Tradition with edge: music from Leahy, Karan Casey, and Project Smok

Tradition and heritage: sources of ideas, inspiration, and challenges for musicians. There are as many ways to respond to tradition as there are artists who draw on it in their work. In albums from Canadian musicians Leahy, Irish singer Karan Casey, and the trio Project Smok from Scotland, there are varied ways of working within, without, and at the edges of tradition to explore.

Leahy is a family band from Lakefield in Ontario. They’ve roots in the traditions of Ireland and Cape Breton as well as the varied musics that make up the sounds of Ontario. There are performing roots, too: the eleven siblings of the Leahy family grew up playing music at home, and performing across Canada and winning Juno awards in the process. Members of the band have come and gone and returned since they first became nationally known in the 1990s; for the album Good Water seven family members join in.

Join in they do, and add new dimensions to Leahy’s music as they do. Though you will hear influences of Celtic and folk in the music they offer on their album Good Water, you will also find rock, pop, and progressive influences . It’s a well and thoughtfully done collection of original music; the songs have lyrics of substance and the two instrumentals offer thought provoking ideas, too. The members of Leahy can play and sing, each often taking more than one role. For their main presences on Good Water, Denise and Julie Frances often take the lead vocalist spot; Siobheann on bass and Frank on drums hold down the steady beat of rhythm; Maria brings in guitar and mandolin; Xavier adds accordion; Erin brings in keyboards and fiddle. Guest artists add edge with electric instruments, strings, and horns.

There is edge, certainly, but edge that serves to define the strong musical, lyrical, and creative foundation of the recording. You just might hear echoes of the energy and creative risk taking that infused Call to Dance, the music which first brought Leahy to topping the charts and touring with Shania Twain in the 1990s. You may hear them going in directions you’d not expect from Leahy, perhaps, but directions full of quality and imagination nonetheless. Listen out especially for the uplifting message and fine harmonies and playing on the title track, Good Water; heartfelt singing from Julie Frances on Friend; and class playing from Erin and Xavier on the instrumental Little Moon.

Karan Casey knows about differing ways of looking at tradition and influence in her music, too. She’s been doing that since her days as a founding member of the groundbreaking Irish American band Solas and for more than two decades of solo and collaborative recording projects. In her album Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale Casey continues to expand her vision and her choices. There are songs by Americana and folk tunesmiths including Eliza Gilkyson, Janis Ian (from whose lyrics the title of the album comes), Bob Dylan, and Patti Griffin, along with a pair of traditional songs and from Casey’s own writing a song about a little known aspect of Ireland’s 1916 Easter Rising.

Casey has a lovely voice and knows well how to use it; great musical intelligence is one of the hallmarks of her singing as well as her song choice and her songwriting. From from the low key beginning of Hollis Brown to its intense ending, she illuminates the emotions of the hard told story. That she follows it with the quiet intensity of Down in the Glen, that song about the Rising, serves to make the latter that much more powerful. Sixteen Come Next Sunday is Casey’s take on music and lyrics from the tradition, respecting each of those in her own ways.

“I don’t get into the whole ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ question,” Casey told Sean Smith of the Boston Irish Reporter. “For me, the criteria is, ‘Is it a good song?’ We’re always looking for stories that are sung well and delivered with meaning, and that’s what’s most important. It really has always been about the song, and the story...Your creative center has to be genuine. You have to really want to sing that song.”

Every song on Hieroglyphs is a keeper. It is a well sequenced project too. Donald Shaw produced it. Casey is also supported by long time musical collaborators Sean Óg Graham and Niamh Dunne, Kate Ellis, and Niall Vallely, as well as guest artists including Karen Matheson and Maura O’Connell.

The three men who make up Scotland’s trio Project Smok -- Pablo Lafuente on guitars, Ewan Baird on bodhran, and Ali Levack on whistles and pipes -- are mixing tradition and invention in their work as well. On their debut recording Bayview and at their high energy live gigs (including a memorable one at Celtic Connections 2021 online) it’s clear that these three know how to play, and how to play together.

