Mattea. Cathie Ryan, whose thoughtful and thought provoking original songs which draw on her Irish American heritage are one of the reasons she has been honored as Irish Voice of the Decade, will join in as well.

Grand Marais is about half way between Duluth, Minnesota, to the south, and Thunder Bay, Ontario, to the north, and it’s a trip well worth the making. If you’ll not be making it out to the shows, however, there’s an especially nice touch: while they are all gathered in Grand Marais, Vezner, Mattea, O’Brien, Barris, Cooley, and Ryan will join up to share their music at a taping for the public radio show Mountain Stage. The show will be broadcast nationally in the US at a later date with excerpts available online by pod cast at that time as well. For more details on when the show will be available, keep an eye on the Mountain Stage web site.

Meanwhile, go explore the North House Folk School web site too. Just looking at the photographs will take you there, and there’s plenty to learn and explore.
Classes are are offered on timber framing, basket making, quilting, northern ecology, and many more subjects, with, as the school’s mission says, an intention to inspire hand, heart, and mind.

photographs of Kathy Mattea, Bill Cooley, and Cathie Ryan were taken with kind permission of the artists (in Nashville, Glasgow, and Portland respectively) are and copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Kathy Mattea: Coal
Music Road: Tim O'Brien’s Americana: Chameleon
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Songwriter

and

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

Newfoundland music: The Once

2011-09-05T00:02:00.001-04:00

Trinity, Newfoundland, is a small fishing community in the northern part of Atlantic Canada, a place where people have been making their livings from the sea of centuries. It was in Trinity that Geraldine Hollett, Phil Churchill, and Andrew Dale found themselves charged with making an evening’s entertainment for tourists and people passing through. In doing that their trio, The Once, came to be.

Newfoundland, far to the north in Atlantic Canada, is a place where Irish emmigrants brought their music, and in meeting up with fellow settlers from England, Scotland, and France. formed a new music. Another powerful force shaping the music of the provnce is the sea. These aspects of the music of Newfoundland weave into the music of The Once, whose self titled recording comprises songs and tunes from the tradition along with music from contemporary writers including Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, and Amelia Curran.

Hollett is the lead singer for most of the pieces. Churchill and Dale add backing vocals with Churchill on guitar, mandolin, violin and a bit of suitcase percussion, and Dale on a range of instruments from bodhran to banjo to accordion. The sound is tight and connected. Though the sound of music is quite different, it is the same sort of musical dialogue among the three artists that you hear in groups such as Alison Krauss + Union Station and Blue Highway.

The ballad of sea and loss called Three Fishers takes on an Atlantic Canada sound in The Once’s version, which showcases Hollett’s heartfelt lead vocals and the interweaving of instrument and voice that is a hallmark of the trio’s sound. America Curran’s thought provoking contemporary song What Will You Be Building was recorded as the trio sat around a living room floor, with a connection tot he heart of the song which carries through in the recording of it. The group kicks things up with the high energy story of a woman outwitting her abductors in The Maid on the Shore, and the trio’s a capella take on another song from the tradition, Willie Taylor, is likewise foot stomper. The song Marguerite is an intricate and intriguing tale from Newfoundland history.

In Newfoundland, the expression the once means a soon as possible, right away, directly. It’s a good chance that once you begin listening to the once, you’ll be drawn in right away.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: music of Canada
Music Road: Celtic Colours Festival on the way
Music Road: Alison Krauss: Live from the Tracking Room: A Hundred Miles or Mores

road trip music: three ideas

2011-09-02T00:02:00.001-04:00

It is a time of year when people tend to think of taking road trips, as one season ends and another begins. By the very nature of their work, musicians spend a lot of time on the road, so there are loads of songs and tunes to do with travel. There are also, of course, songs and tunes that haven’t anything to do with that but which make good traveling companions in and of themselves.

I’ve been taking a bit of road trip travel back through time lately, sorting through recordings that had gotten to the back shelves and letting them bring back memories. One of those is Mary Black’s Looking Back. Mary has offered a number of retrospectives in her career, and really, all of them are worth your time. This is one of the early ones, which includes, I think, the first release of one of my favorite of her songs, Soul Sister. Among the other cuts are Summer Sent You, Carolina Rua, Columbus, and Only a Woman’s Heart.

American singer Nell Robinson takes a bit of a different sort of road trip back to her roots in Red level, Alabama. Original songs and classic country intertwine with narratives from family members for On the Brooklyn Road
in a weaving that feels as though you’re walking down an Alabama back road at dusk. Notable cuts include Red Clay Creek, Don’t Light My Fire, Sweet Sunny South, and I Saw the Light. Laurie Lewis and Rob Ickes are among those who support Robinson, whose voice calls to mind that of fellow Alabama native Emmylou Harris.

You might remember the Great American Road Trip, an idea started by Vera Marie Badertscher of A Traveler’s Library For more than a year, she wrote about books and films which inspire travel through the fifty US states, and I chimed in with posts here at Music Road to suggest music to go along with this virtual road trip.

Here’s a look at favorite music posts from those travels Music Road: road trips and road songs

photograph is of sunrise over the Irish Sea, and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Mary Black: 25 years 25 songs
Music Road: late summer: two for the road
Music Road: Irish landscape: Davy Spillane's A Place Among the Stones

and

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

from Scotland: Emily Smith: Traiveller's Joy

2011-08-30T00:02:00.003-04:00

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

you may also wish to see

Music Road: Emily Smith, Jamie McClennan, and Robert Burns
Music Road: Song for the weekend: Emily Smith: Glory Bound

Celtic Colours Festival on the way

2011-08-27T00:02:00.003-04:00

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.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Mary Black: 25 years 25 songs
Music Road: Music road trip: Cape Breton
Cape Breton autumn

music and late summer

2011-08-26T00:02:00.002-04:00

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

you may also wish to see

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

bagpipes with a different sound: Seudan

2011-08-23T00:02:00.000-04:00

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

2011-08-20T00:02:00.002-04:00

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.

you may also wish to see
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

2011-08-19T10:33:00.008-04:00

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.

you may also wish to see

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

music and summer's harvest

2011-08-16T00:02:00.009-04:00

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

2011-08-14T00:02:00.001-04:00

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

you may also wish to see
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

2011-08-12T10:45:00.008-04:00

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

2011-08-11T00:02:00.001-04:00

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

2011-08-09T17:56:00.004-04:00

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.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Music Road: The Clancy Legacy
Music Road: Shannon Heaton: The Blue Dress
Music Road: Cherish The Ladies: A Star in the East

Blue fiddle, and Ireland's northwest

2011-08-04T16:45:00.008-04:00

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.

music and courage

2011-07-29T03:47:00.003-04:00

As much as there are times for planning and sorting things out and looking ahead and setting goals, there are also times -- often, many times --for taking the next step when that next step, and what comes after that aren;t clear. A leap of faith, you could say, or a step of one.

