Late Winter, Christmas, and Music

Late winter, leading up to Christmas, is a time that calls to flurries of activity and travel, preparation and celebration, even as it calls equally to reflection and quiet. Music, specifically of the season and otherwise, is always a good companion and a fine gateway to all these things. For a moment in the midst of hurry or for a longer time in the silence of night and morning, let the work of these musicians be you companion and guide.

Allow this music to renew your hope and peace and joy...

Wintersong, from New England based quartet Rani Arbo and daisy mayhem offers joy, sadness, reflection, exuberance, and good questions. All of this is framed in great harmony, fine lead singing, and top class playing on fiddle, bass, guitar, and percussion. There’s a lively treatment of Jesse Winchester’s Let’s Make a Baby King, a gospel infused spiritual from the African American tradition with Children Go Where I Send Thee. Christmas Bells finds guitarist Anand Nayak setting Longfellow’s words to a new, reflective melody. The four (Arbo on fiddle, Scott Kessel on percussion, Andrew Kinsey on bass, and Nayak on guitar; they all sing) interweave voices on a song Kinsey grew up with called Julian of Norwich. Arbo’s haunting lead well suits her original music framing words by Alfred Lord Tennyson in Ring Out Wild Bells. There’s a lifting of hope in the closing song, Singing in the Land. That’s just a hint of the music, which will make a fine companion for winter’s celebrations and questions.

The title of Heidi Talbot’s newest recording, Here We Go 1,2,3 suggests change. That is an idea that pulls through the songs, the ones she writes, and the ones she chooses from contemporary writers and from traditional sources. Talbot is Irish, living now in Scotland and married to fiddle player and composer John McCusker, who worked with her to produce this project. They’ve created a musical journey that references tradition and yet is contemporary. A clear eyed facing of shifting ground and a thread of resilience to learn from whatever comes are threads that pull through as well. These are stories, too, that leave any certain conclusion open to the hearer’s reflections. Talbot’s fine soprano and thoughtful phrasing illuminate these ideas in songs including the title track, Chelsea Piers, Song for Rose (will you remember me), and The Year That I Was Born.

...and if you happen to be looking for Christmas music, Talbot worked for some years with the band Cherish the Ladies. She is the voice on their fine seasonal album called On Christmas Night on songs including Silent NIght, The Holly and the Berry (all the women trade verses on this one), and The Castle of Dromore.

For her album Songs for Christmas, Emily Smith has chosen traditional and contemporary songs along with carols that have become favorites over the years as she done festive season concerts in her home region of Dumfries and Galloway in the southwest of Scotland. This year she’s expanded her holiday tour across Scotland, sharing such favorite carols as God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen and Silent Night along with the gentle contemporary piece Santa Will Find You, the American spiritual Heard from Heaven Today and the Scots song Christ Has My Hairt Aye. Her clear voice and thoughtful phrasing imbue the songs with holiday grace and make the collection work well together. Smith’s own songwriting shines too on Find Hope and on Winter Song.

This is Cara Dillon’s first year to offer a Christmas album. Her choices for the album, which is called Upon a Winter’s Night, are in keeping with the path she’s been following in her non seasonal work, With husband and musical partner Sam Lakeman, Dillon has created a seasonal outing that shares several original songs from the couple, a piece in Irish, a reach back in time to the twelfth century for the Wexford Carol and even further back for the Advent hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Dillon, who grew up in Northern Ireland, infuses the songs with a haunting grace and touches of Celtic connection along the way.

Carrie Newcomer’s recording The Beautiful Not Yet is not filled with carols -- it is not a seasonal album -- but the ideas of connection, of questions, of thoughtful reflection, and of staying in touch across time and miles work well with the holiday season. New comer has a gorgeous alto voice on which to tell the stories in this collection of original songs, too. It is an album that works well across the seasons -- as indeed all the recordings here do. During the winter holidays you might find Lean in Toward the Light, The Season Of Mercy, Sanctuary, and The Slender Thread especially worth hearing.