They had the opportunity to record in Helmsdale in Scotland’s northeast, at the studio of well known punk rock musician and producer Edwyn Collins. That’s a studio equipped with vintage microphones and a classic Neve mixing desk. The band knew this would fit with their plan to record an album which respected tradition while being forward looking.

“Experimenting with vintage and analogue equipment, using the best instruments available, gave us an even greater opportunity to fuse contemporary and traditional sounds to produce something really authentic, which sounds close to the source,” said Levack.

Close to the source indeed: all the tunes on Bayview have some connection with place, including Clashnarrow, which is named after the studio in which they recored, Woodlands Drive, from the place where Levack lives in Glasgow, Viewbank from Pablo’s studio in Airdrie, and Airsaig, a west coast place important to all three band members. It’s a sparkling collection of music, which does well fit the band’s intentions of being connected to tradition while adding in new strands.

Bayview is a mostly instrumental album, but a stripped back version of A Girl Like You, the 19190s hit from Collins, finds him joining in as the band play back up on the classic. A meditative track, Ceitidh’s, finds John Mulhearn, Rona Lightfoot, and Megan Henderson adding a touch of voices to the track. Charlie Stewart on bass and James D Mackenzie on flutes also add to that track, while MIke Vass, Moshen Amiini, and Greg Barry are among those who also sit it. The focus is on the sound the trio, though, and a lively and well thought out debut it is, co-produced by the trio along with MIke Vass.

Leahy with Good Water. Karan Casey with Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale, and the men of Project Smok with Bayview: all the musicians have clear eyed and creative approaches to ways to take sound and spirit of traditional music forward. Give listen for what discoveries await.

You may also wish to see
One, duo album from Donnell Leahy and Natalie MacMaster
Leahy Live in Gatineau dvd, an earlier version of the Leahy ensemble, some the same as on Good Water, and some different. Step dancing too.
Ships in the Forest from Karan Casey
Meet more musicians from Scotland in my story at Perceptive Travel 7 Ways to Explore Scotland through Music

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Photographs of Leahy and Project Smok courtesy of the artists; photograph of Karan Casey at Celtic Connections by Kerry Dexter, made with permission.

Music in times of change: The Point of Arrival from Carrie Newcomer

Endings and beginnings, change, balance -- or not --- of faith with uncertainty, ways all these things connect and intertwine: those are some of the threads which run through the songs Carrie Newcomer offers on her album The Point of Arrival.

Newcomer always looks for the story behind the story Through the music on each of her more than a dozen albums she has traced varying ways and times and places of finding the deeper tale, as she often names it, the sacred in the ordinary.

She does this with poetry and melody, with music that crosses between and braids folk and Americana told in a lovely alto voice with storyteller’s phrasing.

Newcomer’s considerations, both lyrically and in arrangement, are as likely to include dark as light. They are also more likely to ask and invite questions than to offer answers.

Dashes of humour and language which illuminates ideas in unexpected ways thread through the lyrics and music, too.

Learning to Sit With Not Knowing brings in the challenging aspects of doing just that, sitting with the uncertainty, the questioning, the waiting, which may make way for and blend into possibilities of hope and healing..

It is a constant in Newcomer’s writing that she says a lot by saying little. Often, she begins by working on ideas through writing a story, a poem, an essay, sometimes more than one, to have, as she describes it, a lot of language in hand. Language and idea meet as Newcomer distills them together into song..

Though her songs vary in subject and in sound, she’s been working on that aspect of her art across her career. At present that spans seventeen albums, as well as a respected presence as a spiritual thinker, and a collaboration with writer and teacher Parker J. Palmer on live presentations, a newsletter, and a podcast.

What sets her off exploring idea and language varies. Nature and landscape in their many aspects are constants. Newcomer is a native of Indiana. She continues to be based there, and draws directly and indirectly on ideas she comes in walks in Indiana woods near her home.

Snippets of conversation, or bits of things she’s read also spark ideas for her writing. Newcomer is a visual thinker, as well -- she has a degree in art -- so it’s natural that how things look and ideas from things she’s seen inspire her words and music as well.

Her choices of melody and arrangement evolve and change, too. She’s as adept lyrically and melodically at a lively song such as Impossible Until It’s Not as she is at reflective pieces with a touch of classical influence such as The Plumb Line or The Brink of Everything.

of these aspects find place through the songs on The Point of Arrival, and naturally enough, several aspects often come together within one song.

