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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Scotland's music: Emily Smith: Echoes

A meeting with an old friend that might go wrong but in the end goes right, reflections on a seafaring life and a ship put at anchor, a disagreement between two sisters with an unexpected ending, a refection on seed time and harvest, and another on journeys: these are but several of the stories Emily Smith tells through the songs in her recording Echoes.

Many are told in songs arising from traditions of Scotland, framed in arrangements by Smith. A gifted songwriter herself, she well knows how to arrange music in service of story, and how to connect with tradition while keeping music and story fresh. Those are gifts which come through in her clear and expressive singing as well.

That tale of a meeting that seemed to go wrong and then right is one such song from tradition. It is called Reres Hill. Smith also turns to the tradition of Scotland for The Hawk and The Crow. In rather different ways each song holds a touch of wry humour, which Smith conveys with a light touch.

King Orfeo taps the mystical aspect of tradition and legend with several threads of good story in it. Smith tells this tale from Shetland with clarity and good energy that well suits the tale, it path, and its outcome. That’s also true with her take on the gentle, bittersweet classic My Darling Boy.

The Sower’s Song has words by poet Thomas Carlyle set to music composed by Smith and her musical partner and husband Jamie McClennan. Carlyle, a 19th century writer, came from Dumfries and Galloway, which is also Smith’s native place It is a reflective story of the turns of time as framed in seed time and harvest.

Now hands to seed sheet boys
We step and we cast, old Time’s on wing
Partake of harvest joys
The seed we sow in spring

Smith has chosen work from contemporary songwriters for Echoes as well. Among these are reflections on change told through a seaman’s work in The Final Trawl, written by acclaimed Scottish songwriter Archie Fisher. The Open Door by Americana songwriter Darrell Scott has to do with change too: in the space of three short verses he creates a lasting story which Smith conveys with thoughtful understatement.

It is indeed an interesting, creative and thoughtful journey Smith leads through the music she’s chosen for Echoes. In this she’s well supported by frequent collaborators McClennan, who produced the project and joins in on fiddle guitar, and backing vocals, Mattheu Watson on guitars, Signy Jakobsdottir on percussion, and Ross Hamilton on bass. Special guests sit in as well from time to time, including Jerry Douglas, Tim Edey, Aoife O’Donovan, Rory Butler, Natalie Haas, and Kris Drever.

Following on the idea of journeys and echoes which thread through the music, Smith and McClennan have chosen the song John O’Dreams to draw things together for a quiet close.

Echoes is an album which offers enjoyment, inspiration, and invitation to repeated listening. Every track is a keeper.

Photographs of Emily Smith and Jamie McClennan at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow by Kerry Dexter, made with permission of the artists, the venue, and the festival. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see

Music for Late Winter, a story here at Music Road which includes Emily’s fine holiday recording, Songs for Christmas.

Songs of Hope, part two of a continuing series here at Music Raod, which includes The Sower’s Song

Emily Smith, Jamie McClennan, and Robert Burns

Scotland in Six, a story I’ve done at Perceptive Travel with six Scottish musicians you should know, among them Emily Smith, Eddi Reader, and John McCusker.

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Another way to support: you could

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Song for Easter Week: Emily Smith with Glory Bound

If you’ve walked the music road here before, you’ll most likely have encountered the work of Scottish singer and songwriter Emily Smith. Her most recent album is called Traiveller's Joy, and you may learn more of it by following that link.

As she mentions in this video below, Smith recorded Ruth Moody’s song Glory Bound for a BBC program called Songs of Praise. This clip finds Smith in a more informal situation but with song and performance no less powerful and uplifting, and just right for Easter week. Take a listen



you may also wish to see

that BBC performance
Music Road: Song for the weekend: Emily Smith: Glory Bound

and
Music Road: Emily Smith, Jamie McClennan, and Robert Burns

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from Scotland: Emily Smith: Traiveller's Joy

As is the case with most who follow music as a profession, Emily Smith finds herself spending quite a bit of time in travel. She often prefers to source the songs she does and ideas for the ones she writes from close by her home in the southwest of Scotland. For her album Traiveller’s Joy, she’s chosen to source songs and ideas from her time on the road, as well.

