Circle of Song: Jayme Stone's Folklife and Macmath: The Silent Page

How does get passed along? Consider what two groups of musicians have done with very different songs of heritage: they have taken the music into their own lives as artists. By doing that they make the music, the stories it tells, and the lives of those who created it, real and inviting to listeners in the present. Music as time travel and as stories for the future, if you will.

Jayme Stone is an award winning banjo player, producer, and composer. In the project Jayme Stone’s Folklife, he joins up with singer and accordion player Moira Smiley, fiddler Sumala Jackson, and bassist Joe Phillips to explore, imagine, and at times reinvent music from across the landscape of American song. Rather than consider early field recordings and other sources on which they drew only as snapshots from generations past, Stone chose to look at them, he says, as heirloom seeds.

“I’m not collector,” Stone says, “Nor am I particularly nostalgic. I revel in the act of discovery.” With that in mind he brought Phillips, Smiley, and Jackson, three equally adventurous musical friends, together “to help blow the dust off these carefully chosen songs, uncover their hidden histories, and till fresh soil to see what might spring forth from these sturdy seeds.”

Quite a lot does. There are ten tracks on Jayme Stone’s Folklife,, drawn from seedbeds in Caribbean islands and in Mississippi, from the rural church tradition of sacred harp singing to the low down rhythms of a backwoods dance hall. Story, harmony, powerful musicianship with both instruments and voices, and the sheer energy, creativity, and joy of collaboration are what connect this diverse group of songs.

Every cut is worth exploring more than once. Listen out especially for Buttermilk, with guests Dom Flemons and Ron Miles, and Stone’s work on a prepared banjo (that’s one with objects added to the strings, making for a unique sound -- it’s still a banjo, but listen...). You will also want to hear what Moira Smiley does with the lead voice part on There’s More Love Somewhere. All four join on the singing for Hallelujah, along with guests Felicity Williams and Denzel Sinclaire. You may find yourself singing along -- and dancing along -- to these songs, which may feel familiar even if you’ve not heard them -- or not heard them like this -- before. Jayme Stone wishes that for you. “These songs are yours too,” he says. “Sing them, plant them in your yard, graft themto your own musical tree. Keep them watered and even if they lie fallow for a spell, they’ll revive. Folk songs are perennials.”

That is an idea the musicians who joined up as The Macmath Collective understand. It is what they’ve done with their recording Macmath: The Silent Page.

It began with two handwritten books. Perhaps you’ve heard songs referred to as Child ballads? Even if you’ve not you’ve no doubt heard some of the songs themselves, or sung them: Barbara Allen, Matty Groves, The Cherry Tree Carol, and dozens of others have entered the folk and popular song landscape, been adapted, and revised and handed on because Francis James Child, a professor at Harvard, published the books called The English and Scottish Popular Ballads in several volumes between 1882 and 1898. William Macmath, from Galloway in southwestern Scotland, loved music and the stories told through it. He was one of the people Child relied on to gather songs for him. Artist Edward Hornel (one oof the group of painters known as the Glasgow Boys ) bought a collection of papers which included those two handwritten books, and they ended up the collection at his home in southwestern Scotland. More than a century later, songwriter and community choir leader Alison Burns came across them, and in her words “began to think about ways to sing this paper collection back to life.”

Most of the songs and stories in the books were told directly to William Macmath by people who knew them and lived them in southwestern Scotland. It seemed natural then to turn to musicians in living and working in that region today with the idea. Wendy Stewart, one of Scotland’s top harp players, joined on, as did flute and fiddle player Claire Mann, who has won many All Ireland titles and been a principal flute tutor on the Scottish Music course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Guitarist and bouzouki player Aaron Jones, who has toured the world with artists including Old Blind Dogs and Kate Rusby, and singer Robyn Stapleton, who was named Scotland’s Young Traditional Musician of the Year by BBC Radio Scotland in 2014, were in. So were Jamie McClennan, who brought his fiddle and guitar talents to Scotland from New Zealand more than ten years ago, and Emily Smith, who is five albums into a solo career which includes awards for her songwriting and singing, among them twice being named as Scots Singer of the year by BBC Radio Scotland.