You will discover your own favourites in the eleven songs Newcomer offers on The Point of Arrival. Within them and through the course of how they are sequenced, you will find stories of endings and beginnings, of grieving, loss, hope, and resilience.

In addition to the song named above, listen out for Writing a Better Story. The title alone suggests all sorts of stories to find within the song. The Shelter of the Sky brings in nature to frame thoughtful ideas, as does the title song, The Point of Arrival. It’s Always Love and The Plumb Line find poetic and quite different ways to tell of what lasts and what may change.

Newcomer begins her music on The Point of Arrival with a piece called Learning to Sit with Not Knowing and draws things to a close with a song called The Brink of Everything. Those two song titles, suggest a journey, as do the stories, music, and language they contain.

Thoughtful questions, creative language, ideas that may seem at once familiar and new: all of these are present in Newcomer’s music. All are well worth your discovering, and repeated listening.

You may also wish to see
Carrie Newcomer’s website
Music & Mystery: conversation with Carrie Newcomer continues.
Signposts:Music of Hope, at Wandering Educators, which includes video of The Plumb Line
Laws of Motion, from Karine Polwart

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If you enjoy what you are reading here, check out my newsletter at Substack for more stories about music, the people who make it and the places which inspire it.

While you are at Substack, Carrie Newcomer has a newsletter there too. It is called A Gathering of Spiris

The Lost Words: Spell Songs

Bluebell, snow hare, heather, owl, otter, acorn, conker, dandelion, kingfisher, wren...

Words contain images, history, stories. When words become names, that is even more so.

Artist Jackie Morris learned that a number of words were to be dropped from a popular children’s dictionary in the UK, where she lives. Most of those words had to do with nature and wilderness.

An award winning illustrator and author, Morris decided to create book with images from a selection of these words. She contacted well known nature writer Robert Macfarlane to see if he would write a forward to the book. He came back with another idea: what if he wrote spells, incantations so to speak, calling the words and what they named back to life -- back into imagination? Morris and Macfarlane created such a book, called The Lost Words.

The idea caught fire. Children and adults responded to the book. Two of those who were inspired were Adam and Caroline Slough of Folk by the Oak, who often commission music projects. The Lost Words: Spell Songs became their next endeavour.

Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever, Kerry Andrew, Rachel Newton, Beth Pos addressed and connected with nature, place, and wild lands in their work. Among them, their work has touched a range of genres, spanned a number of instruments, included Scots, Mandinka, and Gaelic languages. It seemed they would make fine collaborators to create music that would, in essence, sing these bits of nature back to life,

That is true. The work they created is called The Lost Words: Spell Songs.

Each artist brings a distinct physical voice as well and distinctive musical skills, points of view, and backgrounds to the work. After an initial meeting and a time of mulling over each on his or her own whilst involved in other projects, the eight gathered for a week of residency, a time of collaboration to write and record what became the fourteen tracks on Spell Songs.

As with the illustrations by Jackie Morris, there is both intricacy and directness in the music they have created.

As with the spells of Robert Macfarlane’s words, there is pattern and breaking of pattern.

With all these, there is mystery and clarity, discovery and recognition, sorrow and hope.

The music is grounded in Celtic tradition and draws in elements of many other traditions. Classical music and music of Seckou Keita’s Senegalese griot background are among those which appear. Gaelic song, which is very often grounded in place,is present, as is Scots tradition of rhythm in service of story come in; four of the artists, Polwart, Fowlis, Newton, and Drever, are from Scotland.

As to the lyrics, some come directly from Macfarlane’s writing, some use phrases or words from his work, some are inspired by what’s written rather than speaking directly from it. Some, too, draw inspiration from the art by Morris, or the interplay between art and words.

It’s a recording that bears listening far more than once. As with a kaleidoscope, different colours and patterns and intersections come to the fore with each listening, and different stories resonate and connect with each other as these change. Producer Andy Bell has woven sounds of the natural world in with a light touch, too.