Bringing us back to Advent and Christmas, Matt and Shannon Heaton offer Fine Winter’s Night, which moves from contemplating how the cold dark skies of winter connect to warmth inside our homes and lives, to lively jigs and reels, both original and from Irish tradition. There’s a vignette of a Christmas love story set in Victorian era winter, and a story about a cat and Christmas, too, along with thoughtful presentations of carols including O Little Own of Bethlehem and It Came Upon the Midnight Clear. Shannon plays the flute, Matt plays the guitar, and they both sing, trading leads, joining in duets, and adding graceful harmonies as festive songs mix in with seasonal tunes.

Photograph at top by Jude Beck, other photographs by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see
Music for a Winter’s Day at Wandering Educators
Scotland, Christmas, and Music at Journey to Scotland
Music for the Heart of Winter: Cathie Ryan here at Music Road
Cherish the Ladies: storytellers in song: Christmas here at Music Road

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Ireland's music: Heidi Talbot

In Kildare, in Ireland, not so far outside Dublin, Heidi Talbot grew up in a family of nine kids. From her brothers and sisters she heard top chart hits of the day as much as she heard Mary Black and Maura O’Connell. That was a beginning of a love for songs of substance, songs of meaning, and songs which draw on tradition while speaking to present day which lasted from a start out singing in pubs through a number of years as lead singer with the top Irish American band Cherish the Ladies, and which Talbot carried over into her solo career as well. Her recording Angels Without Wings finds her exploring realms of her own songwriting as well as giving distinctive and well thought out interpretations of songs by musical friends.

With her voice and with her words, Talbot is a natural storyteller. On Angels Without Wings she offers stories of love gone right, and not so right, reflections, questions, a dash of humor and a lyrical look at life’s unfolding. The title track, which which written by Talbot’s frequent musical collaborator Boo Hewerdine and her husband John McCusker, is a a story of connection and hope told with both the lyrics and the singing leaving plenty of room for listeners’ own thoughts on hope and encounter. Will I Ever Get to Sleep? is a song anyone who has been around small children will get a laugh out of, as did Talbot, since she was writing the words while she and McCusker were driving back from a gig and Talbot was trying to feed their small daughter her lunch and keep her happy as things rolled along. My Sister the Moon is a lyrical, reflective poetic journey that is at once reassuring and questioning, while Dearest Johnny finds Talbot and McCusker reworking a traditional song to good effect.

It is Talbot's voice which centers the music here (if you do not know her sound, think Alison Krauss and Mary Black), but it’s delightful that she invited a number of musical friends along to the recording sessions in Glasgow. Several of them are folk you’ll have met here along the music road before. In addition to McCusker and Hewerdine, they include Tim O’Brien, Julie Fowlis, Karine Polwart, and King Creosote on backing vocals, James Mackintosh on percussion, Donald Shaw on accordion and piano, and Michael McGoldrick on whistles, flutes and pipes.

you may also wish to see
The Last Star: Heidi Talbot
Michael McGoldrick: Aurora

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Holiday gift list: music of Ireland

It is a season of gathering, of sharing, of giving and receiving gifts. It also a season of music, listened to, shared, performed, given and received. Ireland is a source and home of music, so Irish music always makes a fine gift. Ideas for your holiday gift list, to give or receive:

Masters of the Irish Harp is a collection of music ranging from the classical to the traditional, newly composed and from time honored sources, played on all sorts of harps by many of the best of Irish harpers. Siobhan Armstrong offers Da Mihi Manum/Give Me Your Hand, Grainne Hambly adds Geese in the Box, Laoise Kelly plays Lon Dubh, and Maire Ni Chathasaigh brings Reel for a Water Diviner. There are a dozen more equally varied tracks.

On her album Through Wind & Rain, Cathie Ryan tells stores of resilience, hope, and courage in word and melody and arrangement. In the songs she writes and those she searches out, she brings ideas of making it through hard times and being transformed and encouraged through the passage. Ryan has often been honored for the beauty of her voice. Through her singing and song choices she brings intelligence, grace, insight, and a dash of humour when it’s called for to songs including Mo Nion O, Fare Thee Well, Liberty’s Sweet Shore, and In the Wishing Well.

