Scotland's Music: Two Down from Anna Massie

Anna Massie is a skilled backing musician on stage and in the recording studio, an ace collaborator at band work (she is a member of RANT and Blazin’ Fiddles), a gifted producer, and as the creator of The Black Isle Correspondent videos and presenter of BBC Scotland’s flagship folk radio show Travelling Folk, an award winning broadcaster.

Two Down is her recently released solo album

Indeed, Anna has a lot on her plate and many ways to share her musical gifts. So it makes sense that is has been some time -- since 2003 to be exact-- since she has recorded a solo album.

“I have been extremely lucky to work with a wide range of wonderful musicians over the years, but this is the first time I’ve recorded an entire Ot’album myself, playing all the musical roles,” Anna said.

“It’s ben a challenge, but a lot of fun. I’ve loved having complete creative control over the record and being able to explore my own individual sound.”

Anna is well known for her creative dexterity on guitar and her skill on fiddle. If you watched The Black Isle Correspondent you’ll know she is also a singer (if that’s new to you, this album is fine chance to hear her voice). Banjo, mandolin, tenor guitar, keyboards and mouth trumpet (“it’s exactly what you think, and it’s a real thing,” Anna points out in the sleeve notes) are instruments she brings into the mix as well.

A fine gathering of music it is, one that allows Anna space to show her creativity as a songwriter, arranger, and producer as well as a player. Her dry and wry wit comes out, too.

That wit is especially in evidence in her selection of songs to cover.

Among those are My Life Is Over Again from Cape Breton ’s JP Cormier which deftly pokes fun at a number of country music song tales, and Australian Tom Morgan’s The Outdoor Type, which finds the singer poking fun at herself for how much she’s not that.

On a bit of of a gentler note, Anna opens the album with her song Thanks for Writing, a light rhyming piece that yet contains some of that balance of connection and isolation found during lockdown times.

Dinner Medals is a lovely tune with a funny reason for its name (I will let you read the sleeve notes to find out about that).

The title tune of the Worth the Wait set is gentle, thoughtful, and lively, written to celebrate the marriage of Lauren MacColl and Ewan MacPherson (you have met both of them through their music here along the Music Road). It pairs with tunes written to honor a Black Isle naturalist and to mark the end of the first lockdown time in Scotland. ,

Tunes for friends’ weddings make up another set; there’s a tune written to mark one hundred days of the Black Isle Correspondent during lockdown, and a lovely arrangement of traditional tunes Battle of Waterloo and Out on the Ocean.

There’s also The Lovat Bar, a fine tune Anna wrote for her students in guitar class at the annual Blazin’ in Beauly music school that Blazin’ Fiddles members host each summer.

Two Down is almost a solo album -- but it seems only right that Anna invited her parents to join in.

Goren Berg’s Polka is a a tune her dad Bob Massie wrote and on which he plays mandolin. Her mum. Alison Massie, joins on spoons for that tune and also adds spoon percussion to that set of wedding tunes mentioned earlier.

There’s a tune inspired by Anna’ parents, too -- or at least their garden experiences. Anna spent the first pf Scotland’s lockdowns back in the Black Isle where she saw first hand how the veg growing was going. The tune is called The Pioneer Waltz. With that tune, and other songs and tunes on Two Down, you will have a fine time, whether you are exploring all the musical lines, laughing at the sound of the mouth trumpet, or taking the quieter tunes including The Pioneer Waltz, The Love Bar, and Out on the Ocean.

Anna has remarked that what she’d wish for Two Down is that it gives listeners a smile. That it does, on many levels.

You may also wish to see
Lauren MacColl’s album Haar, on which Anna plays guitars
About Blazin’ Fiddles
RANT’s album called Spin
From the Katie McNally Trio, the album Now More Than Ever. , which Anna produced

-->Music Road is reader supported . If you’d like 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.

Another way to support: you could

Winter's gifts: Music

Winter: it’s a time for reflection, for contemplation, for spending time in solitude and for seeking out good company. Music is a part of all this, and it also makes a fine gift. Here are ideas as you plan your holiday listening and giving. Some of these albums and artists you have met here before along the music road, and for others, there’s more to come. Either way, follow the links to learn more of the music.

If you’ve someone on your list or if you yourself love the music of Scotland, then Karen Matheson’s solo album Urram< will fill a spot on your list. It is the first solo album Matheson has released in some time -- she’s often involved with her work as part of the band Capercaillie. She was working on an album of contemporary songs in English and Gaelic but found the deaths of her parents, and coming across family photographs from times past in the wake of that, turned her in another direction. The songs of Urram are in Gaelic, some Matheson would have known from her childhood, others that she searched out in song archives. Spare arrangements from longtime band mates as well as unexpected guests frame Matheson’s musical storytelling.