There is Heartwood, with Karine Polwart taking the lead voice in the song of a tree speaking to those who would -- those who will -- cut it down. It’s not a plea so much as a a story, a request, a knowledge that both tree and cutter exist in a shared space of time.

Time is an element that threads through all the stories, in varying ways: the Kingfisher darts and flashes in and out of landscape as Julie Fowlis sings lead and others’ voices come in. Fowlis, who comes from the Western Isles, has long had interest in folklore of the seal people, so it’s right hat she also takes lead on the story of the Selkie as he goes through his own changes in time, place, and being, finding his home with his water borne kin. The Snow Hare’s life is embedded in and connected to the change of seasons, which are themselves changing with climate change, a story told in haunting unison singing by Polwart and Fowlis.

Sadness and hope are both present. In Little Astronaut Jim Molyneux seeks seeks solace in looking to hear agin the song of the wren, and in Bethany Porter’s graceful Charm On Goldfinch, there is the lively joy of present birdsong and questioning of what may come. With the story of Scatterseed, ‘fallen hero of the football field,’ Kris Drever frames the story of the lost names of the dandelion.

Mystical aspects of the Heron are illuminated in intertwining songlines by Rachel Newton and Seckou Keita; their harp and kora, respectively, twine as do their voices and languages. The Ghost Owl haunts in melody and sound. There’s a bright snap of humour in the story of Conker. Newton brings light and image to Macfarlane’s words with her take on Acorn. Fowlis and Keita connect languages in Papa Keyba, which takes inspiration from the ideas the book rather than drawing directly from its word and image.

Drawing the recording to a close is The Blessing. Images, ideas, and characters from the songs and the book make a story, a journey if you will. which includes bright flashes of hope and darker threads of sorrow, and perhaps, a hint of warning, too.

What, after all, would the woods and waters, birds and animals have to tell us about our times now? How would we speak in that conversation? Spell Songs may be that answer.

Good places to purchase Spell Songs and to find out more about the project are at the Lost Words site and at the Folk by the Oak shop. The music comes with a book, as well. Though I’ve heard the music in several contexts I’ve not had opportunity to see the book, but I understand it includes lyrics and further written material, as well as artwork Morris created during the residency that conneets musicians and their instruments with nature.

You will also find tour posters for sale with art work from Morris, as well as a no cost download on the project for educators. There’s also a fine gallery of photographs by Elly Lucas from the residency where the music was created and recorded, and from several of the live concerts which followed.

You may also want to know: word is that there will be a volume two of Spell Songs, perhaps to be released in the autumn.

--> Speaking of concerts, Folk by the Oak is taking their summer festival online this year. .The Spell Songs collaborative as well as several of the individual artists are set to take part. This all happens on 19 July, and there’s further information at the Folk by the Oak link in the sentence just above.

You may also wish to see
A story about Alterum from Julie Fowlis
A story about Laws of Motion from Karine Polwart
A story about another nature related recording: The Woods, from Hamish Napier
Journeys through Landscape in Music, part of the Music for Shifting Times series at Wandering Educators

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Music and Mystery: Conversation with Carrie Newcomer

“Writers have themes they return to -- I mean we write about all kinds of stuff, but there are things we return to, because they continue to fascinate.” Singer and songwriter Carrie Newcomer is talking about her recording A Permeable Life. “There are a couple of threads running through this album. The idea of finding something extraordinary in the ordinary, finding something sacred in the everyday and quotidian -- that’s a theme that has continued to call my attention personally and artistically, and that’s definitely present on this album.

“There’s the idea of presence, that we’re not encouraged in our culture to be present in our own lives, that we have to think about that and it’s a decision we have to make -- it’s very easy to be caught up in the current of our busy culture. We don’t want to get to the end of our day and say dang, I missed it. Those two threads will be familiar to those who know my work,” Newcomer says. “I think I have new ponderings on them and ways of looking at them, but those themes do continue to fascinate me.”