That’s an impressive group, yes. But what does the recording sound like? “We decided early on that our goal was to make a collection of singable songs with great arrangements,” Burns says. To that end, they sometimes tweaked some of the lines to help them fit with the music, and on occasion found local tunes or wrote new melodies where no music for a song existed.

There are thirteen songs on the recording. You may find song lyrics, story lines, perhaps melodies or phrases of music that will seem familiar, but you’ve not heard them quite like this before. There are love songs with happy endings and with not, fantastical tales, song which evoke the natural landscape and the world of fairies, a nonsense rhyme or two, stories of unusual people, advice on marriage, all framed in tales that people enjoyed singing and handing on through hundreds of years.

“We’ve chosen songs that were unusual, rare, or unique to the collection,” Burns points out, adding that while some of the stories may be familiar or you may have heard other versions of the songs, “the reason that you do may well be down to the work of William Macmath in recording and sending them on to Child for publication.”

In the hands and voices of these musicians the songs are no museum pieces, though. Source material, rather, and stories which on their own reflect and share the lively tale telling and singing that has taken place in southwestern Scotland through the centuries. Listen out especially for the lively tale of the cabin by in The Golden Vanitee and the story of love challenged by obstacles real and fantastical in The Queen of the Fairies. The joy of collaboration in music comes through in the singing and playing of the Macmath Collective on every track.

Singing songs back to life, reaching across time to share thoughts, ideas, celebrations, and stories: these are at the heart of the work on Macmath: The Silent Page and on Jayme Stone’s Folklife.

You may also wish to see
Emily Smith: Echoes
Music for Reflection with a song from Robyn Stapleton
Geography of Hope with a song by Moira Smiley
Carrie Newcomer’s album The Beautiful Not Yet which Jayme Stone produced and on which Moira Smiley sings harmony

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Kathy Mattea: Calling Me Home

Landscapes of the heart, of the mind, of the spirit, of time, and memory, and change: this is the territory Kathy Mattea walks in on her album Calling Me Home. A native of West Virginia whose life in music has taken her elsewhere, Mattea’s landscapes are framed in the hill and valleys, mountain and streams, and the lives of the people who call Appalachia home.

In some ways, this is a musical journey Mattea began when she was preparing her album Coal In other ways it is a journey she began long before that, growing up the granddaughter of miners, being drawn to bluegrass and folk music in her teenage years, and leaving West Virginia for Nashville. Mattea’s mainstream country albums have always included an element of mountain spirit and mountain music, howver subtle, because that is a part of who she is as a musician. “Folk music really was my doorway into country music,” she says. At the height of her Grammy winning country music reign, Mattea took time to travel to Scotland and immerse herself in Celtic music to refresh her thoughts. With Calling Me home, Mattea made time to immerse herself in the music of Appalachia and to understand what she could learn from it and what she could bring to it. Respect for the music of the mountains and its sources and a spirit of discovery as to what this music could be background Mattea’s work on this recording.

There is a song on Calling Me Home which takes place in those moments when a miner’s wife, learning that there’s trouble at the mine, makes her way to find out the fate of her husband. With her understated yet intense delivery, Mattea speaks the words of this woman in a way that makes that world and those moments world immediate. The song, written by Jean Ritchie, is called West Virginia Mine Disaster. Holding both love of family and realities of life in the mountains, and connecting these with lives lived beyond Appalachia, it is a centerpiece of the album.


A Far Cry, which opens the album, is a high stepping bluegrass tune, with that bluegrass gift for framing a sad lyric with a lively tune and making them fit well together. Mattea has friends accompanying her on the journey of Calling Me Home, and this tale of a lover who chose a rambling life and returned to the mountains too late is a fine way to meet several of them. Stuart Duncan is on fiddle, banjo, and other things, Jim Brock adds percussion, Bill Cooley is on acoustic guitar, Bryan Sutton on banjo mandolin, and other instruments, and Byron House on bass through the tracks on the album. Emmylou Harris, Patty Loveless, and Tim and Mollie O’Brien are among those who add backing vocals for several cuts.