The fire and energy of Ireland's far northwest form bedrock of the music of the Donegal based band Altan. Marked by the graceful singing and high energy fiddle playing of Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh and the clear and connected ensemble work of Ciaran Ciaran, Ciaran Tourish, Mark Kelly, Dermot Byrne, and Daithi Sproule, their album The Poison Glen sees this world traveling band return to a strong focus on the music of their home place. Songs and tunes include Seolta Geala, The Ardara Girls set, The New Rigged Ship set, and The Blackest Crow.

Padraigin Ni Uallachain takes in inspiration for Songs of the Scribe from the side notes, the personal poems and reflections of those who created the illuminated manuscripts and writings of Irish history. the musings they wrote when they were taking a step away from their focused work on those books. Ni Uallachain has taken those musings and made them into songs, from The Hermit’s Wish of praising God to the reflection on nature in The Blackbird of Belfast Lough to the laughter one may share with a cat in Pangur Ban.

Roisin Elsafty takes her work from an older source, too: On her recording Ma Bhionn Tu Liom Bi Liom she offers songs in the sean nos style, where emotion and story depend on the singer's dynamics. She updates sean nos though by adding instrumentation, at times from the likes of Siobhan Armstrong, Ronan Browne, and Donal Lunny on songs inlcuding the lullabye Seoithin Seo and the love song Roisin Dubh

Heidi Talbot has a fresh way with older song too, interweaving older lyrics with newly devised melodies often as well as infusing newer songs with a touch of Irish tradition on The Last Star Music includes The Shepherd Lad and Cherokee Rose.

You have no need to be a dancer to appreciate Kathleen Conneely’s work on Coming of Spring. You can almost hear and see the dancers move, though, as she plays sets including Bonnie Ann, The Maid in the Meadow, and Rosemary Lane on the clear notes of her whistle.

As the winter holidays unfold, have a fine time exploring these gifts of music for others and for yourself, and stay tuned here along the Music Road for more suggestions for the holidays, and a list of best music of the year, too. Hint: several of the albums discussed above will be on that best of list.

photographs are by Kerry Dexter and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

you may also wish to see

Americana music: gift ideas and seasonal music

Song of Solstice: music for changing seasons

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Llistening to Christmas: Heidi Talbot, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Patty Larkin

Those who make music for a living enjoy listening to and making music at the holidays as well. It is a very musical season. Their listening choices are not always what you might expect, however.


Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh grew up in Ireland, in Dun Chaoin in the Dingle Peninsula. Though she’s taken her music to far flung places as lead singer with Danu and investigated musical connections with Scotland in a project with Scottish Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis. it’s to those times in west Kerry she returns when thinking of music for the holidays.

“To sing, I love our local Christmas songs like Oíche Nollaig, Coinnle an Linbh Íosa and the music of the "wren" that we play around that time of year, which is a fantastic custom.”

St. Stephen’s Day, also known as wren day from a custom called hunting the wren when people go from house to house with music at the holidays, is a big day for socializing in Ireland. The nature of things varies across the island, from all the eligible men in the town dressing up in funny hats and going door to door with tunes and songs, to harking back to customs of ancient days with musicians taking on costumes of legendary figures of all sorts as they go through the town. Nic Amhlaoibh points to this information on the wren in Dingle.

Nic Amhlaoibh's listening tastes range wide at the holidays. “I like to listen to The Monks of Glenstal who sing Gregorian Chant very beautifully, ” she says, “and last Christmas I really enjoyed Sting's album If On A Winter's Night.”

Patty Larkin, who comes from an Irish American family in Wisconsin, likes to fill her Cape Cod home with the sounds of Windham Hill’s Celtic Christmas albums at this time of year. “ That sound creates such a beautiful holiday atmosphere. It’s great in the background for parties, and to listen to on your own.”


Heidi Talbot grew up listening to Christmas songs in County Kildare, in Ireland. She spent a number of years in the United States, many of those as singer with the world renown band Cherish the Ladies. She lives now in Scotland, and a difference to her holidays this year has her thinking about holiday seasons this year and in future, as well. She says

“Every year Phil Cunningham plays shows in Edinburgh called Phil Cunningham's Christmas Songbook featuring Phil, Eddi Reader, John McCusker, and Karen Matheson. It's the perfect way to get yourself in the mood for Christmas. Last year I joined them and sang O Holy Night - one of my favourite Christmas songs to sing.