On A Permeable Life, you will meet a man who collects statues and a woman haunted by day to day aftermath tragedy, you’ll encounter the idea of loss as a threshold of change framed in a story hung on poetic images from the history of Newcomer’s native Indiana, you’ll consider the losses and gains of traveling and the ways we mark spiritual revelations and events, you’ll share share in an invitation to be very present in time and likely get singing along to an invitation to include people you hadn’t thought of in that circle of presence, you enter a kitchen where the work of putting up beans is going on, and you’ll join Newcomer as she takes a quiet drive along a snowy winter road with a revelation along the way.

Those are just hints of what happens as Newcomer, a storyteller and musician with a poet’s gift of insight and a gorgeous alto voice, invites you on the journey through these stories. Old friends and new musical collaborators join her voice and guitar with their contributions on keyboards, percussion, cello, and other acoustic sounds.

Working together, they all make space for the ideas, and for the listener. “There is less production on this album than on some of my others,” she says. “I wanted it to feel as though we were sitting across the kitchen table from each other, rather than me being up on a stage.”

That sort of across the kitchen table intimacy makes space for another idea that Newcomer sees running through the songs she’s written for A Permeable Life. “There’s the thread -- it may be a little more particular to this album -- of the idea of going through thresholds, that through out our lives we’re going to encounter thresholds where what is old is passed away, not that it was bad, it’s just done -- and that what’s new has not come into focus yet, so we stand at the threshold. It’s scary and it exciting but it’s pretty human.” It follows on with another idea that has run through many of Newcomer’s earlier songs, that of life not being so much about finding answers as it is about asking good questions.

The song Ten O’Clock Line is based on a bit of Indiana and Native American history, a treaty where territory was marked by a shadow which fell at ten o’clock on a certain day in September. From that idea Newcomer spins out poetic images of love and loss and of making space and of loss perhaps being meant to be something else

There’s a hole in the world
Maybe it’s only a space
For something that’s been waiting
Until I turned my face

she sings as part of the chorus of Ten O’Clock Line.

“The way I look at it, “ Newcomer says, “there’s always something mystical happening, even in the most practical situations. Ah, here’s a hole in my life-- or maybe it’s a space. What has been waiting to get my attention, to step into that space with me? Maybe there’s something that has been longing for my attention, tapping me on the shoulder -- at these thresholds, there is that question. There’s a lot of image to the song, shadow and light -- because at those moments there is goodness and light, there’s fear -- you’re dealing with a shift, sometimes a seismic shift -- and what do you do with it and how do you frame it?”

A journey of asking good questions indeed. Here at Music Road, there will be more of this conversation with Carrie Newcomer about the songs and stories and ideas of A Permeable Life.

In the meanwhile, you may wish to think about that idea of presence and you may also wish to see

Newcomer has published a book A Permeable Life: Poems & Essays More on that to come here in future as well.
Carrie Newcomer: Kindred Spirits
Carrie Newcomer: India to Indiana in song and image
At the turning of the year: music and change

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music of love

Love is the substance of all music, when you stop to think about it. Songs of love gone wrong and gone right in all sorts of ways, love for land, home, country, family, children, friends, love of tradition and family that keeps the music going on, and music that may not speak directly of these things but is brought into being by them. As I write this it is a time of year when love is celebrated especially. Here’s music to go along with celebrating all these sorts of love.

Romantic love is the substance of Someone Like You, sung by award winning country, folk, and Americana artist Emmylou Harris. A few of my favorite lines are
I never wasted a minute of my time
Every road I ever took led me to your side

Robert Burns, Scotland’s bard, wrote of aspects of love from romantic to bawdy to friendship. John Anderson My Jo finds the poet considering love that lasts across the years. Fellow Scot Eddi Reader does a fine and thoughtful job with it

Love between parents and children is the subject of December Child from Gretchen Peters and Mo Níon Ó from Cathie Ryan

Celebration of the many gifts of friendship is what Carrie Newcomer considers in The Gathering of Spirits
there’s a gathering of spirits
there’s a festival of friends
and we’ll take up where we left off
when we all meet again

Sharing love for land and home place is well told in At the Heart of It All from Capercaillie.
At the heart of it all
Is a calling to this land...

At times, love is shown with no words at at all. Molly Mason’s composition The Snowstorm is music of that sort I especially commend to you.