Music is a good companion for facing and preparing for such times, whether they come with excitement or reluctance.

this photograph is from County Louth, in Ireland, and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

music to go along with these ideas
Carolyn Hester has several songs which deal with this idea including one called Ascending Woman, which is on her album Texas Songbird
thinking about change and moments of time is a theme running through Carrie Newcomer’s song ideas on Before & After
music from the tradition which makes good companion for such journeys includes Exiles Return from Karan Casey & John Doyle
music without words to go along with these ideas Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen

you may also wish to see
Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday.

Appalachian and Celtic: Kyle Carey: Monongah

2011-07-27T14:58:00.003-04:00

The Isle of Skye in Scotland, the west coast of Ireland, the Appalachian mountains, New Hampshire, New York Sate, Cape Breton: Kyle Carey has spent time in all of these places, and one way or another, they all find ways into her music.

Carey’s album Monongah makes it clear she has been thinking about people, history, landscape, and what stories they may tell through time. The title track, for example, comes from the story of the men and the women and the children affected by a 1907 West Virginia mine disaster. Carey began thinking of this upon reading Appalachian writer Louise McNeill’s poem about the events of that time, and the song shows Carey’s gift for distilling emotion into a few brief words and a melody which helps make that essence clear.

McNeill’s poetry and the landscapes of the southern mountains come up again through the album. Carey has a voice well suited to this, with a warmth that invites the listener in and a sense of phrasing that hints that there is more to these stories beyond the verses that she sings. In Orange Blossom, Carey is thinking about that train which is the subject of a well known bluegrass tune, but her protagonist sees the journey on the train as an escape, a return, perhaps, to warmer places and times. John Hardy’s wife takes a look at things from the point of view of a woman who receives just a few passing words in other songs. What was she like, and what happened to her, Carey wondered, and came up with intriguing answers.

There’s a strong connection between Appalachia and the Celtic countries in Europe. That comes up on Monongah, too. Carey is well versed in Scottish Gaelic, and teaches it in fact. She’s spent time studying in Cape Breton in Atlantic Canada, and in Scotland. So it is natural for her to include these experiences in her work, which she does with the song Gaol ise gaol i, a love song she sings in Scottish Gaelic. From Cape Breton comes The Star above Rankin’s Point, a lighthouse keeper's lullabye of sorts which captures the sea swept feeling of life along the North Atlantic.

There a Cape Breton tinge to the playing on this collection as well, coming by way of Cape Breton native Rosie Mackenzie, who sits in on fiddle for several songs. Carey has invited a number of musical friends along on this journey, a journey she took to the west of Ireland to produce the recording with Donogh Hennessy, known for his work with Lunasa. From Ireland also Pauline Scanlon added harmony, and Trevor Hutchinson played bass. Among the others supporting Carey, from Ireland and New England, Aoife Clancy sang harmony as well, and from New York state John Kirk played banjo and mandolin.

It is Kyle Carey's poetic take on story, landscape, emotion, and language which center things here, though, and her engaging storyteller’s way of singing that opens the door to her stories. Gospel twined with Celtic notes, banjo leading into Scottish Gaelic, miner’s stories traveler's tales of loss, change, and recognition, Monongah is a varied journey, one worth the taking.

you may also wish to see
Kyle Carey’s website
Music Road: Aoife Clancy: Silvery Moon
Music Road: Scotland & Cape Breton: tradition and innovation

music and wisdom

2011-07-22T00:02:00.001-04:00

Music is often a source of wisdom. That I think that way will be no surprise to you if you have been walking along this music road with me for any amount of time. Whether the idea is new to you or you’ve been reflecting on it yourself, I invite you to pause a moment now and consider it.

That is, in part, what wisdom requires: it may come as a flash of insight, at times, and those times are welcome. Still they require seeing things from new angles and pondering and working with the changes -- which leads to the contemplation from which wisdom often arises.

Everyone who is an artist, who creates also has as part of his or her job the requirement of contemplation and reflection. Music, especially the sort of music of substance we talk about here along the music road, may be both a way into such insights and a companion in contemplation.

this photograph is of the mountains of Mourne in Northern Ireland, which are themselves a fine place for contemplation, and for music. the photograph is copyrighted, and I appreciate your respect for this.

music to go along with these ideas
Music Road: Mary Black: By the Time It Gets Dark
Music Road: cathie ryan: the farthest wave
Music Road: Best Music, 2010

you may also wish to see
Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday.