Jenna Moynihan draws on the music of Scotland as well, both music from the tradition and as source to frame her own compositions. Growing up in New York state, two years into studying violin at eight years of age Moynihan encountered the fiddle music of Scotland, and that set her on her musical path one she has followed thus far all the way up through a degree at Berklee College of Music and the release of her album Woven, It’s a fine collection, comprising music that shows both Moynihan’s lyrical touch as well as flashes of wit -- which you may also see in her descriptions of the tunes in her liner notes. It is a journey worth the taking al the way through the album as it’s been been sequenced by Moynihan and producer Maeve Gilchrist. For a hint of what’s in store, standout tracks include the Kendall Tavern set, Haven, and Dolina MacKay.

Oisin Mac Diarmada knows the fiddle, too. In his case the background is Ireland, and in his recording The Green Branch the music of the Sligo region. You’ll have met Mac Diarmada’s music though his work in the band Teada, in his duo recordings with Seamus Begley, and with his Irish Christmas in America projects. For The Green Branch his musical partner is Samantha Harvey, whose piano work proves a fine backing and at times rhythm section for the energy of Oisin’s fiddle as he makes his way through sets of jigs, reels, hornpipes, and flings, including Jacke Coleman’s paired with Mayor Harrison’s Fedora and Bright May Morning paired with Fowler on the Moor. Harvey’s first way into irish music (she is originally from America, now resident in Ireland) was through irish dance, and a particularly engaging set, Veronica McNamara’s/The Professor/Charlie Dolan’s, includes the sound of her dancing feet along with fiddle and piano.

Alison Brown’s instrument of choice is the banjo. In her mind and spirit and hands it’s an adventurous instrument, melodic more than percussive, part of an ensemble more often than claiming the sole spotlight. On her album Song of the Banjo her original pieces are most composed for an acoustic ensemble, with deft placing of the colors of instruments to tell the stories she has in mind. That’s true of the varied selection of covers as well including several in which she backs singers in re invented versions of songs from writers as varied as Michael Martin Murphey, Bacharach and David, and (on the deluxe edition of the album) Marvin Gaye. If you’ve heard Brown’s tone and an voice (so to speak) with the banjo you’ll recognize it through the tracks on Song of the Banjo; if you are new to her work, listen and follow it as the thread that pulls through.

There will be more to come on these recordings and artists here along the music road, but they are too good to have you miss out on them during this season of listening, sharing, and giving.

Season of giving, you say? What about some seasonal music? Of course...

With her Quartet, the aforementioned Alison Brown has a fine seasonal album called Evergreen. There’s a nice blending of Carol of the Bells with We Three Kings, and Two Santas comprises two Santa themed songs you’l recognize. There’s a livley reinvention of The Little Drummer Boy among the other gems.

For On Christmas Night from Cherish the Ladies Heidi Talbot handles lead singing for The Castle of Dromore, a song that always evokes winter for me. Talbot makes the often done over the top O Holy Night sound as welcoming as if it were done around the fireside. too. Excellent instrumentals led by Joanie Madden’s flute, among them the title track, Old Apples in Winter, and the Kerry Reel, weave in stories and sound of Ireland with the carols and songs of the season

Speaking of the flute...you will hear some fine flute playing from Shannon Heaton on the album Fine Winter's Night which she’s done with her husband, guitar player Matt Heaton. They each sing, too, and they each have original songs of the season, tunes and carols and contemporary pieces. Listen out especially for Matt’s original First Snow Fall of December, Shannon’s title song, and their takes on the Wexford Carol and It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.

You may also wish to see
Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
6 of the best Christmas Songs
Music for the first week in Advent: candle in the window

-->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: southern California

Southern California: a land of movie stars, palm trees, borders with Mexico, beaches, sprawling cities and small towns, sunshine and wind. As the great American road trip, heads to southern California, on the music side of things I’m taking note of the fact that southern California is also a land of bluegrass.

Vince Gill, Chris Thile, Stuart Duncan, Sweethearts of the Rodeo: bluegrass and country greats who have all spent time in the southern California bluegrass scene. So has Alison Brown, from whom comes the soundtrack for this section of our trip.

Brown is a much awarded banjo player and composer, and cofounder of the independent record company Compass Records. For her own music, she includes a healthy helping of bluegrass, and adds in confident work in jazz and in Celtic music as well -- sometimes all in the same piece. All of this comes into play in the album I recommend for your listening on this part of the trip, The Company You Keep.

