Best music, 2012

Music is one of the strongest ways to connect: to connect across time, across space, with friends, and with strangers. At its best, music is conversation with listening, speaking, and silence all part of the mix. It holds the immediacy of the moment and the wisdom of memory as well as the possibilities of what is yet to be. At a time of year and in a world which now and again may seem rushed, music also holds a place of peace and silence, thought and reflection.

That is what each of these albums offers. You’ll find music with intricately created poetic words and music with no words at all, songs and tunes arising from heartfelt and soul felt connect to land and place, family and history, faith and hope.

In some cases, the links will take you to place where you may hear snippets of the music, and in others links will take you to an article about the album, with links within it which will let you hear the music. I would encourage you to explore these. The albums are not ranked in any order, each of them well worth you attention. Take a listen.

The spirit of the mountains fills Kathy Mattea’s recording Calling Me Home. It is a spirit which encompasses beauty of the natural world, hard life of making a home and a living in the mountains, faith, resilience, history, and unanswered questions. Country Grammy winner Mattea has in recent years been drawn to the songs of her native West Virginia and the surrounding coal country, and to finding her way in to helping these songs speak to a winder audience. She does that here, with notable tracks including Gone, Gonna Rise Again, Black Waters, and Now is the Cool of the Day.

As they have taken their music across the globe through three decades now, Altan have collaborated with artists ranging from Nashville’s country stars to Dublin’s classically trained musicians. For The Poison Glen/Gleann Nimhe though, they decided to bring the focus back home to Donegal, their home country in Ireland's far northwest. Led by fiery fiddling and graceful singing from Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh, the members of Altan offer ensemble works by turns lively and thoughtful on music from the tradition, original compositions, and songs that have crossed the waters and back again from Ireland to North America. Look out especially for the New Rigged Ship set, Seolta Gala, and The Lily of the West.

For her album Through Wind and Rain Cathie Ryan brings music that both crosses bridges and creates them, bridges between Ireland and America, between past and present, through loss to resilience and hope. The daughter of parents who emigrated from Ireland to Michigan, Ryan has spent time as an adult living in both countries, and thinking about how their traditions connect and intertwine. For Through Wind and Rain she has chosen and written songs that contain touchstones from her own life, from finding the courage and a spark of humor to cary on after change and loss to encouraging a child to the lasting value of friendship. You will hear a thoughtful storyteller’s heart in Ryan's voice and in the music and arraignments she’s chosen. Look out especially for Mo Nion O, In the Wishing Well, and Fare Thee Well.

Carrie Newcomer is a storyteller with a gorgeous voice and and ear for a fine melody, as well. Her album Kindred Spirits is part retrospective and part new material. To choose the songs, Newcomer looked back over her work with a spiritual focus -- and as ever with Newcomer, spiritual means a broad idea of matters of faith. Even if you are well familiar with her songs, you will find her choices here and the way she has set them in context with each other illuminating. There are several new songs in the mix as well, including the opening track The Speed of Soul, in which Newcomer offers a mosaic of images forming a mediation on time and the spirit.

Rani Arbo and the men of daisy mayhem take matters of spirit into consideration for their recording  Some Bright Morning too. “The wind in the trees is a mighty good teacher/ old mother earth she’s a mighty good teacher,” the four sing in Joe Craven’s updated take on the spiritual Hear Jerusalem Moan with which they open the album. Fiddle, percussion mostly on a collection of items including cookie tins and old suitcases known as Drumship Enterprise, guitars, bass, banjo, and ukulele are the instruments they bring along with their trading of well honed harmony and lead parts on songs including East Virginia, Bridges, and Will Your House Be Blessed?

Cape Breton, a land of mountain, forest, water, and music, is the source from which singer Mary Jane Lamond and fiddle player Wendy MacIsaac draw their musical ideas. On their recording Seinn they offer music which comes from the deep Scottish Gaelic tradition of the island and newly composed material which honors this as well. From lively dance sets to soulful ballads to quiet reflection in song and tune, you’ll hear the heart of Cape Breton in the work of these women, and hear why it reaches across boundaries of language and place as well. Look out especially for The Blue Mountain’s Lullaby and Keeping Up with Calum.