Seven Stories

2011-07-15T15:04:00.008-04:00

Recently I was invited to take part in Seven Links, an initiative started by TripBase with the idea of highlighting posts in seven quite varied categories, articles that perhaps newer readers may have missed and regular visitors might be interested to be reminded about
.
Wandering Educators and A Traveler’s Library both nominated me to take part. I encourage you to see their seven links posts and learn about their sites

Here are my stories. I hope you enjoy hearing them for the first time, or revisiting them. Your comments, of course, are most welcome

*most popular
this rather short essay with words and photographs shows a bit about what I think of Irish music and the island of Ireland, beyond the stereotypes. it’s been up for years and still draws in buckets of readers -- if you haven’t read it in a while (or ever) maybe it’s time
Irish music, Irish landscape

*most beautiful
photographing musicians at work helps me think about music, and is an art on its own. you’ll find many posts on photographing music along the Music Road.

here’s is one of my favorites of those Celtic Connections 2011: images, part two

and this is one about a concert where words and image came together especially well, I think Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton

*most helpful
through five years of writing here, I’ve done more than a few practical guides and lists, which people always enjoy. I chose this, one, however, because it helps you think about an important aspect of life and music from a different angle -- another thing I write about often.
rest in music

*most controversial
the bodhran can be a controversial instrument. here’s a story...
bodhran

and then there was
a choice (not having to do with bodhrans) I made during the US presidential campaign debates
listening through the changes

*a post which didn’t get the attention I felt it deserved
energy, heart, creativity, history, joy: you may not understand the languages in which they sing but you will understand all that nonetheless all that from their music
Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

*a surprising success
Indiana based Americana songwriter Carrie Newcomer often makes her points quietly. I am glad this helped quite a few hear her.
Carrie Newcomer: Before & After

*a post I am especially proud of
listen to this music, which, if I’ve done my part right, is what you will want to do. perhaps you will hear a bit of it through my words
Cathie Ryan: The Farthest Wave

Part of this process is to pass the idea along by nominating others to join in, and encouraging you to go read their work. Whether they decide to choose their own seven links or not, these people write articles worth reading

Sue Dickman writes about India, books, blueberry pies, and other things at A Life Divided
Jackie Dishner takes you on adventures geographical and thoughtful at Bike with Jackie
Shannon Heaton writes with grace and humor about being a musician and learning to be a new mother at Leap Little Frog
Sarah Henry brings Bay Area perspective with an Australian twist to her stories about good food and the people who care about it at Lettuce Eat Kale

music: reflection along the road

2011-07-15T00:02:00.002-04:00

Music has always been a good companion along the road for me, whether that road be physical or spiritual, whether it is an unknown path or a well known one. Perhaps this is because music itself, especially the sort of music we consider here, has within it both familiar and new, aspects which both ask good questions and offer ways to think about answers. What do you think?

music to go along with these ideas
Music Road: listening through the changes
Music Road: artists of the decade
Music Road: Carrie Newcomer: Before & After

you may also wish to see
Music Road: photographing music: connections
and
Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday.

photograph was made in Kelvingrove Park, in Glasgow, Scotland. it is copyrighted. I appreciate your respect for this

Beoga: How to Tune a Fish

2011-07-14T17:57:00.004-04:00

How do you tune a fish? The wry and coming coming at things from and angle perspective that question implies infuses the music offered by the five members of the band Beoga on their album How to Tune a Fish. A like titled set opens the music, and it draws you right in, just as though you were hearing them at a session in their based in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Interesting choice of instruments they bring to the music, too: two accordions, piano, fiddle, and bodhran.

The second set, Sticky Bun Slides (the title comes from a conversation bodhran player Eamon Murray had with an Italian friend) keeps things dancing right along , and moves into the song Home cookin’ from American songwriter Rick Danko, with fiddler Niamh Dunne stepping up to sing, adding a bit of an Irish edge to the country blues in the piece. Ballymacaldrick is a lovely slow tune from accordion player Damian McKee, inspired by his home place in Antrim.

Seán Óg Graham handles the other accordion, and on occasion guitar as well. He also composed a number of the tunes, including that one about fish tuning. Liam Bradley , whose background includes world wide composing and arranging for Irish dance, is on keyboards for the group.

It’s a lively mix of tradition and innovation they bring here -- in fact How to Tune a Fish seems to lean a bit more toward a trad focus than several of the band’s earlier albums. Not to say they don’t bring in other things as well, including the country take on Home cookin’ and a vaudeville song called Come Out of the Rain, which they clearly have a fine time doing. Songs and tunes both, it is apparent that these five really enjoy each other’s music, and really are listening to each other, as well. through all the twelve tracks.

That’s an aspect interwoven into the music which makes things all the better for those who listen. The word beoga means lively in irish, and Bradley, Dunne, McKee, Murray and Graham deliver on that. Not lively for the sake of fast played tunes though, but rather because that’s at the heart and energy of the music they offer, Irish music moving forward with a crisp northern edge.

About that fish -- care to offer an answer to the question?

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Grada: Natural Angle
Music Road: malinky: flower & iron
Music Road: music of Donegal: Altan

twelfth of July: Ireland north and south

2011-07-11T18:58:00.005-04:00

"Come pledge again your heart and your hand
One grasp that never will sever
Our password be our native land
Our motto, love forever
Let the orange lily be
Your badge, my patriot brother
It's the everlasting green for me
And we for one another..."

from Sean Tyrrell's song The Twelfth of July (Lament of the Children)

Cathie Ryan also has a very fine version of this song on her album Cathie Ryan

you may also wish to see

Music Road:Radio Ballads: Northern Ireland
Music Road: Ireland, north and south

music and listening

2011-07-09T13:04:00.001-04:00

Recently I’ve been hearing the idea that the digital age has forever changed the way we tell stories. That is because, I hear and read, people now demand constant interaction, instant connection, and immediate participation in the story. That has set me thinking about sean-nós singing.

What? Sean-nós is an ancient style of sharing music in Ireland and Scotland which isn’t that widely known or widely practiced today. Am I thinking about how to update this for the digital age, you might be wondering?

No, as it happens. This idea had me thinking about the quality of attention and intention that takes place in both old style sean-nós and in the way singers who have studied it incorporate the ideas from in their work here in the twenty first century.

As the words sean-nós actually mean old style, I suppose it is a bit redundant to speak of old style sean nos. As it was done in earlier times, however, it was unaccompanied singing, the details and the larger picture and the power of the story conveyed only by the way the singer chose to present it through his or her voice. The primacy of the story, the idea, was foremost. The singer often sang with eyes closed and sometimes with head turned aside from those who listened.

That power of emotion and focus on story have been carried forward into the twentieth century by artists who have worked with tradition bearersand studied sean-nós. Cathie Ryan, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, and Roisin Elsafty, all of whom you’ve met here along the music road, come to mind. When songs are taught in sean-nós, the singer is given the song but the ornamentation, the individual style of the telling, is for the singer to work out on his or her own. Each of these women has carried that idea forward as well, by giving thoughtful consideration to adding backing instruments and additional voices to the core and heart of sean-nós, which, for each of them, remains the voice. They have also found ways of weaving aspects of what they have learned from this older style into other songs they offer today.