All the songs are gems, really. They are sequenced in a line worth the following bothmusically and lyrically, too. Change and landscape and reflections on all that are present in The Wood Thrush’s Song. There’s the lively swagger and thought provoking ideas in Hello My Name is Coal, the benediction of Agate Hill, the spiritual with a warning note in Now Is the Cool of the Day. In the title track, Calling Me Home, a man on his death bed says he will leave his stories and songs behind “as sweet traces of gold.” Bringing the recording to a close, there’s is the quiet grace of Requiem for a Mountain, an instrumental piece by Bill Cooley.

Traces of gold indeed. Mountain songs are often thought to be a bit disconnected from today’s world, to be the distant province of scholars. With Calling Me Home, Kathy Mattea continues to show that the songs themselves, and the landscapes and people from which they come, are a vibrant, living part of the world whose joys and sorrows we all share.


Kathy Mattea talks about the album: "Each record teaches you something..."



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Kathy Mattea sings John Martyn
Music Road trip in West Virginia
Songwriters gather in Minnesota

photographs of Appalachian hillside and of Kathy Mattea in performance by Kerry Dexter

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Music, trust, and faith: Amy Grant: Mosaic

Mosaic works as a descriptive title for Amy Grant's book: there are essays, reflections, stories, poetry, and song lyrics new and old.

It’s not necessary to know anything about Grant’s music, or to like it if you do, to enjoy her often funny vignettes of things she has learned from bringing up her children, or her poignant reflection on connecting with her stepdaughter, or stories of how she learned a lesson from a deer or met an unexpected source of support at the state fair.

Grant’s faith is front and center, but it’s no stained glass or holier than thou belief: it’s the story of hard won lessons, and recognition that she -- and we-- do not know all the answers, and sometimes the only answer is trust. Grant has a gentle, humorous, reflective style that suits this sort of storytelling well. Some sections work better than others, of course.


It would be easy for someone of Grant’s public life and fame to be self indulgent or just skim the surface: she doesn’t. One gets the impression that Grant has too much of a sense of humor for that to happen, for one thing, and she also has along with that a humility born of her faith. At one point she says

“This is trust: doing what you believe you are called to do and trusting that God will provide. But here’s where it gets personal: God provides through people. Am I willing to be connected to the people in my world, the people at work, the people in my house, the people I encounter in the everyday patterns of living? Am I open to the possibility of my gifts touching another life? My life touching another: the domino effect of God’s goodness rippling through so many lives is a far reaching concept.”

All sorts of stuff like that in the book. Well worth the read.

Music to go along with this:
Legacy: Hymns and Faith
and
Behind the Eyes
are the Grant recordings I like best. In many ways they are very different: Behind the Eyes includes a number of songs she wrote while dealing with her divorce; Legacy: Hymns and Faith comprises songs of faith that will be familiar to anyone who grew up in the American south, along with well chosen originals. They both show a woman who
thinks about her faith, and knows that it encompasses both struggle and celebration.



you may also wish to see
music and trust
music, silence, and spiritual journey

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Some Bright Morning from Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem

Faith. That may be a fulcrum, a stepping stone, a question, a guide. All those ideas of faith find their places in the music Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem have chosen for their album Some Bright Morning.

They kick things off with a high stepping high spirited take on the gospel shouter Hear Jerusalem Moan with new words written by folk bluegrass jazz musician Joe Craven. ”When we heard Joe Craven’s agnostic gospel rewrite of this bluegrass classic we knew it was for us,” Arbo says. With lyrics like “Well, spiritual people are a thinking people, Their mind’s a church and their heart’s a steeple “ and others that given nods to the wisdom of Mother Earth and the wind in the trees, you have to know they made the right choice.

It’s also a very fine way to share the band’s high energy side, and the clarity and wisdom with which they play together. Wisdom? Yes. That is a word that works here. The four members of the band -- Arbo, on fiddle; Andrew Kinsey on bass, ukulele, and banjo; Anand Nayak on electric and acoustic guitars, Scott Kessel on percussion; they all sing -- have been working together for twelve years now. With backgrounds which include bagpipes, African percussion, choral work on ancient music, and street busking, they share respect for the handed down nature of folk music and for the immediacy of music’s connection with the present. The respect and affection they share for each other comes through clearly in their music as well.