This year I'm really looking forward to being part of Brian O'Donovan's Christmas Celtic Sojourn along with Seamus Egan, Catriona MacKay, Chris Stout and lots of other fantastic musicians.

I love to sing all the traditional Christmas carols but if I had to pick a favourite Christmas track to listen to it would be Otis Redding singing White Christmas, his voice breaks my heart.

This Christmas will be our first with our daughter Molly Mae, and while she's only seven months old, I'm really looking forward to teaching her all the Christmas carols I know for many Christmases to come.”

you may also wish to
read what Aoife Clancy, Tommy Sands, and Matt Heaton have to say about choices for Christmas listening

hear Heidi Talbot sing O Holy Night and other Christmas songs with Cherish the Ladies on their album On Christmas Night

and you may also wish to see

Music Road: trilogy: 2000 Years of Christmas
Music Road: Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

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Best Music, 2010

Music at its best is conversation, ideas, creation, connection...not to mention melody, rhythm, harmony, poetry, and life. The best music is both timeless and immediately relevant, as well. That last is but one of the reasons that choosing best of year recordings is a good challenge.

Ten of the best, below. Follow the links for longer reviews and links to places where you’ll be able to hear bits of the music.


Shannon Heaton: The Blue Dress Heaton is an award winning singer, songwriter, and composer who most often appears in a duo with her husband Matt and in the four person band Long Time Courting. For this project, however, she focuses on the music she makes with her flute. Lively, entertaining, thoughtful, original, traditional -- all those words apply.

Carrie Newcomer: Before & After Turning points and moments of change are the ideas which songwriter Carrie Newcomer considers through her music here. A turn of light, a stone in a river, a word spoken or unspoken -- and a gaggle of geese, too. A gorgeous voice and a gift for melody as well as a storyteller’s heart, all present here.

The Clancy Legacy Donal Clancy, Aoife Clancy, and Robbie O’Connell are al musicians with their own fine solo careers. They are also cousins, the next generation on from The Clancy Brothers, whose work brought Irish music back to the world stage. Songs and tunes presented with individuality and connection both, a bit like a fine session around the fireside with three really talented friends.

Altan: 25th Anniversary Collection Altan have been bringing the distinctive music of Donegal, in the far northwest of Ireland, across the world for more than two decades with fire, grace and intelligence. To celebrate, they made new recordings of old favorites with a pretty good backing band: the RTE Orchestra. A challenge, and one has to think, a lot of fun for both classical and trad players on those sessions. The result serves both well and makes for a very fine way to celebrate

Karan Casey & John Doyle: Exiles Return A really creative selection of songs, most to do with emigration and immigration of varied sorts. two fine voices. guitar work and arrangements well framing the songs while making trad seem as fresh as today -- which, of course, it is.

Heidi Talbot: The Last Star Heidi Talbot proves herself a master of finding ways to sing songs from the tradition that set them right into the lives of twenty first centuy listeners. No bells and whistles (well okay, maybe whistles of the trad sort), just straight up thoughtful and beautiful singing, lively melodies and arrangements, and a fine original from Talbot on the title song, as well.

Patty Larkin: 25 To mark her twenty five years in music, singer and songwriter Patty Larkin asked twenty five musicians she’d worked with over the years to collaborate, each on a different song from across her musical history. Songwriters, writers, thinkers -- you’re bound to learn something from this recording. As you will from all the recordings on this list, I think.

Michael McGoldrick: Aurora A journey through Celtic based territory of mind, heart, and soul led by McGoldrick’s flute.

Julie Fowlis: Uam Sea, lands, family, hardship, heartbreak, love, joy, laughter -- you’ll be able to hear them all in the songs Julie Fowlis sings, whether or not you understand Scottish Gaelic, which is the language in which she sings them. Uam was released in the UK last year, but in honor of its release in the US, it fits in this list as well.