Blessing is a deep form of love, and so I will draw this to a close by suggesting that you take a listen to Cathie Ryan’s choice of a song of blessing, May the Road Rise to Meet You

Each of these artists well knows how to write and to interpret all sorts of love songs, so I commend to you the albums on which this music appears, and their other works, as well. At this season of love, also, I wish you love, joy, and peace -- and great music..

Did you notice the heart in the photograph? I saw it in the reflection whilst at a gig at the Piping Centre in Glasgow, Scotland. This photograph is copyrighted, and I thank you for respecting this.

you may also wish to see
music and mystery
Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain

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music and mystery

Does music matter in times like these?

Yes.
That’s a good part of the reason I started writing Music Road, and a good part of the reason I began walking the music road myself long years back. Music is a connector, a conversation, a way of thinking about the world, a source of inspiration and imagination, and of healing. It is also a way to think about the questions of life. It is a way to live the questions. It is a way to live in the mysteries.

If thinking about music this way is unfamiliar to you, I encourage you to look around through the nearly five years worth of posts here at Music Road, to read about the musicians and ideas I introduce you to, and to listen to the music. Take your time with all of that. You’re very welcome.

If you are concerned about this hurting world at this moment, I’d encourage you to visit the web sites of the Red Cross and the Mercy Corps. Their people -- and those of many other fine groups -- are doing work of healing across the world and quite likely not that far from you, as well.

Music to go along with these ideas, and to get you started on your explorations

Music Road: Carrie Newcomer: Before & After
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Songwriter
Music Road: music and hope: Derry
Music Road: Road Trip Music in Mississippi
Music Road: Julie Fowlis:Uam

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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

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Ireland and Scotland: a conversation on the harp

William Jackson and Grainne Hambly
Music from Ireland and Scotland


William Jackson is from Scotland. He’s worked with group Ossian, recorded several well received solo albums, and scored films.

Grainne Hambly is from Ireland. She too has several highly regarded solo albums to her credit, has played on the Irish Christmas in America tour with the band Teada, among other projects, and is in demand to teach at summer music schools.

You do not really need to consider their backgrounds to enjoy the music here, though. That’s one of the nice things about this recording: there’s more than enough going on to hold your interest if you’re well familiar with harps or with Celtic music, and it’s melodic and clear and intriguing enough to enjoy if you are not up on any of that.

The dozen tracks comprise reels, jigs and airs,. If you’re thinking stiff and formal harp music, this isn't that. It is a lively program of mainly traditional music that Jackson and Hambly present as fresh and engaging. The two each play the harp, and it’s good conversation they keep going there. Jackson adds in whistle, bouzouki, and laud (think lute), and Hambly brings in concertina. It’s good to just let the program play through as they’ve sequenced it, but especially worth noting are the Mull of the Mountains/Drummond Castle set and the Cam Ye By Atholl/Eliza Ross’s/A’Chubhag set.


you may also wish to see
Scotland on the harp: Corrina Hewat

winter meditation: Aine Minogue

Catriona McKay: Starfish

Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen

For Reasons Unseen

Hanneke Cassel talks about the world through her fiddle. As she’s grounded in Scottish style fiddle playing (she the former US champion in the style, among other things) that world often includes Scotland seen in various ways, from traditional tunes to her own new ones. There are some of each on this recording

Cassel is also a world traveler with her fiddle. In the past she’s written about the Red Sox and and rural Tennessee, as well as Ireland and pop movie heroes, all without saying a word, mind you. Here she offers, among other things, tunes for a friend’s wedding, a sister’s birthday, a lullaby, a tune called the The Goat Whisperer, and a tune and song learned on her travels in China. A mixed bag, sounds like, but what it actually sounds like is a lively story and an unfolding conversation where you’re eager to hear the next way things will turn.

If you’ve heard Cassel play in person, or listened to one of her earlier albums, you’ll know she offers a sure touch, vibrant energy, strong faith, and a sense of humor through her music, and if you’ve yet to make her acquaintance, this album is a fine place to begin. She’s just been on a trip to Kenya, where she shared tunes and songs with the people at One Home, Many Hopes. Tunes to come from that, as well, no doubt.