When sean-nós was shared around the kitchen table, at times the singer would reach out for a hand, or someone who was present would offer a hand, for the singer to hold, a connection to carry with them through the intensity of the story and the song. That is not, I think, the sort of connection and intention that is being proposed or enjoyed, if those are the right words, by those who wish for greater interaction and more instant connectivity. Stories, and songs, and the stories which live within songs are meant to be listened to, to be loved, to be understood, and yes, to be shared. First, though, they have to be heard. That is an aspect which is being overlooked, I think, in the quest for constant interactivity.

Naturally, this is a subject with many viewpoints, and one to which I'll return. I’d welcome your thoughts.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Songwriter
Music Road: old songs, old stories: Elsafty Armstrong Browne

kelvingrove cat, and music

2011-07-08T08:07:00.006-04:00

this cat was quietly contemplating the west gate at Kelvingrove park of an evening as I was on my way to a talk at the University of Glasgow...

which reminided me of this album
Three Colours Ginger
in which fiddle player Brongaene Griffin offers a Celtic and old time gathering of tunes to do with cats

you may also wish to see

Matt and Shannon Heaton have a lovely song about a cat at Christmas on their album Fine Winter's Night Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Cherish the Ladies does a fine take on the well known Irish session tune The Cat Rambles To The Child's Saucepan
Carrie Newcomer takes in cats and all manner of other animals in the song Crash of Rhinocerus on her album Before & After

bagpipes & bluegrass: Outlands from Fred Morrison

2011-07-06T18:09:00.002-04:00

Train Journey North is the set which opens Fred Morrison album Outlands. You may be tempted to think the bagpipes on this sound rather like a train’s whistle, which may or may not be intentional, and may or may not endear the set to you. In any case, hang on and stay along for the ride:

Morrison is one of Scotland’s most creative pipers, and he’s brought along four men who are equally well known for their readiness to take music in directions it has not gone before. From Scotland guitarist and fiddler Matheu Watson sits in, as does the ever creative bodhran player Martin O’Neill, whose work you met most recently along the music road with Julie Fowlis. From the United States come banjo ace Ron Block whom you might know from his work with Alison Krauss and Union Station, and Grammy winning songwriter and string wizard Tim O'Brien.

It’s not about their credentials, of course, it is about the music they make together here. Morrison’s idea was to take on connections between bluegrass and highland pipes and whistles. It is no academic exploration, either. It is rather a collection of sets which join original and traditional tunes which connect with rhythms which might find themselves at home in either style. The title track, Outlands, starts off with what might be a bluegrass hoedown and travels over to a ceilidh in the highlands before it is done. Leaving Uist finds Morrison taking up the low whistle and joining with O’Neill and Watson for a spare set which paints the distinct landscape of the western isle. O’Neill’s bodhran again helps set the scene as he opens the appropriately named Drumcross set, and Morrison’s low whistle leads in to the haunting tune Nameless, and he takes up the reel pipes for the quiet Seonaiidh’s Tune set

There are ten sets in all, each equally varied and interesting. If you’re expecting highland pipes and whistles, it’s not quite that. if you;re expecting bluegrass, it’s not that either. It is fine listening that honors and extended both traditions.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: Julie Fowlis: Live at Perthsire Amber
Music Road: Musical imagination: Matheu Watson
Music Road: Capercaillie: Roses & Tears

song for early summer

2011-07-02T01:02:00.001-04:00

A bit of a meditative take on this well known and sometimes overdone song. It goes well with early and mid summer. The singer is Mary Black.

"I never made promises lightly
and there've been some that I've broken
but I swear in the time that's left
we'll walk in fields of gold..."

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Reflections with Mary Black
Music Road: late summer: two for the road
Music Road: ten songs

music and history

2011-07-01T01:02:00.002-04:00

If you’re open to it, both music and history live in landscape, and in the buildings and spaces we create around these things.

These are a doorway and a window of a place Dominican monks constructed in the twelfth century on a hill above the shores of Carlingford Bay in Ireland. It has been used for
It has been used for other purposes since then, many of them not religious or having to do with music. Still, when the wind is right you might just hear their music rising through the stones.

I have a feeling, too. that the view out the window has, in some ways, not changed all that much.

photographs were made in Louth, Ireland, and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

you might also wish to see
Tommy Sands’ album Let the Circle Be Wide which has many songs about Irish history, and a lovely one about coming home across Carlingford Bay, as well
Music Road: music and architecture
and
Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday.

Northern Ireland: Sound Neighbours

2011-06-29T14:48:00.002-04:00

The six counties which make up the north of Ireland, the area of the island which is part of the United Kingdom, hold beauty and welcome and legend, along with troubled political history which seems to come in waves. It is also the home place of many gifted musicians.

Sound Neighbours: Contemporary Music in Northern Ireland is a project the Smithsonian Folkways label put together several years back when Northern Ireland was featured as part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, it includes songs which range over the landscape and ideas of the six counties.

Notable among the twenty tracks are piper Jarlath Henderson's The Old Bush Set, Bap Kennedy’s The Shankill and The Falls, Briege Murphy’s The Verdant Braes of Screen -- actually all the tracks are well worth your listening, from The Divine Comedy’s edgy political commentary in Sunrise to Niall and Cillian Vallely’s melodious The Singing Stream, to Tommy Sands personal and universal story of the north in There Were Roses. Tommy’s brother Colum Sands, himself an accomplished musician, wrote the liner notes which give a bit of context to each song and each artist, and contributes his own song Donegall Road.

you may also wish to see

music and hope: Derry
Ireland, north and south
Radio Ballads: Northern Ireland

music of Canada

2011-06-27T01:02:00.003-04:00

As part of celebrating five years of walking with you along the music road, I am building a series of resource pages about the primary subjects you’ll find here, to help you find your way around and learn more. Main areas you’ll find here at music road have to do with singers and songwriters, Americana music, the music of Ireland, Scotland, and Canada, and creative practice and inspiration