The geography of Scotland itself is shaped by its islands, and it is to them that Fiona J MacKenzie turned to draw inspiration for her album Archipelago. Through gathering contemporary and traditional material and writing songs and melodies herself, MacKenzie visits Scottish islands from Shetland to to St. Kilda to Ailsa Craig in songs that evoke the relationship of land and sea known by island people.

Caroline Herring well knows how to evoke landscape and history with her songs, as well. In her album Camiila it is the American south which is her focus, from stories of the civil rights days in the title track to a visit to Washington DC in Maiden Voyage to the land as frame and companion for hard times in Summer Song.

Alistair Ogilvy tells the stories of his people and his home place with his music, too. He is a native speaker of Scots (think Robert Burns poems if you are wondering what that is) and like Herring -- indeed like all the musicians you see here -- he brings a storyteller’s gift to his work on his debut album, Leaves Sae Green.Irish musician Caitlin Nic Gabhann tells her stories through the steps of her feet in the dance and through her concertina. On her album Caitlin she offers sets from the tradition as well as tunes she has made herself. A touch both clear and melodic leads the way through reels including the Flying Column set and the Leeside Sessions set, the waltz Sunday’s Well and the air Cill Dheaglain.

Sarah McQuaid draws on her time spent growing up in the United States, living in Ireland, and her current home base in England to find sources for her songs on The Plum Tree and the Rose. It’s a varied collection, ranging from songs of love and change to a tale inspired by a moment of reflection in Derby Cathedral to another sparked by a visit to Hardwick Hall to a round on gratitude arising from recalling the American holiday of Thanksgiving while living elsewhere.

Nuala Kennedy brings a varied geography to her music as well. The flute player and singer is native to Louth, that land of legend in the east of Ireland. She’s lived long in Edinburgh and recently spent time in New York and in the north of Spain. All of these come into play in the songs as tunes and arrangements she creates on Noble Stranger. She offers intriguing takes on traditional songs as well. Look out for her versions of My Bonnie Labouring Boy and The Banks of the Roses.

Every year in October, the people of Cape Breton Island invite the world home to share their music and to explore the ties that twine that music with the traditions which it neighbors and those from across the oceans from which it springs. The brothers and sisters who make up The Barra MacNeils created ten days of musical collaboration that resulted in ten tracks on The Celtic Colours Sessions.This finds the Barras in their first French language song as they join up with Acadian singer Ron Bourgeois, celebrating the origins of Cape Breton and their family name as they partner with traditional singer Cathy-Ann MacPhee who grew up on the isle of Barra in Scotland’s Western Isles, tracing an Americana and banjo based connections with fellow Nova Scotian Old Man Luedecke, and making fine harmonies with members of another well known family band as they sing with Shay, Michael, Mary, and Frances Black from Ireland.

Take your time to explore this music, let the words and the melodies move you as they will, and listen from the resonances and connections and stories which run through the work of these diverse artists.. Explore other work of these musicians, as well, perhaps here along the Music Road for starters. There’s more to be learned and enjoyed from each of those whose names you see here.

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listening to Christmas: Shannon Heaton, Cathie Ryan, Mary Black, Hanneke Cassel

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Autumn Celebrations: gift ideas

Autumn: with the turning of seasons come times for gathering with friends, family celebrations, planning for a celebrating holidays large and small, travels, time for quiet reflection -- and time for music.

Music makes a fine companion for any of these activities, whether you are looking for holiday gifts to give or music for yourself to listen to. Are you preparing for those big holidays -- Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice? It’s never too early. The small circumstances are just as worthy of celebration, as well. Gifts to give and gifts to receive: here are musical ideas for you to explore early in this holiday season:

Cathie Ryan’s recording Through Wind and Rain will make a fine gift for those who enjoy good stories thoughtfully told, as Ryan traces a journey through the dark and light of life with always thread of hope and resilience and faith weaving into the tales. She is first generation Irish American. She has spent time living in both countries, and makes music that respects and connects them, offered with voice and style which invite listeners in. Every song is a keeper, and sequenced in a journey worth the following. If you’ve just a short time to check out the music, though, standout tracks include Fare Thee Well, Mo Nion O, and In the Wishing Well.

Kathy Mattea knows a thing or two about storytelling, too. On Calling Me Home, the country Grammy winner and West Virginia native follows her calling to the heart of mountain music, songs sung in her own way which add to the tradition she respects. This, too, is an album where it is really worth following the sequence as it’s told. If you want to take a quick listen, though, try A Far Cry, The Wood Thrush’s Song, and Hello, My Name Is Coal.