Meantime, every track on this recording is well worth more than one listen. Especially take note of Blackberry Festival Footrace, The Crane Estate, The Dusky Meadow set, and For Reasons Unseen/Rong Hua. Musicians sitting in with Cassel include Natalie Haas, Christopher Lewis, Alasdair Fraser, and Brittany Haas.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: voices: Hanneke Cassel

Music Road: Hanneke Cassel and Christopher Lewis: Calm the Raging Sea

Music Road: Cathie Ryan: the farthest wave

-->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.

Mary Black & Emmylou Harris on a hillside journey

The Appalachian mountains have always reminded me of the mountains in Donegal, and Derry, and Cooley, and those Irish hills have reminded me of Appalachian landscapes as well. Mary Black, from Ireland, and Emmylou Harris, from the United States, sing The Green Rolling Hills of West Virginia. Take a listen.






In a few weeks, the Great American Road Trip will get to West Virginia, where there will be more powerful music of the hills to share with you.

There's also more music ahead here along the music road, from Ireland, and from America, and from places where they intersect. Stay with us.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: Reflections with Mary Black
Music Road: now playing: Emmylou Harris: Songbird: disc three
Music Road: Altan: 25th Anniversary Collection
Music Road's Irish music store at Amazon

-->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.

Winter music: first week of January

In winter, time takes on its own character, differing from that it holds in other seasons. There's the quiet mediation of early morning, the energy of holiday streets and meetings, and the stillness of a candle's glow. The work of solitude, and the work of community.





music to go along with these ideas
Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton

Music Road: winter meditation: aine minogue

Music Road: Gretchen Peters: Northern Lights


























you may also want to see
Music Road: first week in advent

Music Road: 6 of the best Christmas Songs

-->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.

Caroline Herring: Golden Apples of the Sun

Golden Apples of the Sun


Listening to Caroline Herring’s latest album is a bit like having a good conversation with a friend, one that spins long into the night as you share stories, talk over old times, think about questions you’ve asked, questions you’ve answered, and those you still have, catch up up on what may be next, and encourage each other along the way.

There is a lot going on in this album, anchored musically by Herring’s natural storyteller’s voice and phrasing, and by sparse production featuring playing by just Herring and producer David Goodrich. The twelve tracks unfold a journey guided by Herrings questing and questioning spirit, something which will come as no surprise to those who have met Herring through her earlier albums Twilight, Wellspring, and Lantana. In the opening cut, Tales of the Islander, you meet the powerful presence of Gulf Coast artist Walter Anderson amidst memories of hurricanes, and in another Herring original, Abuelita, there’s a grandmother who might be yours, might be mine, or might be the woman by the road whose glance holds many stories.

True Colors, which was made popular by rocker Cindy Lauper, is stripped down and reimagined in Herring’s version and emerges as a country tinged love song -- or maybe a gospel one. Either way, it works as true to the essence of the song. So does her take on Long Black Veil, which actually is a contemporary country song although it’s often taken for an ancient folk ballad. She puts her own stamp on the blues song See See Rider, too, subtly recasting it as a song of freedom rather than one of escape.

A Little Bit of Mercy, another one of the originals, offers the chance and invitation to forgive, both one’s own self, and others. Song of the Wandering Aengus, from which the tile comes, is a WB Yeats poem set to music. It’s been recorded before, too, but again Herring is unafraid to strike her own balance with the ideas of the song and add to the understanding of it. The Wild Rose is a mosaic of sorts, with pieces from Herring, Neruda, and Berry, all working together to make a pattern where the ideas turn and dance with each other. It's a song that bears repeated listening.

As does the whole album. There are more facets to this gem each time around.


photograph of Caroline Herring at Celtic Connections Festival, copyright Kerry Dexter

you may also want to see

Music Road: ten songs

caroline herring: lantana

Wilderness Plots: the dvd

Tish Hinojosa: Our Little Planet

-->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.

Photographing music, again

Continuing on the exploration of music into images. Listen for the music in the silence.

Photographs from gigs in Glasgow, Cambridge, Austin, Nashville.



































check out other photo blogs at Delicious Baby's Photo Friday


you may also want to see

Music Road: ceol chairlinn: sharing music in winter

Music Road: Celtic Connections 2009: images, continued

-->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.