The Maritimes, the Laurentians, the Shield, the prairies, the far north, the rockies, the pacific coast: Canada is a country of great geographic diversity and its people are diverse as well.

a quick introduction to the diversity of Canadian music
holiday gift list: music of Canada
this was first written as a holiday gift guide, and has proved to be an article visitors often seek out

the artists

Ian Tyson cowboy poet of Alberta and the rocky mountain west
Ian Tyson: Yellowhead to Yellowstone

in the folk revival era, Tyson was also part of the duo Ian and Sylvia
Matt & Shannon & Ian & Sylvia

from Alberta, the Canadian Celtic band
The McDades

celebrating Canada from the Maritimes to the plains
Stan Rogers: songwriter of work, change, & sea

legendary storyteller in song Gordon Lightfoot

master Cape Breton fiddler
Natalie MacMaster
Cape Breton, in Nova Scotia in the Maritimes, has a strong heritage from Scotland, a heritage that is informed and touched by land, water, location, and interaction with other musics.

rising Cape Breton fiddler Rachel Davis
Scotland & Cape Breton: tradition and innovation

Cape Breton music from a new generation: The Cottars

The Barra MacNeils are a family group from Cape Breton whose harmonies on traditional songs and original songwriting about their home land have gained them fans for more than two decades
The Barra MacNeils: Album

Leahy, also a family based group whose high energy ensemble work showcases the music of their native Ontario. They’ve toured with another Ontario native, Shania Twain

Leahy: Live in Gatineau
Shania Twain: Why Not?

Eileen McGann, whose music includes traditional music from her Irish Canadian roots and original songs of Canada, inlcuding several on her holiday album
Trilogy: 2000 Years of Christmas

the land

songs of place: Canada
Cape Breton Radio Live take 02
The Celtic Colours Festival

These are just a few of the articles about Canadian music you will find here along the music road, and there will be more to come. If you should not see your favorite Canadian artist here, there’s a search box to the right...your suggestions are welcome, too

Also, many musicians from Scotland and Ireland include music from Canadian artists and the traditions of Canada in their work. Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas, The Unusual Suspects, and Manus McGuire are a few of those you’ll find along the music road.

music and architecture

2011-06-24T01:02:00.003-04:00

Architecture and music both shape the spaces in which we go about our lives, and in which we think, learn and discover. That is as true, I find, on a quiet path in the country as in the bustle of streets in the city.

Listened to any good buildings lately?

When I am in Glasgow, I walk by this building several times a day. It is the Glasgow School of Art, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh

music to go along with these ideas
Music Road: Three Fiddle CDs for Fall
Music Road: Road Trip Music in Alabama: bluegrass, faith, & architecture
Music Road: Carrie Newcomer: faith and laughter

you may also wish to see
Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday.

Julie Fowlis: Live at Perthsire Amber

2011-06-23T18:42:00.003-04:00

It is a challenge to have just the right sense of presence in a live recording: presence of the artists, presence of their connections with the audience, and sharing those things in a way that goes beyond the immediacy of the moment and yet shares that too.

On Live at Perthshire Amber, Julie Fowlis and her talented band members and sound folk do all this really well. Perthshire Amber is a festival which takes place in Highland Perthshire and was founded by songwriter Dougie MacLean. Each autumn, musicians from Scotland, Ireland, and beyond gather to share their music over a week’s time with listeners who come from across the world as well.

On an autumn night in the Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Pitlochry, Julie Fowlis brought songs and tunes from the western isles to the stage. Fowlis is from North Uist in the Outer Hebrides. She grew up with songs from the tradition sung in Scottish Gaelic, and with Scottish Gaelic right alongside English as a living daily language. It was the older songs and stories that stayed with Fowlis, and she’s taken them across the world to high acclaim, despite the fact that many people do not understand the language in which she sings.

That’s a gift which comes through clearly on this live recording. The songs and tunes come from across Fowlis’ recorded work -- along with a few extras -- and they are no museum pieces, but rather music that engages whether or not you’re quite sure of the story behind the words.

There are tunes, as well. Fowlis plays the whistle, and the tunes give her a chance to enjoy that and for her band members to step out into the fore a bit as well. Eamon Doorley on bouzouki and backing vocals, fiddler Duncan Chisholm, who also adds vocals, Martin O’Neill on bodhran, and Tony Byrne on guitar and vocals are Fowlis’ usual musical cohorts on the road and in the studio. Each is an outstanding artist on his own and all togethe they join inr weaving a lovely tapestry of sound on the songs and tunes. Subject matter ranges from love lost to love found, new shoes to bonnets to blackbirds to a child’s welcome to the world, from lively melodies to quiet ones For the closing song, MacLean steps in for a guest slot to join in on a song he wrote, Pabay Mor. It’s a thoughtful and well thought out set, one that was well suited to the listeners on the night and is equally well worth repeated listens in recorded form.

aside: it is a realy well designed package, as well, with photography by Michelle Fowlis and sleeve design by Mike Garden

you may also wish to see

Music Road: Julie Fowlis:Uam
Music Road: Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh
Music Road: cathie ryan: the farthest wave

old stories, old songs: Róisín Dubh by Elsafty, Armstrong, Browne

2011-06-18T15:05:00.011-04:00

this really doesn't need anything from me except to advise you to watch and listen, and to let you know the musicians are Ronan Browne on pipes, Róisín Elsafty the singer, and Siobhán Armstrong playing the harp, at the Galway Early Music Festival

more about sean nos and about the EAB trio members to come...

you may also wish to see

Cathie Ryan also does a mesmerizing version of Roisin Dubh, which she recorded when she was with Cherish the Ladies
Music Road: harps and Celtic Connections
Ma Bhionn Tu Liom Bi Liom

two songs for father's day

2011-06-18T13:19:00.003-04:00

What sort of music you choose to mark father's day depends on the music you associate with the men who have held the place of father in your life,of course, and those choices will be as varied as the day is long. There are two songs which thoughtfully and gracefully walk through the connections of child to father over time, circumstance, change, and memory that work especially well for thinking of fathers, and father’s day

In My Father's Only Son Carrie Newcomer take the gentles details of a summer afternoon and an unspoken connection from childhood up through the years. In I'll Go Too Newcomer takes a bit of a different turn on shared memory and memory of shared love between father and child, through good times, times of laughter, and times of change.