Tim O’Brien is one of the guests on Mattea’s album, and he’s also teamed up with old friend Darrell Scott for a rockin; ramblin’ hot pickin’ set of of country blues, bluegrass, Americana songs. recorded live at the Grey Eagle in Asheville, North Carolina. In a nod to the duo’s wry humor, it’s called We're Usually A Lot Better Than This.Standout tracks include Mick Ryan’s Lament, Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning, and White Freightliner Blues.

Singer Mary Jane Lamond and fiddle player Wendy MacIsaac make a fine duo as well, joining forces to bring a collection of music from Cape Breton in Atlantic Canada on Seinn an album that shares the tang of salt spray and the mystery of Maritime forests, and honors the dance based fiddle music of the place along with its long heritage of Scottish Gaelic culture. Two standout cuts are Keeping Up with Calum and Seudan a’ Chuain/Jewels of the Ocean.

As the autumn and winter season unfolds, treat yourself to listening to these, and stay tuned here along the music road for holiday gift suggestions to come -- and check out our archives too!

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Best Music, 2011

holiday gift list: Irish music

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Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain

Hope, joy, sorrow, love, laughter, resilience, a sense of humor, a sense of history and a vivid musical imagination, along with a voice that invites listening and a way of singing that allows space for for each listener ot find a home in the music: all that together is what you will find in Cathie Ryan’s album Through Wind and Rain.

Ryan is both Irish and American, the daughter of parents who came from Ireland to Michigan and in summers took their children back to spend time with grandparents in Ireland. As an adult, Ryan has lived in both America and in Ireland. Her bone deep knowledge and love of the music and landscapes of both places is present in her music

Ryan chose the title of her recording from the song Walk the Road, written by Kate Rusby. Ryan sings

Think not of casting off your dreams
for all is not just as it seems
and we’ll walk the road together

all the way through and rain
I’ll never deceive my heart again
hand in hand across the land
we’ll walk the road together


Faith, friendship, courage, resilience, love , and joy in the words and in the singing, it’s a track well worth the listening many more times than once, a song which holds ideas that resonate through the music Ryan has chosen for Through Wind and Rain.

“I threw my heart in the wishing well....” Ryan sings on the first song on the recording. That image well suits the economically told and well imagined tale of love found, enjoyed, explored, and lost, and the courage to sort things out and go on again. The words of In the Wishing Well are Ryan’s own and the tune is from Irish tradition. It makes a natural connection to I’m a Beauty, a song from Laura Smith which holds both humility and self confidence in a thoughtfully sung reflection.

Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh is best known for her fiery fiddle playing as a founder of the Irish traditional band Altan. She is also a gifted songwriter, a gift Ryan honors with Mo Nion O. Ni Mhaonaigh wrote the song, a reflection of wishes for a child framed in images of nature, in Irish. Ryan has made a graceful translation to English and includes some of the Irish as well. Through the song you will hear lanscapes of Donegal, in Ireland’s northwest, as well as as the heart of a mother’s wishes for her child.

Fare Thee Well is an Appalachian ballad through which Ryan gives voice to a quiet yet powerful story of sorrow. Liberty’s Sweet Shore, an emigration song, tells of the mixed sorrows, hope, and joys of people leaving Ireland and setting out to a new land.

Liberty's Sweet Shore was written by John Doyle, who adds his thoughtful guitar presence to many of the tracks on the album. Ryan produced Through Wind and Rain herself. Taking her time with the project, she was able to bring in the talents of musical friends from Ireland and America. These include Eilis Kennedy, Pauline Scanlon, Leslie Ritter, Aoife O’Donovan, and John Doyle on harmony singing, Matt Mancuso and John McCusker on fiddle, Michael McGoldrick on pipes and whistles, Joanie Madden on flute, Seamus Egan on bouzouki, Patsy O’Brien on guitar, and others whose names you’d recognize. They each help tell the musical story, from the dancing heart of In the Wishing Well to the blessing of May the Road Rise to Meet You to the laughter in the tale of Johnny Be Fair and the set of tunes which close the album.