Old Blind Dogs: Scotland Yet Music of Scotland that is both vintage and new, along with a take on the American folk song Copper Kettle which makes it sound as though it could have come straight from the highlands, some inspired piping and composing from newest Dog Ali Hutton, and a sparkling tune from Mattheu Watson, a musician you also met along the music road.

Lissa Schneckenburger: Dance You may get up and dance to Schneckenburger’s New England fiddle tunes, or you may choose to listen. Do both. You’ll be well rewarded.

Robin Spielberg: Sea to Shining Sea New perspectives on familiar music from the American song book from pianist Robin Spielberg. Chances are you’ll enjoy her instrumental versions of Aura Lee, Danny Boy, Sweet Betsy from Pike, and a a basketful more. There are several well chosen originals as well.



you may also wish to see
Music Road: Best Music, 2009
Music Road: holiday gift list: Irish music
Music Road: holiday gift list: American harvest

Irish music recommendations

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If you'd like to support my creative work at Music Road,
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.

The Last Star: Heidi Talbot

There are several quite lovely threads that weave through Heidi Talbot’s recording The Last Star. Talbot’s voice and her gifts as a musical storyteller form a bright skein bringing together songs from past and present, tales of humor and sorrow, and characters foolish and wise.

Each of those characters is somehow involved with love: that’s another thread. It might be of the rambling and funny sort, in the song Bleecker Street, for example, or a traditional tale that starts out one way and ends in quite another, in Willie Taylor. On the other hand, it could be a tale of love, loss, family, and change, as in Cherokee Rose, or a quiet bit of reflection as in The Last Star.

Another bit of the tapestry Talbot offers is the fine arrangements and excellent support from backing players including Kris Drever, John McCusker (who produced the album), Eddi Reader, Michael McGoldrick, and Karine Polwart. There’s no doubt that Talbot can well center a project which includes such a range of top notch musicians; there is equally no doubt that they bring out fine talents to support her, offering contributions which reveal more with each listening.

As does the whole album itself. Talbot, who spent five years as lead singer with the top Irish American band Cherish the Ladies, has been building her solo career for some while now -- this is her third solo disc -- and with each project she becomes at once more adventurous and at the same time more focused in her song choices and in her way of singing them. This time, these choices have led her to a strong helping of music from the tradition, as well as several well chosen contemporary songs. The centerpiece of the album, both musically and emotionally, could well be the title track, The Last Star, which is a thoughtful, mature reflection on some the harder lessons of love and change. Talbot wrote this one herself, and the very spare arrangement fits the quiet mood of the song exactly. Another stand out, on the quieter side of things, is Scottish songwriter Karine Polwart’s Start it Over Again. If you are looking for a lively bit of style that’ll have you singing along, Talbot weaves the sea chanty Sally Brown into the mix, and you can waltz along to Tell Me Truly, which is one of those songs which contrasts sad lyrics with happy melody.

The Last Star is a fine recording altogether, one which leaves you feeling as though you’ve just had an interesting, at times funny, at times thoughtful, always engaging conversation with a friend, a conversation to which you will choose to return again.

Talbot, who is from Ireland, is based these days in Edinburgh. She tours often in the UK and Ireland, and in December she and McCusker will be appearing at several concerts in New England as part of the Christmas Celtic Sojourn program. If you should have the chance to see them live take it. You’ll be well rewarded.



you may also wish to see
Music Road: heidi talbot: in love+light
Music Road: Voices: Cherish the Ladies
Music Road: Julie Fowlis:Uam

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Michael McGoldrick: Aurora

Michael McGoldrick becomes a bit of a pied piper on his recording Aurora, leading with his his wooden flute and uillean pipes a journey which is grounded in Irish tradition and travels out into jazz, Americana, African rhythms, and touches other Celtic lands as well as Ireland. Much of the music is original, with a few well chosen bits of trad and contemporary work. More so that in his recent solo outings, the Irish strand of things is very central to the sound. This is music which fits in with that tradition and is at the same time of the present day.