Both of these songs may be found on Newcomer’s album Betty's Diner: The Best Of Carrie Newcomer.

for other father's day listening, you may also wish to see
Carrie Newcomer: Before & After
Mother: music celebrating mothers and motherhood: McKeown, Ryan, Spielberg
The Clancy Legacy

Coffee and the Mojo Hat: Neil Pearlman

2011-06-13T18:36:00.004-04:00

It is a challenging line for musicians to walk: loving a tradition and then becoming deeply involved in another style, and wanting to hear them play off each other, to bring them together in new ways. Neil Pearlman brings this challenge off with flair and ingenuity. He’s grounded in Scottish tradition, and the other areas he brings in are Latin, funk, and jazz.

Which might sound like a real mix up, and it certainly could be. In Pearlman's hands, on his album Coffee and the Mojo Hat it works well, so well in fact that it is likely to appeal to listeners on all sides of that musical quadrilateral. Things that give Pearlman a head start in this area are that he plays piano, and that his piano style grounded in that of Cape Breton. That lively percussive, fluid sort of style, developed by musicians working with fiddlers in the migrant communities of far northern Nova Scotia, is both distinctly Scottish and distinctly its own, both sides of that allowing for a good bit of adventure and creativity. Pearlman also learned Scotish step dancing as a child “To really understand the Scottish music tradtion, you need to understand the dance tradtion,” he says.

Coming along with Pearlman on this journey are Doug Burns on bass, Javier Ramos on congas, and Alex Cohen on drums, so its is fairly percussive event to begin with. What’s interesting is that Pearlman’s choice of music, and his touch on piano, weave a lyrical line, a line which moves in and out and through the conga, bass, and drum lines. The fourteen tracks are for the most part sets of two or more tunes. There are two songs, one from the tradition and one from Robert Burns, with Elizabeth Burke and Maeve Gilchrist as guest voclaists..

Other composers Pearlman covers include Phil Cunningham, Michael McGoldrick, Gordon Duncan, and Jerry Holland. There is a helping of tunes from the tradition as well, along with two originals. Standout sets include Farewell, in which a tune by McGoldrick is paired with one from Martyn Bennett, and on which Nicola Rabata sits in on flutes, Sailor’s Wife, in which a tune from the tradition meets with one from Nathaniel Gow, and on which fiddler Alasdair Fraser adds a fine fiddle part, and Mill Mill O, on which Neil's father Ed takes a graceful guest slot on fiddle.

you may also wish to see.
Highlander's Farewell: Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas
Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen
Scotland & Cape Breton: tradition and innovation

rest in music

2011-06-11T10:28:00.004-04:00

Rests are part of the structure of any sort of music, aspects of space and time interwoven naturally within the conversation and dialogue that make up a piece, be it a lively tune, a folk song, or a concerto. These places take the conversation forward as much as do notes and words, melody and lyric. Rather like spaces which occur in conversation with friends -- places for the mind and heart to take in what’s going on, to make a point, to get ready for the next turn.

music where you can hear this, and to help you think about these ideas
Music road trip: Cape Breton
Three Fiddle CDs for Fall
Celtic Kenya musical connection

photograph was made on the eastern coast of Ireland, and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this

learning about Irish music

2011-06-06T17:26:00.012-04:00

One of the things you are able to do here at Music Road is learn about Irish music. Perhaps you will learn more about things you are familiar with, maybe hear about music and musicians you didn’t know, perhaps see and hear music in new ways through the essays and ideas and photographs I offer here.

This is a selection of articles that will help you learn more.

I’d point out, too. that within each article itself you’ll find two sorts of links in addition to the narrative: suggestions for other articles you may like to see, and (where available) links to the music at Amazon. For this last, often you will find thirty second or so samples of much of the music discussed, so you will get a chance to try it out and listen. You should also know that Music Road is an Amazon affiliate, and any purchase you should choose to make through a link from Music Road helps support what goes on here, while your price does not increase. Music Road is a small family run place, so your support in this way is welcome.

a quick hit introduction to Irish music
holiday gift list: Irish music short descriptions of top albums you may not have heard, and which make great gifts for yourself and others. first created as a holiday season post, it has proved to be one readers turn to through the year

the artists
Irish music is graced with loads of fine singers, songwriters, composers, and players. Each of the artists in these articles is at the top of his or her game, all quite different one from the other, and well worth your attention. These articles are just the tip of the iceberg on Irish artists I’ve covered here. Try out the search box to help you find others

the distinctive music of Donegal in fiddle and song
Altan: 25th Anniversary Collection

for more than twenty years, this intrepid Irish American group has been bringing the joy of real Irish music to all corners of the globe
Cherish the Ladies

a fine singer of music from the tradition and beyond, carrying on her own family tradition in music
Aoife Clancy: Silvery Moon

on this album, Tommy Sands from County Down in Northern Ireland brings in Irish history and legend, the Troubles, the peacemaking process, and power of Irish music and Irish landscape
Tommy Sands: Let the Circle Be Wide

known for her graceful and insightful singing, Cathie Ryan is also one of the best songwriters around
Cathie Ryan: Songwriter

through her thoughtful and wide ranging song selection, Dublin born Mary Black has helped bring Ireland to the world, and the world to Ireland
Reflections with Mary Black

Julie Fowlis and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh explore connections between songs in Scottish Gaelic and in Irish on
Dual

commentary on a Christmas concert showing the best of Irish music meets Americana
Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton

the land
music and hope: Derry
Irish music, Irish landscape
ceol chairlinn: sharing music in winter
Patrick season: music and mist

In the coming days and months during this fifth anniversary year here at Music Road, I will be building more resource pages, about Irish music and about other areas you find here, including music of Scotland and Cape Breton, songwriting and songwriters, Americana music, and creative practice and inspiration. What would you like to see in these pages, and to learn in new posts? I’m listening.