Come walk the road with Cathie Ryan and her musical friends, with these songs and others equally engaging. Through wind and rain, sorrow and joy, song and tune, you will be well rewarded.

you may also wish to see
Cathie Ryan: teaching tradition
Road Trip Music: Michigan
Music for the Heart of Winter: Cathie Ryan

photographs of Cathie Ryan, and Cathie Ryan with Greg Anderson and Hanneke Cassel, by Kerry Dexter

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Cathie Ryan: teaching tradition

“I love teaching Irish music to adults, or even teenagers, because I know they go out -- even with little kids too, so I can say teaching singing across the board -- because I know they’re going to go out with a whole song that they have learned, at least one, and they’re going to be able to share that with other people. They're going to have confidence to do that because they’ve worked on it in class. Just singing with other people in class gives you confidence, you know. So that is a joy.” That is Cathie Ryan talking. As part of her work as a professional touring musician, she also teaches.

What she teaches is traditional Irish singing and performance, and also Irish folklore and mythology. She has given week long workshops at the Swannanoa Gathering, worked with the Lincoln Center Institute, taught at Ceol Chairlinn, and given workshops at music festivals as well as taught in schools and community centers. “One of the lovely things about Irish traditional music is that you don’t have to have an advanced degree from Julliard to teach it -- you get to teach workshops!” says Ryan. who herself holds a degree in English literature. With fifteen years of a highly respected solo career in music as a performer and songwriter and before that eight years as a lead singer of the well known band Cherish the Ladies, she has certainly put herself through graduate level learning on musicianship, and her own research into songs and songwriting, as well as time living in both Ireland and America, have deepened her interest and knowledge in music and folklore as well.

Music and stories called to Ryan from her early years. Growing up in Michigan as the first generation child of Irish immigrants, Ryan took in stories and songs from Irish tradition, Irish popular music, Motown, and American country music as well. ”The Gaelic League was always our social world,” she recalls, and she learned about the music of Appalachia from the family of a childhood friend.

All these things found their way into her own thirst to know about music. She learned music from sharing songs and tunes with other musicians, and chose to study English literature at university. “I’ve always been a very analytical person, and that’s probably why I majored in English literature, so I could explicate stories and analyze characters. Why did the writer choose to do this, and why did they choose to do that? Also I really love Jungian psychology, and Joseph Campbell’s ideas on mythology as well, the whole idea of archetypes, “ Ryan says. “I really believe we are connected to the ancestors, and it’s up to us to look for what these connections are.”

Those are ideas which move through Ryan’s performing and her teaching.
“When I teach mythology, that starts by the telling of a story -- the telling one of the tales, for instance, from the Tain, and then explicating that text with the class, going back to the beginning of the story and looking at the characters and archetypes. What is this character going through right now? why? what’s relevant about that to us right now? and then relate that back to the landscape of Ireland, which just resonates with the mythology and so it encompasses the sweep of centuries. You’ve got land that is still living that was inhabited by these kings and queens and goddesses and gods, and then you’re talking about what do they mean to me today. But then again, someone from the class could come up with some wonderful reading of the story and we might go in that direction -- if it’s compelling, and if it’s intelligent, and if it lights up the class, I’m going there, let’s follow that road,” she says. For her students Ryan wants to open doors in how they think and what they know about mythology. Thinking about the story of what’s going on and the people who are involved in it is her way of bringing them into this. When she’s teaching singing, the idea of connecting with story and character also applies.

She teaches technical aspects of singing traditional music as part of her workshops, but she goes beyond that. “It’s great to work with a class on honoring the song,“ she says. “ In order to do that, you really have to think about what do I want to bring to this song? If it’s an historical song, what was going on in this period of history? What did this person, the narrator, think about? What were they going through in their lives that brought them to express these feelings and emotions?” Opening doors for her students to think about making music, and listening to music, in this way is is what makes teaching a part of her work Ryan feels called to do -- that, and honoring the songs and the stories and the connections they create.

On her albums and in her concerts, Ryan most often chooses a mix of song, including songs in Irish and in English from the tradition, folk song from North America, songs from contemporary Irish and Scottish musicians such as Karine Polwart, Luka Bloom, and John Spillane, and songs she writes herself. On her album The Farthest Wave she recorded a song by Spillane called The Wild Flowers.