It is always good to see Brown at work, too. You can do that on her recent dvd Alison Brown Quartet - Live at Blair with Joe Craven. That’s a concert recorded at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Several tunes from The Company You Keep are part of the concert, and there are several of Brown's earlier pieces as well, including The Wonderful Sea Voyage of Holy Saint Brendan and Goin’ to Glasgow.

You may also wish to see

The Last Star: Heidi Talbot
Shannon Heaton: The Blue Dress
Carrie Newcomer: Before & After


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.

Alison Brown: The Company You Keep

The Company You Keep

The thing about listening to Alison Brown play is that she paints whole landscapes and holds whole conversations without saying a word. Brown plays banjo, and sometimes guitar. Her preferred company to keep while doing that include bassist Garry West, piano player John R. Burr, and fiddler/mandolinist/crazy man Joe Craven. There’s also usually a percussionist along, in this case bluegrass drummer Larry Atamanuik and drummer of all trades Kenny Malone. Top Irish guitarist and producer John Doyle joins in as well.

It’s Brown’s playing and imagination which center this good company, however,
leading them through music that brings in sounds of bluegrass, folk, jazz, swing, and Celtic music, without ever losing focus -- creating focus rather, with a music that moves like a fresh breeze from the composer’s imagination to yours.

There are ten tracks on this album, one written by Burr, one written by ace Irish box player Mairtin O’Connor, one a folk tune, and seven composed by Brown with input from West, Doyle, and Burr on various cuts. The titles of the tracks themselves suggest an interesting story, all the way from Crazy Ivan to Rocket Summer, The Road West, Drawing Down the Moon, and Under the (Five) Wire through Rain or Shine, Over Nine Waves, Forky on the Water, The Clean Plate Club, and Waltz for Mr. B Brown regards composing music as both an individual and a collaborative act, starting with the composer's idea and shaped by the ideas of those who play the music. That process is in full and lively force here. That’s something you can see clearly if you get the limited edition ‘Two Makes Company’ version, which includes a dvd of a concert the group played at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Watching or listening , it’s fine and original music played with grace and creativity, well worth repeated visits.

For a taste of what the album and the dvd are like, here’s some video:


update, December 2009 ***congratulations to Alison and all involved on the Grammy nomination for the track Under the (Five) Wire on this album***


you may also want to see

Music Road: Alison Brown Quartet: Evergreen

Music Road: Liz Carroll & John Doyle: Double Play

Music Road: now playing: Athena Tergis: Letter Home

-->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

Now playing: road music

Musicians spend a lot of time on the road, and so they often write about it. That experience often forms both direct subject and metaphor for life’s twists and turns. Here are three I like:



Muireann nic Amhlaoibh knows whereof she speaks in singing Gerry O’Beirne’s song Western Highway. Not only does she spend much time on the road, as the lead singer of the irish band Danu, in support of her solo projects, and working with Scottish singer Julie Fowlis, she grew up in the far western most part of Ireland, Dunquin in County Kerry. This song is a fine evocation of travels, changes, and landscape.

Alison Brown doesn’t sing a word on Chicken Road; she speaks with her banjo, leading a high stepping journey that yet has elements of looking back as well as looking forward.


Roads and journeys often find their way into Tish Hinojosa’s music, nowhere more vividly than in By the Rio Grande. Hinojosa is from the southwest, and has traveled all over the world with her music, taking the southwestern landscapes of her imagination, and her understanding won by living across Mexican and American cultures, down many roads.

-->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.

reflections with Adrienne Young

“I’m going to have to put in some beans. We might get a beanstalk and climb up to Nirvana!” Adrienne Young says with laughter. Though it’s not the easiest thing for a touring musician to do, Young, who is committed to sustainable agriculture, keeps a substantial garden at her Nashville home. She also pays close attention to folk history (that beanstalk) and to right livelihood informed by thoughtful philosophical practice (the climb up to Nirvana).

All of that leads to an interesting musical practice, too. The strong lyrical and melodic side of contemporary Americana is where Young’s work fits, that territory often walked by Darrell Scott, Kate Campbell, Dale Ann Bradley, and Jon Vezner. Like each of those very different artists she has her own point of view and well of experience to offer, a range pointed clearly in the first three tracks on her latest album, Room to Grow. All for Good finds the singer looking over a day just past, wondering about the successes and failures, the need to hold and the need to let go, and how to come to terms with that. The second cut is a medley of two traditional tunes, Sgt. Early’s Dream and Maids of Castlebar, a lively conversation between Young’s banjo and Eric Merrill’s fiddle. The third cut, the title track, is maybe a story, maybe an allegory, a tale which sounds as though it could be a story from long ago, looking at the possibilities and the risks of change, framed in one woman’s story and vivid images from nature.