The whole album -- a dozen sets -- unfolds with a sense of journey and travel, one which is open enough for listeners to map their own roads with it. Freefalling is the name of the opening set, and the first tune on it is named You Go First, which, McGoldrick writes in the notes, was inspired by doing a bunjee jump in New Zealand. The Late Nights at the Central set had its start in a different if equally energetic place, late night sessions on the Old Central Hotel in Glasgow during the Celtic Connections Festival. There are very fine quieter tunes, as well, among them Anam Cara and the traditional The Stone of Destiny.

The Corrieveckan set, from Donald Shaw, who produced this album and with whom McGoldrick plays in the Scotland based band Capercaillie, is one of the contemporary covers. as is Waterbound, by American Dirk Powell. McGoldrick sings on Waterbound, in a sandpaper and silk pairing with guest vocalist Heidi Talbot and with a fine turn on the fiddle from John McCusker. Others supporting McGoldrick here include longtime musical friends Dezi Donnelly and John Joe Kelly along with Anna Massie, Signy Jakobsdottir, Dermot Byrne and others.

McGoldrick himself is in demand as a guest artist, having worked on recordings by Youssou N’Dour, Kate Rusby, Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh, Karan Casey, and Cathie Ryan among others. His contributions to their projects are always worth hearing.

As Michael McGoldrick plays own music out front on Aurora, though, it sounds as though he is taking a journey -- and as though he’s coming home.


You may also wish to explore
Music Road: Music for St Andrew's Day: music of Scotland

Music Road: Lovers' Well: Matt & Shannon Heaton

Music Road: music and change

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Perthshire Amber in the highlands of Scotland, and online

Perthshire Amber is the evocative name of a festival of music that begins on 30 October this year, and runs for ten days. Dougie MacLean, from Dunkeld in the heart of highland Perthshire, started the festival as a day long one off event several years ago. MacLean is a master composer, songwriter, and player, with musical friends the world over, so that idea soon became a festival. This year, performers will include Irish born singer Heidi Talbot, Scottish star Eddi Reader, the always lively band Malinky, highland fiddler and composer Duncan Chisholm, and many others. Venues will include a cathedral, a castle, a crannog -- and your computer. For the first time, this year the festival is offering live streaming of concerts as well as on demand interviews and other video features, for a one off fee which will allow a month's access to all the material. Dougie MacLean is an internationally renowned songwriter, who began his career with the traditional band The Tannahill Weavers and soon set out on solo work. He is composer of the song Caledonia, which has become the unofficial anthem of Scots everywhere and was used in the advertisement promoting Homecoming Scotland this year. Its lyrics have even found their way on to T-shirts and whisky bottles. MacLean’s music was also used in the film The Last of the Mohicans, and he has an extensive catalog of songs. In fact, that’s one of the reasons the whole thing got started. “There are many of my songs that I don’t get to play often, when I only have two hours at a concert,” he says. This year he’ll be appearing across the ten days. The Festival kicks off with Dougie and Eddie Reader at Pitlochry Festival Theatre and finishes with a gala concert at Perth Concert Hall. “We are delighted with this year’s line up for what looks to be the biggest and best Perthshire Amber yet.” MacLean says. “Our biggest step is that we are going to hold a major concert in Perth for the first time. The Caledonia Concert will feature wonderful musicians from five different countries who I have had a connection with over the years. I have been lucky enough to have had my songs recorded by some amazing artists and friends. The Caledonia Concert will feature some of these musicians. “Perthshire Amber 2009 is one of the featured Homecoming Scotland events and the Caledonia Concert will be our key Homecoming contribution. I’m really looking forward to our Perth Concert Hall festival finale! “I’m also looking forward to playing the Indigenous album live for the first time,” he continued. ”Our live versions of The Search in the past two years have been real Festival highlights.” Frances Black and the band Beoga are two who’ll bring an Irish touch to the festival, as will Kildare born Heidi Talbot, now based in Edinburgh. Talbot is known for her stint as lead singer with the top traditional band Cherish the Ladies, and she’s recently been backing up Eddi Reader on tour as well as selling out her own concerts in her native country. She’ll be giving a concert at the castle at Blair Atholl. It’s Talbot’s first time at Perthshire Amber. “I'm really looking forward to the festival. I'm a huge Dougie MacLean fan and I'm really chuffed to be a part of his festival. It's being held in a gorgeous part of the country too. I can't wait!” she says. There will also be a musical bus tour of highland Perthshire featuring stories and songs from the always engaging Doris Rougvie, as well as workshops, talks, and sessions across the ten days. Festival goers will have a chance to give back, as well, by joining in Amber Harvest through bringing canned and boxed foodstuffs to be given to groups which aid Scotland’s homeless and others needing assistance, and by bidding on a blanket - possibly more than one -- that knitters around the world have contributed to in a project called The Big Knit. The proceeds of the blanket auction will also go to help those needing food and shelter. you may also wish to see the festival web site Perthshire Amber Live! where you may learn about how to sign up for online viewing of the festival Music Road: heidi talbot: in love +light Homecoming Scotland: Caledonia Music Road: Eddi Reader, Emily Smith, Robert Burns Music Road: season of change: music for autumn where you may learn about recent music from Doris Rougvie, Duncan Chisholm, and others