“I love that line from The Wild Flowers,” Ryan says “ which says ‘they were there before you, they’ll be here after you’.” For her students, she wants them to come away with the idea that “these songs and stories lived before you, and someone will tell them and sing them after you. This is your time time with this song and this story, and it’s an honor to be a part of that tradition.”


Cathie Ryan performs her music and teaches internationally. At the time of this conversation she was preparing for a workshop in Michigan to work with teachers about using music across the curriculum in different subjects, and she has performances at arts centers, universities, and with symphony orchestras scheduled in the coming months. You may find out more about what’s coming up for her here: Cathie Ryan’s tour schedule.

you may also wish to see
Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Songwriter
at Perceptive Travel Cathie Ryan: An Evening in Belfast
Music Road: listening to Christmas: Shannon Heaton, Cathie Ryan, Mary Black, Hanneke Cassel
Music Road: ceol chairlinn: sharing music in winter

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Road trips and road songs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Here is one way to offer that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Road Trip Music: Michigan

Michigan has a sunrise side, a sunset side, an upper peninsula, apple orchards, cherry trees, lighthouses...and let’s not forget the football teams, the gardens, the busy cities, the small Amish communities, the quiet back roads and lake shores. It’s a heartland state, with its own identity.

It’s also a state of immigrant communities. Cathie Ryan’s parents came from Ireland to Michigan seeking work. They found it, and they stayed. “It was very Irish inside the house, and very American outside it, “ Ryan recalled, pointing out that she loved going to Gaelic League events, she heard country music from childhood friends, and growing up in Detroit, there was the ever present beat of Motown. Irish music is what called her heart as she grew into her career as a musician, and as adult Ryan has lived in both Ireland and America. Choosing songs from Irish tradition and the American folk song bag, and writing her own music. Ryan’s work builds bridges between the two lands. “I’ve always been an Irish American singer,” she says.

Should you be thinking that means hearty drinking songs or flowery sentimental ballads, that’s not Ryan’s style at all. Grace in restraint, resepct for the song and the listner, a deft touch of humor and a connection to the land and the stories of both Ireland and America are what you will find in her work. Ryan has so far four solo albums out, and you’ll be well served by any of them. As her music has evolved, she’s become more adventurous in choosing spare arrangements with just a few elements, as her voice has grown in depth and clarity. As you travel the roads of Michigan, listen to her album
Farthest Wave as a good companion.

There’s an original filled with energy and anticipation, What’s Closest to the Heart, a lively set of slip jigs called Dance the Baby, which Ryan sings in Irish and which are songs her grandfather in Ireland used to sing, dancing her around the kitchen when she was small, quiet hope and reflection in the title track, and a celebration of resolution and resilience in The Wild Flowers. The other songs are equally strong.


you may also wish to see
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Songwriter
Music Road: Road Trip Music: Indiana
Music Road: national drum month: bodhran
Somewhere Along the Road
Music Road: Chasing Sparks: Jeremy Kittel

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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Chasing Sparks: Jeremy Kittel

Prepare to go on a journey when you join Jeremy Kittel in Chasing Sparks. At times, that trip will hold whimsical touches of humor, as with the opening cut, called The Curious Beetle Set. At other points, you’ll see, in your mind’s eye, the whirling steps of dancers or the quiet walk of friends, the rugged landscapes of Scotland and the gentler ones of Ireland, the hustle of New York and the natural rhythms of the heartland.

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Kittel is a fiddler, with a background in Irish and Scottish fiddle, who has been known to play bluegrass, and who holds two academic degrees in jazz. Chasing Sparks goes toward the Celtic Americana sides of his interests, but now and then there’s a hint of other flavors as well.The music comprises are three traditional sets, four covers, and four originals, making a well balanced, thoughtful and engaging program with music and ideas which reveal new facets each time you listen, and sparks of inspiration and orginality all over the place. One of the covers is a set of F Chunes written by Hanneke Cassel, a fiddler and composer you've met before here along the music road. Sitting in with Kittel at varied points are other musicians you’ve met here before as well, among them Natalie Haas on cello, Edgar Meyer on bass, Tristan Clarridge on cello, Brittany Haas on fiddle, and Nick Gareiss on foot percussion.

All the tracks are keepers. Especially worth note are The Rolling Waves Set, The Chase, Remember Blake, and The May Morning Dew, as well as that set of tunes by Cassel.