Following on the fast pace of Jerusalem Moan comes Bridges, a song Arbo wrote which takes in floods breaking physical bridges and life breaking bridges of the heart. It’s a reflective, poetic piece for which Arbo’s smoky alto is well suited.

Life, death, change, love -- all subjects where faith is involved and needed, all things which come up in the music here. I’ll Fly Away, a traditional song about death and the future, finds Nayak taking a powerful lead, something he also does on the band’s cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Reason to Believe. There’s wisdom in instrumental music, too, which you may hear in Andrew Kinsey’s original tune called Fall River. It sets a thoughtful stage for Arbo’s take on a setting of Alfred Lord Tennyson's’ Crossing the Bar, which resonates, from a very different musical place, with I’ll Fly Away.

There are twelve tracks on the album, each one of them a keeper. Though each stands clearly on its own, each part of a vibrant story of the range of questions -- and occasionally answers --encompassed by faith. Great music, great ideas, thoughtful subjects and at times a good bit of high spirited fun -- all reasons to listen to this one, and to listeni again as its stories continue to unfold.

you may also wish to see
music for parents & children: Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem
easter eve: rani arbo & daisy mayhem: house be blessed
photographing music, continued

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Americana: gift ideas and seasonal music

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

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Judy Collins

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

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Road trips and road songs

After traveling from the coasts of Maine to the deep south, along the Mississippi, to the northern plains and the western ones, through the heartland, and to the many landscapes that make up the American west, including the far western states of Hawaii and Alaska, we’ve come to the stopping place on the great American road trip series. At least for the time being.

More than a year ago, Vera Marie Badertscher of A Traveler's Library invited me to chime in with suggestions for music to go along as she took a virtual trip across the United States through books and film which inspire travel. 2018 update This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will still find the journeys through music interesting.

Along the music road, here are four which have been ones you have most enjoyed. They are among my favorites as well.

Road Trip Music : Oregon in which we meet a rancher who raises Christmas trees and cowboy songs, and an Oregon native who finds her inspiration in Scotland

Road Trip Music: Indiana where we learn of a songwriter who makes music connected to both land and spirit

Road Trip Music: Michigan in which we meet an Irish American songwriter whose music builds bridges between the two countries of her heritage.

Road Trip Music: northern California in which we meet a musician who has been a vital part of American folk music for decades, and is carrying it on

Thank you for coming along. There’s more ahead on music, creative practice, and especially the varied landscapes of folk, Americana, and Celtic music -- as well as ideas from other neighborhoods now and again.

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Long Time Courting: help kickstart their recording

Long Time Courting is a four woman band, based in the Boston area, whose members each bring a love of traditional Irish and American music as well as an interest in contemporary material to a group that has been delighting audiences across New England for several years.

All of the women sing, and their harmonies are a strong feature of their work. Each is also a talented instrumentalist, and their instrumental collaborations are as engaging as their singing. Sarah Blair plays fiddle, Liz Simmons handles guitar, Shannon Heaton plays flute, and Ariel Friedman plays cello. That is an interesting enough line up in itself -- add to it the fact that each brings a varied range of professional playing and recording experiences, and touring histories that cross the globe. Long Time Courting is a group well worth your listening.

Up until now, though, you had to catch one of their live shows to do that. They have not had funds to make a recording: as professional musicians with other band commitments and working women with other family demands, the money has not been there. However, they’ve decided it’s time to do something about that, and there is opportunity for you to help.

A recording is nearly complete, with the assistance of an engineer who was willing to wait for his pay. Long Time Courting have started a Kickstarter project to gather the funds to pay him, and to the get next steps of mastering, design, and promotion of the CD done to get their music out there.

Small investments go a long way -- and the way Kickstarter works, if they do not raise the full amount of their goal by a certain deadline, no one is charged and no money changes hands. In LTC’s case, the deadline is March 2nd, as and of this writing they’ve raised a bit more than thirty per cent of the three thousand dollars that is their goal amount to get their recording on to its next steps.