One of these is her own song Butterfly, enchanting images with a thoughtful story of thinking of those back home which Smith wrote while at a festival Goderich, in Ontario, Canada, looking out at Lake Huron and thinking of Scotland. A rather different perspective on a similar idea came to her during a day off on the road while in Australia, which turned in to the song called Take You Home. Lord Donald is a traditional song which holds a story which has made its way under several names through Irish and American tradition as well as Scottish: it’s a tale of a man whose sweetheart (may have) poisoned him with eel broth. Smith learnt her version while studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, from a tutor who had it from Jeannie Robertson, a tradition bearer form Aberdeenshire.

Gypsy Davy is another song that has made its way through many traditions. Smith learned this one from an American source, musician Tim Eriksen. Sweet Lover of Mine is a song from the tradition with tasteful adaptation from Smith, which had its origins as a lover’s riddle song from County Derry in Ireland. Roll on Lovely Doon came from closer to home for Smith, in several ways. She wrote the melody, to words from a poem by Argyllshire poet Robert Hettrick. Smith came by the book of Hettrick’s poems in which she found this from a local shepherd, who been carrying the book with him knowing Smith to be a musician interested in old books of songs and poems, and thinking he might bump into her as she walked the country roads in Dumfriesshire.

Each of these songs, and the others in the collection, show Smith’s thoughtful taste for melody and lyric, and her crystal soprano which well suits the stories and arrangements she chooses. Jamie McClennan produced the album, setting Smith’s voice gracefully in spare backing which includes his own guitar work, fiddle from Stuart Duncan, bass from Duncan Lyall, and percussion and drums from Signy Jakobsdottir.



photographs are from the CD release concert for Traiveller’s
Joy, at Celtic Connections in Glasgow. they were made with the kind permission of the festival and the artist and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

here is a short film of Emily speaking about the making of the album


you may also wish to see

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

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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

Song for the weekend: Emily Smith: Glory Bound

Emily Smith and friends with Glory Bound, which was recorded for the program Songs of Praise, which aired in the UK. The song was written by Canadian writer Ruth Moody.




coming up soon here along the Music Road, a review of Emily Smith's album Traiveller's Joy and here it is from Scotland: Emily Smith: Traiveller's Joy

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Emily Smith, Jamie McClennan, and Robert Burns
Music Road: Emily Smith: Too Long Away

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New Zealand musicians: Maori songs, opera, Robert Burns, and Scottish fiddle

What sort of music do you connect with New Zealand?

Writers and photographers across the world are joining in to celebrate the country and people of New Zealand. The people of New Zealand are making a special effort to let you to know that the best way to help them recover from the earthquake in Christchurch a month ago is to come for a visit, to explore their land of ancient and modern cultures, high mountain and crashing surf.

As you are planning that trip and taking it, you’ll want to explore music to go along. Consider these two artists, from perhaps rather differing parts of the musical spectrum.

Kiri Te Kanawa grew up on the north island of New Zealand. Her heritage is both Maori and English, and she was adopted as an infant into a Maori family. Not always, perhaps, the background you might expect for a woman who would go on to make an international reputation performing the works of Mozart and Puccini at the world’s top opera houses. That is exactly what Te Kanawa has done, however, building a career that has made her one of the world’s most well loved sopranos. She has created a foundation to assist musicians from New Zealand in realizing their dreams, as well. Te Kanawa’s classical music performances are widely available on record, and harking back to her early days playing clubs in New Zealand, she’s recorded show tunes, as well. For this trip, however, a recording that goes even deeper into Te Kanawa’s history is what I’d suggest: her album called Maori Songs.


Jamie McClennan grew up in New Zealand as well, playing the fiddle in the style of his Scottish heritage. Traveling the world with his music and adding guitar and other instruments to his songbag, he came to base himself in Scotland. With a nod to those world travels he called his first solo album In Transit. You may hear hints of those travels in the music there. Adoon Winding Nith finds McClennan in a duo format with Scots singer Emily Smith, recording lesser known gems as well as a few well known pieces from the works of Scotland’s national Bard, Robert Burns. McClennan also produced and plays on to Smith’s latest release, Traiveller’s Joy, about which you’ll learn more up ahead along the music road.