Another forthcoming project is development of courses and workshops on these topics. Your thoughts on what you'd like to learn are most welcome, as well.

photograph was made in Ireland, and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

Shania Twain: Why Not?

2011-06-01T10:02:00.006-04:00

No question about it, Shania Twain is a star. Though she has released very few albums, she remains one of the top selling artists not just in country music, but in wider ranges of music as well. Though she set part of the country music business on its ear by stretching bounds both musically and in her videos, she won awards in Nashville, too, and whether or not they cared for her choices, many country music fans and insiders agreed that Twain had a major pull in which brought in new listeners to the country music, people who not only listened to her music but stayed to explore the work of other artists as well. She has not, however, given public concerts for seven years.

Twain is the subject of, part of, presenting -- I am not quite sure what to call it -- a series of programs on the OWN Television Network. The shows are called Shania Twain: Why Not? . The programs trace part of her journey to get back to the point where, both personally and with her singing voice, she feels ready to be on stage again. You may wonder why a professional musician who’d been performing for people since she was eight would have problems with this sort of thing, or why, if she did, she couldn’t just get over it on her own. Twain, actually, wondered some of those same things, and that’s one of the things that makes the show engaging. She has the money, the time, and most importantly, the will and the courage to take on sorting that out, and to choose to invite viewers along for parts of the journey.

I am not usually one to like the sort of quasi documentary that focuses deeply on people’s personal lives, I’ve never watched the Oprah show (OWN is the Oprah Winfrey Television Network) and also do not enjoy the somewhat related genre of reality shows. I like Twain’s music, though (that always comes as a shock to many who know my own work in music ) and I had always known her to discuss her personal life, which had its share of hard knocks, with dignity and reserve. So I was interested to see what these programs would be like.

It is proving an interesting and creative journey. Twain is having trouble with her voice -- feeling choked, as she describes it. Even if you are not involved with music you’ll know what she means, and if you are a musician you’ll hear it both when she speaks and when she sings. She also feels that she is not comfortable performing in front of people again, though she loves singing and needs to sing.

These may seem, in some ways, fairly high class problems, and Twain knows that. They are also basic ones: an artist struggling with how to make her art, how to live her life, when that life has been knocked apart by personal circumstance . That’s one thing - and another is finding out that the personal resources and strengths one has relied on to get through hard times just don’t work any more. That’s a whole other aspect to wrestle with. Been there, done that, and it is, among other things, disorienting.

The precipitating event in Twain’s life for all these changes was the end of her fourteen year marriage, and the discovery that her husband and her best friend were having an affair. Early in her life, Twain had learned to handle quite a few tough circumstances, growing up poor, and with hard family situations. Then when she was a young woman her parents were killed in a car accident, and she had to provide for and parent her siblings.

Twain and her younger sister, Carrie, both now in their forties, revisit two of the houses they lived in as young children during the show’s early episodes, and this is thoughtfully presented. The conversations between them there, and later at their parents’ grave site. seem natural and unforced, as do most of the conversations in the programs. It’s a nice balance between being aware of the camera, being aware that what everyone says is going to a wider audience, and making a real story out of real events without going over the top into personal experiences and emotions. As someone who has worked behind the scenes in both television and music, props to all those involved, including especially the editors. Thus far, the shows and the story line are working well.

As I write this, I’ve seen four episodes of the show. A few things that stand out: Twain’s visit to her songwriting cabin in Ontario, where she used to go when she was first beginning to make it in country music, her standing on the stage at Caesar's Place, where she’s been offered a gig, and scenes in the first show of her playing and singing with just her sister, her cousin, and one of her long time band mates. Twain’s comment, at the songwriting cabin, that growing up as she did, making it big didn’t mean having a big lifestyle, it meant just being able to eat well, and her comment later on, in conversation with Gladys Knight, about not giving up on the gift one has been graciously given. The fact that she wants sharing her journey to healing to help others, but that she’s not being hokey about it. Her well honed sense of humor.

That sense of humor is one thing I’ve always enjoyed about Shania Twain. I’ve had the chance to see her in concert several times, and it’s been clear that she takes her work and her professionalism and her music seriously, but she does not take herself too seriously. That is part of Twain’s gift in connecting with audiences. As a songwriter, she distills things down to create accessible catchy hooks. They may not be the most complex songs I’ve heard or written about, but in mainstream popular music, being able to use that sort of gift, and choosing to use it, in service of writing songs that are uplifting and engaging at the same time is no small thing, and Twain has done that well. Her album The Woman in Me is, to my way of thinking a gathering of many her best songs thus far. She has also had the excellent taste to perform with Alison Krauss, and to choose the Canadian Celtic band Leahy to open for her during several tours.

That, and she can surely sing. She has the gift of a fine voice, and it is one she is determined to use again. Shania Twain: Why Not? is proving an engaging look at her journey to doing that.

you may also wish to see

if I were going to suggest an album for Shania to listen to on her journey, it’d be this one. graceful songs about living through changes, especially when the way is less than clear Carrie Newcomer: Before & After

and

if you enjoy reading about television, film, and dvds check out Reel Life With Jane

Twain’s autobiography
From This Moment On

Judy Collins

2011-05-31T16:51:00.002-04:00

Each year the magazine Irish America names a list of one hundred top Irish Americans. Cathie Ryan and Joanie Madden are among those you’ve met here along the music road who have been honoured in this list. This year, one of those chosen is Judy Collins.

For more than five decades, Collins has been making a life in music, learning classical music and appearing with the Denver Symphony as a young woman, taking up the guitar in her late teens and becoming a leading light in the folk music revival of the 1960s, and by the 1970s forging a musical path which includes folk music of the British Isles and Ireland, music from singers and songwriters such as Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Ian Tyson, and Joni Mitchell, and adding in popular and classical music as well as eclectic selections from the likes of Jacques Brel and Steven Sondheim, along with her own songs on subjects including love, family, landscape, and politics. Collins has also worked in theater, written several books, and in recent years started her own record company, Wildflower Records.