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heidi talbot: cathedrals

Heidi Talbot is working on her solo career after a stint as lead singer with the well known band Cherish the Ladies. Just now she's on tour opening for Scottish singer Eddi Reader, and singing backup with Eddi as well. Soon we'll have an interview with Heidi here at Music Road. Meanwhile, give a listen she sings one of her favorite songs, Cathedrals.





you may also want to see
heidi talbot: in love light

Voices: Cherish the Ladies
intersections: words, music, and Robert Burns -- and Eddi Reader

Cherish the Ladies: On Christmas Night

On Christmas Night
Lively yet relaxed, warm and inviting, song and tunes, of the winter season a specifically of Christmas -- all those elements combine to make On Christmas Night a lovely, welcoming part of the holiday season.

Heidi Talbot is the lead singer for this version of Cherish the Ladies, and she does a stand out on pop chestnuts such a Little Drummer Boy, carols such as The Holly and the Berry, and lesser known songs including The Castle of Dromore. These songs are layered and woven with tunes which range from lively jigs to quiet instrumental renditions of familiar melodies such as Hark the Herald Angles Sing. There are ten sest on the recording, opening with the song On Christmas Night paired with the O’Carolan tune Charles O’ Conor and ending with a set that begins with O Little Town of Bethlehem and takes off into The Kerry Reel and Limestone Rock.

As always. band leader Joanie Madden’s work on flutes provides a running line of brightness through the music, and she adds backup vocals and button accordion here too. Donna Long joins in on fiddle and piano, Mary Coogan plays guitar, banjo, and mandolin, Marie Reilly plays fiddle, viola , and concertina, and Talbot plays bodhran in addition handling the lead singer’s place. The project was mostly recorded at the music room in Madden’s house in Yonkers, New York, and retain a bit of that feeling of musical friend sharing an evening os seasonal tunes and songs.

you may also like

Music Road: Voices: Cherish the Ladies

Music Road: heidi talbot: in love+ light

Music Road: now playing: Best of Celtic Christmas

by Kerry Dexter

heidi talbot: in love + light

In Love + Light.

 

Songs that she could sing with conviction, stories that she really wanted to share with her audiences, and ones that she could live with and work with over time: these were things that Heidi Talbot took into consideration while working on her solo album, In Love + Light. She had another consideration in mind, too: though she’d had an enjoyable career as lead singer with the the internationally renown band Cherish the ladies, she knew it was becoming time to strike out on her her own. With the dozen songs on In Love + Light, Talbot draws together the threads of her career to the present moment, and builds a song case for transition into a flourishing solo act.

Those musical threads Talbot waves into the tapestry hear include a Tom Waits song, one from Boo Hewerdine and Eddi Reader, a traditional Scottish song, and one from Appalachia. What ties them all together is the quality of Talbot’s singing, in a soprano that is at once light, expressive, and conversational, and the quality of the songs she’s chosen. They are all real stories. fiction or true, poetic or down to earth, they’re filled with emotion, connection, and interest that lives on be on beyond the end of the song. Some, like Cathedrals, might raise more questions than they answer, while others, such as Everything or The Music Tree, are filled with hope and celebration. It’s a fine journey that talbot leads, one well worth taking along with her. Hewerdine produced the project and sits in on most tracks. There’s a duet with Orcadian singer Kris Drever on The Blackest Crow. Donald Shaw, John McCusker, and John Doyle are among others who back up Talbot through the project.