Whether your taste runs toward classical music, sounds of New Zealand's first peoples, inventive fiddle music, or music from Scottish tradition -- or perhaps all four -- you will find good companions among this music for your New Zealand travel plans.


you may also wish to see
Music Road: New Zealand: music for a trip
Sustainable living, do it yourself ideas and adventures, and thoughts on New Zealand life from Frugal Kiwi
plan your trip or start your dream of one at New Zealand’s official tourism site

-->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.

celebrating Robert Burns

Around the world, people are gathering to celebrate the life and work of Scottish poet Robert Burns, most especially on Burns night on 25 January. There will toasts to the haggis, toasts to the lassies, and replies from those lassies as well, all in honor and remembrance of the ploughman poet. His gift for words and rhythm, supported his keen eye for romance, social justice, and humor, and his love for the landscape of Scotland all show up in his work. Charlie Is My Darlin’, Auld Lang Syne, My Love is Like a Red Red Rose, a Man’s a Man for A’ That, all of these are written by Robert Burns, and they are but a few of the hundreds of poems and songs her wrote and collected.

Many musicians have recorded his music. To note especially are Emily Smith and Jamie McClennan,
Eddi Reader, and Jim Malcolm.

Several of my favorite songs written by Robert Burns are John Anderson My Jo, The Westin Winds, Commend Me to The Plooman, Silver Tassie, and this one, below. Tell us some of yours in the comments, if you’d like.




you may also wish to see
eddi reader, willie stewart, and the search for haggis
about the book of memories and photographs Touched by Robert Burns

traveling fiddles: Niamh Ni Charra & Jamie McClennan

Niamh Ni Charra hails from Kerry, in the southwest of Ireland, and has traveled the world as a fiddler with the show Riverdance. Jamie McClennan grew up in New Zealand, is based now in Scotland, and has seen a fair bit of the world through his music as a fiddler and guitar player, as well. Each handles travels and international influences in combination with respect for and enjoyment of tradition in current solo albums.

Ni Charra’s recording is called On On Da Thaobh/from Both Sides. The thirteen sets find her playing fiddle and also her well loved concertina. There are jigs, hornpipes, reels, and slip jigs. There’s also a set of Hungarian csardas paired with a reel, and a classical piece written for and played on the concertina. There’s a classical piece from another genre, too: bluegrass master Bill Monroe’s Crossing the Cumberlands, which Ni Charra has integrated into her own style. That’s a style filled with musical imagination and melodic sense, clear and vibrant tone and touch, and an eagerness to explore and bring home the fruits of those explorations to her own sound. There’s a fine helping of tradition, from The Jug o’ Punch to Trip to Athlone, as well as a generous helping of quality original compositions, usually played in sets with tunes from the tradition. To bring things right home, Ni Charra, who grew up surrounded by Sliabh Luachra musicians, ends the album with a set of slides, an original named for the area where she went to school, Lios Ui Bhigin, and the traditional Johnny O’Leary’s, An Choisir, and The Hare in the Corn.

Jamie McClennan’s album is called In Transit. The music begins with Emily’s Wee Tune, a jig with a nod to Scottish tradition in style and substance. which leads into the fast paced, edgy title cut. Together they open the door to moods of journey, travel, changes, and passing landscapes, which McClennan carries out skillfully through twelve sets of original music. Most of the time he’s the fiddler, but The Sun Trap set finds him on whistle in an intriguing two whistle intro with former New Zealand band mate and current member of the Irish band Grada Alan Doherty. McClennan’s ideas as a composer are are rooted in Scotland, and he reaches into jazz, American folk, a bit of blues, and more than a bit of bluegrass, as well. There are faced paced numbers, such as the Emergency Flapjack set and the Rainbow Sheep set, played with energetic spice on whistle, guitars, double bass and all sorts of percussion by Doherty, Gerry Paul, Duncan Lyall, and Fraser Stone respectively. Emily Smith joins in on piano on one track and Adelaide Carlow adds cello to another. There are several fine slower tunes as well, notably Road to Bennan, which is McClennan alone, interweaving his own playing on guitar, mandolin, and fiddle. Side note: McLennan both engineered the album and designed the packaging, both very well done.

Strong solo albums both, showing that while Ni Charra and McClennan both have the skills to do excellent work supporting musicians, they each have more than enough musical ideas and creativity to hold centre stage as well.


you may also want to see
Emily Smith, Jamie McClennan, and Robert Burns

Three Fiddle CDs for Fall

Green Fields of America

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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.