One thread connecting all her musical work is love for a good song, and an adventurous spirit in seeking out just those songs to which she feels best able to give voice. Her second album, Golden Apples of the Sun, was named from the words of a poem by WB Yeats to which Collins gives a haunting traveler's journey. On Farewell to Tarwathie she pairs a traditional whaling song with actual whale songs from nature. Bob Dylan’s vivd images of love, grief, and longing in Tomorrow Is a Long Time are illuminated with understated grace while his rather different perspective on the same emotions in Daddy You’ve been on My Mind are equally well served in a paring which finds them side by side on Collins’ Fifth Album
Collins has often been early to record the work of little known artists who went on to wider recognition. Cohen, Mitchell, Randy Newman, Eric Andersen, and Billy Edd Wheeler are among these musicians. The breadth and depth of Collins gifts as a singer and as a chooser of song are indicated by the range of three of her best known radio hits: the pop song Send In the Clowns, folk songwriter Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now, and the traditional hymn Amazing Grace.

Most of Collins’ early work has been reissued in recent years, and is readily available. Judy Collins 3 & 4
Forever Anthology
and Very Best of Judy Collins
in addition to those albums linked above, are especially worth your attention.

aside: I’ve been fortunate enough to interview Judy Collins and to see her live in concert at several points in her career. If you have the chance to go to a Judy Collins concert, take it.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Joanie Madden: Galway Afternoon
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Songwriter
Music Road: Reflections with Mary Black

inspiration: looking for the quiet

2011-05-26T16:00:00.006-04:00

Finding quiet spaces, places to reflect and let ideas unfold, giving one’s self the gift of that, may at times seem difficult, and at times, it is. It’s necessary though, both to look for that quiet and to accept it when it comes.

Sometimes, you find it by looking up.

This photograph was made just at sunset in the midst of the very busy city center in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland.

photograph is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

this post is part of an occasional series on seeking and finding inspiration for and through music and other creative ways of life.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: words, music, and national poetry month
Music Road: Irish music, Irish landscape
Music Road: Scotland's Highlands in music: Duncan Chisholm

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

Nod to Bob, and Carrie, Mary, Rose, Sarah, and Joanie, too

2011-05-23T14:31:00.007-04:00

Opening doors, changing the way listeners and fellow creators of song think about music, writing songs that are literal, mystical, poetic, political, and funny, and always leaving room for more than one way to take the words: those are several things Bob Dylan has done in five decades of his work as a musician. He’s marking a birthday this last week in May. All over the word and all through this year there have been and will be tributes to this unlikely musical hero who grew up in the Minnesota Iron Range town of Hibbing, and first built his national fame in the clubs of New York’s Greenwich Village. .

A good song always leaves room for those who listen to take it in, to make it their own, and to carry it on in their own lives. With lyrics both enigmatic and direct, Dylan has been good at that. To celebrate his birthday, Red House Records, which is based in his native Minnesota, invited musicians who work with the label to choose favorite Dylan songs to record. The result is A Nod to Bob 2, a sixteen track collection that could be a study in songwriting, in singing, in song interpretation -- a study that’s best carried out by playing the disc many times and letting the songs unfold.

There are well known songs , ones that might start to jog your memory with their first notes, and ones that perhaps you’ll be hearing for the first time. Interestingly chosen and thoughtfully sequenced, this album works as few collections do, as a thoughtful narrative of the songwriter’s ideas as well as a group of songs and interpretations that play into and bounce off of each other in ways both familiar and surprising.

Each listener will come by his or her own favourite cuts, of course. Eliza Gilkyson, a master herself of the indirect lyric, offers Jokerman, in a track which was recorded live. Peter Ostroushko takes on Dylan's sense of humour with Mozambique. Pieta Brown goes to the blues side of things with Dirt Road Blues, while Texas troubadour Jimmy LaFave gives Not Dark Yet plenty of space and plenty of room for thought. So do Robin and Linda Williams, whose high spirited take on Walkin’ Down the Line is the closer to the disc. Meg Hutchinson, John Gorka, and Lucy Kaplansky are among others who contribute songs

You might also care to see the first Red House Collection honoring Bob Dylan, A Nod to Bob

This time in late May seems to be a place in the calendar when musicians celebrate birthdays. Several you’ve met along the music road are celebrating around this time of year: Irish singer Mary Black, rising bluegrass star Sarah Jarosz, songwriter Rosanne Cash, Cherish the Ladies founder Joanie Madden, songwriter Carrie Newcomer -- and me. Sign of Gemini in the zodiac, sign of hawthorn in Irish mythology, both said to hold gifts in the arts of communication.

So, good wishes to all who celebrate. Do you have a favourite song by Bob Dylan, or by one of the other artists mentioned here? Let us know in the comments.

Irish landscape: Davy Spillane's A Place Among the Stones

2011-05-20T18:47:00.003-04:00

Darklight, Western Whisper, Always Travellin, Near the Horizon - titles on Davy Spillane’s album A Place Among The Stones hint at the landscapes of an older Ireland that lie within the tunes. Tunes, though, that are contemporary compositions, and though Spillane himself plays pipes and low whistles, sometimes include electric guitar, flugelhorn, cymbals, and other perhaps not so ancient and not so irish instruments.

Spillane has a varied background in music. He was, for one thing, one of the founding members of the adventurous Irish group Moving Hearts, and he’s worked in many genres. Whether it was his intention or not, A Place Among The Stones comes across as a meditation on the quiet places and older times of Eire. Standout tracks include the instrumental Darklight, the song Starry Night, with Sean Tyrell sitting in on voice, and the title track, a co write with Moya Brennan, on which she sings and plays the harp.

a side note: This is an older recording of Davy Spillane’s, and well worth your attention, as is the work he has done before and since. It had gotten to the back of a shelf at my house and I came across it recently, still with the sticker on the front from the shop in Letterkenny, Donegal, where I bought it all those years ago. Still just as good as it was then, too, maybe even better with passage of years. Have some gems lurking in the back of your music shelves? take a look....

you may also wish to see
Music Road: from Donegal: T with the Maggies
Moya Brennan’s current group

Music Road: Galway Afternoon
Music Road: Scotland's Highlands in music: Duncan Chisholm