Want to invest in this recording, or to learn more about it? There are details at the band’s Kickstarter page.

Here is the band’s website, where you may hear a bit of their music, read their biographies, and find out their touring schedule: Long Time Courting

update: things are moving along for Long Time Courting's project -- they now have less than three hundred dollars to go to reach their goal -- and as of 23 February, nine days in which to do it.
further update: congratulations to Long Time Courting for meeting and exceeding their goal, and thanks to all who contributed to that. looking forward to hearing the recording.



you may also wish to see
Music Road: Boston Celtic Music Festival on the way
Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Music Road: early autumn: music and transition

Update: They did get to make the album!

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Road Trip Music: northern California

For a bit over a year now, we’ve been on a virtual road trip across the United States, adding music suggestions to the film and book ideas for exploring the varied landscapes of this vast country which you will find over at A Traveler's Library (see below for more on this).

This edition of the road trip finds us in northern California: bustling cities, romantic small towns, redwood forests and the Big Sur and across the Golden Gate and down to Berkeley. The soundtrack for this part of the trip comes from Joan Baez, a woman who has called northern California home for much of her more than five decades of making music.


Not long ago, the PBS series American Masters did a program on Baez. That has come out on dvd, with a CD fifteen songs drawn from across the musician’s career to go along. They are both called How Sweet The Sound and are well worth your time. If you do not know or don’t remember the earlier days of Baez’ public career, when she put her life on the line during the civil rights days, for example, you’ll get a good idea of the social justice interests that have always formed a part of her work, and her life. Through interviews with Baez and others you’ll get a candid picture of the private woman behind the music, as well as insights on making a living in the spotlight. The music recording includes several traditional Appalachian and English ballads, a trademark of Baez’ early career during the folk music revival, as well as songs from the civil rights era, and a duet with Bob Dylan. There are also several of her popular radio hits, including The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and Diamonds and Rust, as well as the recent song Jerusalem.



I’d add another album from the Baez catalogue for this road trip, too, one called First Ten Years On it you’ll find the haunting traditional song Geordie, the well known English folk song Mary Hamilton, and Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right. Baez is one of the best song interpreters around, mastering that art of serving the song’s story while putting her own ideas into it as well. The First Ten Years is a really excellent place to hear that gift.

Also to note: you’ve met Irish guitarist John Doyle here along the music road before, in his work with Cathie Ryan, Alison Brown, and others, and in his solo albums. He’s backing up Baez on the road these days, and you’ll see him at work in recent concert footage on the dvd, as well. John Doyle is also an artist of the decade.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: road trip music: American northwest
Music Road: exiles return: karan casey & john doyle

This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will still find the journeys through music interesting.
For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Top 5 Favorite Music Road Trips

The Great American Road Trip has been winding from the quiet villages of New England to the Blue Ridge in Virginia, from the muddy Mississippi up to the shores of Lake Michigan. Right now, we are in the northern plains of South Dakota. Here are my suggestions for a musical road trip in North Dakota and South Dakota.

It’s also time to take a look back at which of the road trip posts you’re enjoying the most.

Tops on the list, in terms of numbers of you reading, is Road Trip Music: Michigan, in which you learn about Irish American singer and songwriter Cathie Ryan.

You’re also liking the story of the beginning of the road trip idea at Great American Road Trip: Music begins.

The midwest is holding your attention, with
Road Trip Music: Ohio, which features Wilderness Plots, an album about the history of the Ohio Valley from five contemporary songwriters, and Road Trip Music: Indiana, a look at some fine songs from Indiana native Carrie Newcomer.

Road Trip Music in Alabama: bluegrass, faith, and architecture rounds out your top favorites. Claire Lynch and her album Whatcha Gonna Do was a choice for our soundtrack through the wiregrass and red clay hills of Alabam’.