Kittel, who currently tours internatonally as a member of the Turtle Island String Quartet, grew up in Detroit, and received his undergraduate degree in Ann Arbor. Coming up along the music road in the Great American Road Trip, you'll soon meet another musician from Michigan.


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Music Road: Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen
Music Road: now playing: Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas: In the Moment
Music Road: Sarah-Jane Summers: Nesta

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Voices: Cathie Ryan

"My grandmother Catherine Ryan was a singer, and a fiddle player as well. She loved to sing and play, she loved having people come into the house and pushing back the furniture and they'd have a dance or a ceilidh, and everybody would have to sing. My mother's father was a storyteller," musician Cathie Ryan says, "and he was the one, I think, who gave me my love of the narrative. He told stories of the history of Ireland, the mythology, and the characters, what this one did and what that one did. And stories of banshees and fairies. For him there was a very thin line between this world and and the other world, and he had one foot in each of them."

As a singer and a songwriter, Ryan carries aspects of what she absorbed from her grandparents in Kerry and Tipperary forward in her music, along with her own experiences of Ireland and America. She's been learning and collecting traditional songs since she was a child growing up in Detroit, born to parents who emigrated from Ireland.

From being involved in music at the local Gaelic League in Detroit to competing for the All Ireland title in singing, from work with traditional singer Dermot Henry's band to studying with sean nos master Joe Heaney,to being the lead vocalist with the internationally renown band Cherish the Ladies, to inclusion in the award winning projects A Woman's Heart: A Decade On in Ireland and Wayfaring Strangers in America, to a solo career during which she has so far released four albums, (update: now there are five albums -- see link at end of story for more)Ryan continues to grow as an artist whose work builds bridges between Ireland and America. These days she presents her music in places ranging from top festivals to songwriter listening rooms to orchestra concerts to intimate clubs across North America and Europe. It's not always been the easiest of roads, she reflects. "I used to think I had to be either an Irish singer or an American singer," she says."It's taken me quite some time to realize I can be both, I can bring both sides of my experience as an Irish American to my music."

Listeners at her live shows and to her recordings will find a mix of trad, sung in both Irish and English, music from contemporary writers including John Spillane and Karine Polwart, songs from the American folk tradition, and Ryan's own writings, which touch on subjects ranging from pirate queen Grace O'Malley to the leaving, returnings, and longings of Irish emigrants to the many journeys the heart makes.

Much of her personal work, especially that which she wrote for her 2005 release, The Farthest Wave, has its beginnings in the natural world. "There's a lot mystery in the Irish landscape," Ryan says, " you can search it forever. And I find Ireland very inspiring for song writing." That title track, The Farthest Wave, is a spare, unflinching look at coming to terms with grief that stands in the poetic and ballad traditions from both sides of the Atlantic. Closest to the Heart, which opens the collection, is a passionate, sensual dance of a song that holds the rhythmic melodies and vivid light and shadow ideas of both Irish and American folk history. The most reflective of her four solo recordings to date, the album also includes a hymn to Saint Bridgid sung in Irish, along with the Flatt and Scruggs song Rough and Rocky which Ryan learned from the singing of one of her musical heroes, Emmylou Harris. There's a lively set of jigs with which to dance the baby round the kitchen, also in Irish, along with a celebration of hope and healing in Karine Polwart's song Follow the Heron, resonating with connection to Ryan's own economical look at the courage it takes to do that healing, Be like the Sea.

Recording or in live performance, writing her own music or searching the tradition for songs that resonate with her, Ryan is an artist in service to the music. "I don't like to show off," she says. "I like to sing the song whatever way it wants to be sung. I believe that a song is a real entity that must be courted and loved, that you have to find a place for it in your own center and bring it up from there when you sing it. When I'm arranging a song," she adds, "I think first of the lyrics and the mood of the melody, the feeling that the character in the story has. And I find myself wanting to leave space for the thinking, feeling part of the story. I also love the idea of space because then the listener can be more in the song with me. It's their song too."

Ryan also appears on the album Best of Narada Celtic Christmas, singing the opening track, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.

There are additional articles on Cathie Ryan's work, including video of her time with Cherish the Ladies and reviews of her solo CDs, on this site. These may be found by searching the site through the box at upper right.

Here's one of those stories, about Cathie Ryan's recording Through Wind & Rain.

Photographs are by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

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