Change, wanted and unwanted, is a theme that runs through the songs on the project. Young wrote most of them on her own or with frequent collaborator Will Kimbrough. In both her vocal style and her writing, she goes deeper and takes more chances than in her two earlier records, which very fairly adventuorus ideas already though with greater historical and less introspective focus than Room to Grow.. “Instead of making something that’s just entertaining, and musical -- though we did that-- I decided the goal was to weave a bit more into it, spiritually,” Young says. As is typical of her music, Young celebrates and investigates rather than preaches, while asking harder questions of life and death than she has before in her work. “There is a season for everything -- I just try to acknowledge what the moment is bringing, and instead of making it into something else, appreciate it for the bounty it holds,” Young reflects, while at the same time acknowledging that it’s a demanding practice.

Growing up in Florida in a family which had farmed for generations but turned to other work by the time Young came along, she felt both connection to the land and distance from it. “I grew up in a house my grandfather built, on land that had been a farm two generations ago but is now a four lane highway,” she says. As her path wound through acting, creating a jazz cabaret show, working in a folk rock group, and studying for a degree in the music business program at Belmont University, Young’s connection to her musical roots and her back to the land agricultural ones became stronger, but for a time she wasn’t able to find the right place for the music that was evolving from that.

“After graduating from Belmont, I worked temp jobs on Music Row for two years, worked for every company, and nobody would give me a break, and I could not save up the money to make a record. I was finally ready to leave Nashville,” she recalls. She e-mailed to a friend telling of this idea. “I was ready to throw in the towel,” Young said, “and he e-mailed back ‘You’ve got to plow to the end of the row, girl.’” That bit of down home advice gave Young a second wind toward her dreams. Though it wasn’t an always an easy path, she soon released her first record, with the title track, called Plow to the End of the Row, a celebration of that encouragement and of that constant renewal of faith needed in music, and in farming.

With that first recording, Young included a packet of seeds, and with her second, The Art Of Virtue, she focused on the theme of evaluation and personal responsibility, paying particular tribute to Revolutionary War era statesman Ben Franklin, and including copy of his rules of guidance for those things. With Room to Grow, she's in the planning stages for group of concerts that will also include an educational component, in co operation with the American Community Gardening Association and Food Routes, a group supporting family farms and the use of locally grown foodstuffs, for which Young is spokesperson. A portion of the proceeds of each CD also goes to the American Community Garden Foundation.

Young is as passionate about personal growth and reflection as she is about the world of farming. Struggles in her own life, and learning to view those and frame them new ways, is part of what shaped the music on Room to Grow. “We really do create our own reality,” she says, “and when we meet challenges head on, and place our full attention on them, we really open the doors for personal growth.”

Musicians from Duke Ellington to Barbra Streisand to the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Willie Nelson, as well as writers from Emerson to Norman Vincent Peale to Wendell Berry have left their mark on the course of her work, she says, but it is Young’s care and courage in evaluating change, and leaving space for her listener to do the same, which mark this project. “I thought, maybe what I am going through is maybe what everybody goes through,” Adrienne Young says. “ With this record I was trying to offer my personal experience as something I hope people could relate to, and find comfort for their struggles in the struggles that I try to articulate.”

-->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.

Adrienne Young & Be Wild Virginia

Adrienne Young is a singer and songwriter in the bluegrass old time country tradition, and a woman who believes deeply in the family farm, the sustaining nature of wild places, and the importance of personal responisbility. She'd rather open doors than preach about all this, which is what she often does through her music (her latest album is called Room to Grow), and it is also what she does in this video, which she did for bewildvirginia.org. There's a generous helping of music, some fine scenes of natural Virginia, and a bit about the organization in the seven minute plus piece.

Now playing: alison brown

Alison Brown

Stolen Moments

acoustic adventures from all points of the compass

Bluegrass, jazz, newgrass, Celtic , country: whatever she’s playing, Alison Brown shows a gift for melody, a gift most often expressed on the banjo.

She brings all those aspects of her searching music spirit together in the eleven tracks here.

Top cuts include Celtic tinged original instrumental “Carrowkeel,” Brown picking up her guitar to collaborate with John Doyle in supporting the graceful lead vocals of Andrea Zonn on the trad piece “One Morning in May.” Jimi Hendrix’ “Angel” with Beth Nielsen Chapman on lead vocals. The Indigo Girls, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kenny Malone and Stuart Duncan also sit in.

this is a post from the early days of Music Road at. Learn more about Alison Bown's work in these more recent stories

Alison Borwn: Song of the Banjo at Wandering Educators

The Company You Keep, another album from Alison

Alison is teaching banjo online at ArtistWorks...

-->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.

Another way to support: you could