Your choice of Alabama gives me the chance to send out our congratulations to Claire, who was recently named female vocalist of the year by the International Bluegrass Music Association. That’s the top award in bluegrass music. Well done and well deserved Claire!


you may also wish to see
Looking for music from Ireland, Scotland, and Cape Breton? It is here -- check around for articles on The Celtic Colours International Festival, Heidi Talbot’s new album The Last Star, and the debut album from rising Scottish instrumentalist Matheu Watson, and loads of great stuff in our archives. There’s more to come, and more travels on The Great American Road Trip as well. Texas, California, Alaska and all the other states in the American West lie ahead.

and more music from the road trip


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

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

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

You can also

Road Trip Music : Iowa

To understand the heartland state of Iowa, you almost have to listen to the music of Greg Brown. His dad was a preacher, and his mother was an English teacher who played electric guitar. They lived in the Hackleblarney region of southeastern Iowa when Greg was born, and crisscrossed the state, and the midwest, as he was growing up. Brown followed his musical muse through stints in New York City, Portland, Los Angeles and :as Vegas, but after a few years of that decided to return to Iowa. More than twenty years on, he’s still based there.

Brown has recorded more than two dozen albums, helped found Red House Records in Minnesota, seen a tribute album of his songs recorded -- which, to honor a friend, he asked be a benefit for breast cancer research -- and received critical recognition from The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and many other places. His music includes rock, folk, a hint of jazz now and then, gospel, and a lot of songwriting.

A good place to meet Brown’s gritty baritone and wide range of songs and melodies is Dream City - Essential Recordings Vol 2, 1997-2006. He opens with the title track, which rocks hard while maintaining an air of mystery. There are edgy electric songs including Living in a Prayer and Kokomo, bittersweet ballads including Rexroth’s Daughter, and a couple of traditional folk songs, too, including the gospel track Samson. It is a fine collection with which to make or renew the acquaintance of this heartland songwriter.




you may also wish to see
Music Road: Road Trip Music: Indiana
Music Road: Road Trip Music in Florida
Music Road: music and landscape: bluegrass, Ireland, New England


This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will find the journeys through music interesting still.
For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Road Trip Music: Indiana

Carrie Newcomer sings of journeys of the heart, and of the spirit, of family ties and the threads of friendship, of encountering God in muddy boots and mystery in summer peaches. She is a Hoosier, brought up in Indiana and based there still.

“When I’m giving concerts I tell people I’m from Indiana and boy, that impresses them!” she says, laughing. “I think I have a very midwestern voice in my writing. And I have this great job where I get to travel all over, to see the desert in the southwest in spring and the autumn leaves change in New England, and then I get to come home to my dogs, my sweetheart, and my house in the woods here in southern Indiana. Sometimes I’ll come back from the road and set my guitars down and just walk straight out to the woods by my house and take a deep breath.”

That connectedness to the land comes out both in the mystical and in the funny sides of Newcomer’s work, and make no mistake, she does have a dry midwestern sense of humor which serves as a nice balance to the serious stuff. She’s been known to write about the perils of e mail gone astray, a night at the bowling alley, and the many crazy names of small town Indiana fairs, for example. She draws thoughtful lessons from her home landscape, too, including a song based on fishing trip with her dad and another inspired by geodes, those common southern Indiana rocks which are dusty on the outside and may reveal bright crystals within.

As the Great American Road Trip makes its way through Indiana, take a listen to Carrie Newcomer’s album Before & After. You’ll find it a fine companion for the journey.



you may also wish to see
Music Road: late summer: two for the road
Voices: Carrie Newcomer: faith and laughter
Song Journeys

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

If you enjoy what you’ve been reading here, a way to support more of it: Thank you!

Road Trip Music in Mississippi

From the red clay roads of its northern counties to the ports and harbors along the Gulf, Mississippi is a state drenched in music. The story of Delta blues is there, with Robert Johnson and Charlie Patton. You could call Elvis Presley a country blues singer as much as he was a rock’n’ roller. Claire Holley is a contemporary writer and singer from the Magnolia state. Country star Faith Hill is from Mississippi. So is songwriter and producer Marty Stuart. The film O Brother, Where Art Thou? with a soundtrack comprising folk, blues, bluegrass, country, and gospel music, is set there.