Emily Smith, Jamie McClennan, and Robert Burns

Adoon Winding Nith

2009 was the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns birth, and the year the year the Scottish government was calling the year of homecoming, inviting people all over the world to celebrate. Jamie and I wanted to do something to contribute, we weren’t quite sure what, “ says Scots Singer of the Year Emily Smith. She and her husband, multi instrumentalist Jamie McClennan, live not far from the eighteenth century Scottish bard’s stomping ground in Dumfries and Galloway in southern Scotland. It’s the area where Smith grew up, learning a number of the poet’s songs along the way.

“My dad said, you could do a concert of all Burns songs, and I thought, yeah, we could get to that. Once we started talking about it, we decided if we were going to learn a whole gig’s worth of material, then we should do a tour -- maybe a tour here in Dumfries and Galloway, where there are little towns and villages that never get to have concerts in them. That might be a sort of quirky way to contribute to the homecoming year, we thought. Then we thought, as long as we’re going to learn all this material, we really should make a recording of it. I wanted it to be a different Burns album, though -- there are so many of them out there coming not only from Scotland, but all over the world.”

The duo has succeeded, offering a lively, upbeat, conversational and very musical take on eleven the bard’s songs, making a direct connection between songs of tradition and the ears and interests of contemporary listeners. “At first, I wanted to have songs that he wrote about this region, or people from this area, and then some other of his songs that folk might not know so well,” Smith says, “ and then there are several on there just because they are ones I’ve always wanted to learn or we just really enjoy playing!”

The title track and first cut on the recording, Adoon Winding Nith, draws listeners in with a driving beat on a traditional tune backing Burns’ words -- Burns often chose traditional melodies to which to set his words, allowing for quite a lot of variation and interpretation in subsequent years. Rather than a song of the beauties of this major river of the southwest, it celebrates the beauties of a young woman of the area. Silver Tassie finds Smith and McClennan in gentle and haunting mood on a song about a man drinking a parting glass and missing his love as he goes off to war. In Soldier Laddie, we meet a woman who is well acquainted with soldiers a vivid portrait by Burns that finds partnership in the musicians’ lively choices. The song itself, part of a cantata Burns wrote called The Jolly Beggars, was suppressed during his lifetime as being socially and politically dangerous. Another political song -- and perhaps an even more dangerous one -- is A Man’s a Man for A’ That, a ringing statement of the brotherhood of all, which the pair give a fine restrained treatment. Then there’s the happy fiddler who finds welcome everywhere with his tunes in Whistle Ower the Lave o It, and the dancing ploughman, who works hard each day and comes home weary, but still delights his wife with his dancing and his bonnie looks, in The Plooman. The other tracks are equally fine. For the most part it’s just Smith on lead vocals, piano, and accordion, with McClennan on backing vocals and fiddle, guitar, and mandolin.

“That was another idea we had for this album,” says Smith. “Jamie and I play with a band, but quite often now we’re working as a duo. Duncan Lyall played bit of bass on the album, but basically it is just the two of us, and that maybe shows people a bit of a different side of Jamie and me.

“We wanted to do something different with the packaging, too,” Smith says, “so we commissioned an artist friend of ours, John Johnstone, to create some paintings of us as though we were hanging out with Burns, maybe having a drink or singing a song. He came up with four fantastic paintings, and the one we chose for the cover is as though we are all sailing down the River Nith.”


If you are new to the work of Robert Burns (and if you are, you’ve still likely sung a song or two of his. -- Auld Lang Syne for example) this is a fine place to start. If you grew up learning about him, Smith and McClennan’s album will add to your understanding of his work, and it’s well worth repeated listening.


side note: Smith and McClennan each have very fine solo albums out as well.
They are heading out for a run of gigs in New Zealand and Australia just now, so if you are reading from there or happen to be in the neighborhood, take the chance to see them live.

another side note: 2010 is Scotland's year of song -- look for more articles ahead along the Music Road featuring fine Scottish voices


You may also want to see

Music Road:: Emily Smith: Too Long Away

Music Road: Eddi Reader sings more of the songs of Robert Burns

tuning up for Burns Night: Jim Malcolm

A way to support: you could

If you enjoy what you are reading here, I've recently begun publishing an occasional newsletter at Substack with more stories about music, the people who make it, and the places which inspire it. Come visit and check it out!