Here's a bit of video of Talbot singing one of the songs she's recorded on the album, with Kris Dever on guitar, John McCusker on concertina and fiddle.
The song is called Bedlam Boys.


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Voices: Cherish the Ladies

“This music is the real deal. Really, it’s just amazing where it’s taken us." That’s whistle and flute player Joanie Madden talking, and she’s speaking about Irish traditional music and the group Cherish the Ladies, the internationally renown band which is now going on more than twenty years bringing Celtic music and dance to audiences around the world.

“At first, it was just meant to be a couple of concerts of Irish women in music, just in New York City, “ said Madden, who was asked to host those 1983 shows by Mick Moloney, musician and scholar of Irish culture who’d been impressed by the somewhat underground and under appreciated status of top Irish women musicians and their contributions to the music. “I really didn’t think anybody would come,” Madden said, “but they sold out, and hundreds were turned away.” Madden, who is at far left in group photo above, and guitarist Mary Coogan, at far right, are the two who remain from the touring group which evolved. At first, there were several short runs funded by grant money but when word came that those funds were no longer available, the women decided to go it on their own and see if they could make livings with their music. They did, though it wasn’t an easy life. “I wish we’d had computers back then. I was on the phone all the time!” said Madden, who booked the gigs -- which meant finding venues and selling promoters on the idea. “At first, people thought we were some kind of band put together for novelty,” she said, and in Ireland it was even more discouraging. “ ‘You’re Americans, how good could you be?’ “ Madden recalled people saying.

Quite good, as it happened. The first touring band had several all Ireland instrumental champions, including Madden and fiddler Eileen Ivers, as well others equally talented, including singer Cathie Ryan, in the photograph at center above, who would later on in her career be recognized for the quality of her singing and songwriting by The Boston Globe, Billboard, The Wall Street Journal, The Irish Times, and others. At the time, though, it was a group of daughters of Irish immigrants making their way in the world of music much as their parents had made their way in a strange new geographical country. They toured constantly, building a stellar reputation and silencing the early critics by engaging stage presence and powerful musicianship. “We had to keep going, though, touring all the time, because the fees just weren’t there,” Madden recalled. “We’d be on the road two hundred to two hundred fifty dates a year.”

Over the years Cherish the Ladies (the band takes its name from an old Irish jig) has seen the contributions of a number of world class musicians, including Solas founder Winifred Horan, shown above on right, a fiddler whose background includes classical and folk experiences, singer and guitarist Aoife Clancy, at left, who has built a strong solo career and identity while carrying on her well known family name; Ryan, who continues to win world class recognition for her singing and song writing in the US and Europe; and Riverdance fiddler and Immigrant Soul band leader Eileen Ivers. The current ensemble, in addition to Madden and Coogan, includes Heidi Talbot on vocals and bodhran, Roisin Dillon on fiddle, and Mirella Murray on accordion. “People come and stay for five years, or eight, or ten, and I hate it when anybody leaves,” Madden said, “ but it’s inevitable with a band, especially with one going this long. People have their own careers to pursue, and when you’re in a band you are restricted from that. But I’ve always managed to find great women to replace the great women who’ve gone. Right now we’re making great music. I think it’s some of the best we’ve ever made.”

They still tour quite a bit too, though these days the gigs might as likely be arts centers and symphony halls as school rooms and small clubs. Recently, the current group headlined at the Milwaukee Irish Festival. where they met up with old friends Clancy, Ryan, and others, and shared a reunion concert one rainy afternoon.

“We plan on doing this band and this music for a long, long time, “ Madden reflected, “to be true to it, to be good to it, and hopefully leave the music off in a better place than where we started.”

Cherish the Ladies most recent album is Woman of the House

and their first one is

The Back Door

a bit of video from youtube of that rainy reunion concert in Milwaukee: The Parting Glass

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