As the Great American Road Trip: Music makes its way through Mississippi, the soundtrack comprises two albums from another Mississippi native, Caroline Herring. Herring is a storyteller whose music is informed by history, contemplation, faith, and language. Some of her stories are personal ones, some are character pieces drawn from history, some are set in Mississippi and some have their origins in other landscapes. On her album Twilight there is a vividly imagined emotional and geographic journey on the song Delta Highway. Trace, on Herring’s album Wellspring, takes a journey of history through the lives which have been lived along the Natchez Trace.

Herring tells these tales in a distinctive alto voice that well suits her stories, and with melodies that engage. There are gems on both these albums, stories of Mississippi, Texas, the west, and the heart, all well worth your attention.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Caroline Herring: Golden Apples of the Sun

Music Road: ten songs

Music Road: Road Trip Music in Tennessee

This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I’m partnering up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’ll find there. Stop by and see what the Library has in mind to inspire travels through Mississippi.


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

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Celebrating the USA: Born on the Fourth of July

The United States of America is a gorgeous country, from sea to shining sea.

In his Americana Symphony Mark O’Connor weaves in ideas from country, folk, classical, bluegrass, and Native American music, all to create what he sees as a new American music. An adventure a bit like the history of the country and its people.

Bright colored strands of Irish and American history come from Cathie Ryan and Matt and Shannon Heaton. Hanneke Cassel flavors her Scottish music with Americana and her Americana music with more than a taste of Scotland. Carrie Newcomer writes songs and asks good questions that go deep into the heartland, and heart, of America.


Then there is the Great American Road Trip, a virtual journey in which I’m partnering up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’ll find there. We’ve been traveling this road since January, and there’s much more to come.

Stops along the Great American Road Trip thus far include New York City: Irish Musicians, the saltwater music iof Del Suggs in Florida, and songs of the coal country in West Virginia. Stay tuned on Wednesdays as we continue...

Happy Fourth of July!

-->If you'd like to support my creative work at Music Road and elsewhere,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Road Trip Music in Alabama: bluegrass, faith, & architecture

Fishing boats on Mobile bay, the home of the Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa. rocket scientists in Huntsville, farmers in the wiregrass, civil rights history and civil war history: all this is Alabama. The state has a top country group as namesake, as well as a classic rock song. Here is a soundtrack featuring two artists with Alabama in their personal histories, Claire Lynch and Emmylou Harris.




Claire Lynch’s base is in bluegrass -- she’s been nominated for Grammys and won a number of top bluegrass awards for her work -- but it is a solid starting point, not a limit, for her musical taste and imagination. Her most recent recording, Whatcha Gonna Do, makes that point clearly. The range of her art includes traditional bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, a couple of contemporary faith based songs, some swing, and a touch of country. Lynch chooses from all these genres and writes her own material as well. Lynch lived for some years in north Alabama, and among other things wrote a really nice homecoming from the road song called Hills Of Alabam which country star Kathy Mattea recorded some years back. Whatcha Gonna Do makes a fine companion for the winding roads of Alabama, but you won’t go wrong with any of Claire Lynch’s recordings.


The same could be said of Emmylou Harris. Through her career as a pioneer of Americana music and contemporary folk, Harris has been most associated with California and with Nashville. She was born in Birmingham, though, and that deep south background comes through in her work. Her album Red Dirt Girl is anchored in thoughts of Alabama, both in songs she’s written, and songs she’s covered. Another fine Alabama road trip companion from Harris is her often overlooked recording of gospel songs and hymns, Angel Band














While you are thinking about or traveling though Alabama, you may also like to listen to An Architecture of Decency, a podcast from Speaking of Faith. It tells about an innovative project at Auburn University which involves love, compassion, architecture, and rural Alabama. Close to the end of the program, they play a bit of Harris's song Red Dirt Girl, too, quite an inspired connection of narrative and lyric.




photograph of Emmylou Harris on left copyright Kerry Dexter

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Claire Lynch: Crowd Favorites
Music Road: Music Road trip in West Virginia
Emmylou Harris: Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town
more music from the road trip


This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will still find the journeys through music interesting.
For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.