Ireland's music: Day Is Come from The Alt

Stories told through song: that is one thing the three musician who are the trio The Alt love and have in common.

They are great at telling stories through tunes -- music with no words-- as well.

As well they should be, as each of the three musicians -- John Doyle, Nuala Kennedy, and Eamon O’Leary -- have flourishing careers with other music projects. They also like the music and sound the create when they have the chance to get together. Hence, The Alt.

Day Is Come is their second recording together. On it, you will find a lively journey of song in both English and Irish, along with class tunes, some original and some drawn from traditional sources.

All three sing, and well know how to handle lead voice as well as support others. O’Leary plays bouzouki and harmonium on the recording, Doyle adds his own touch on bouzouki as well as playing guitar, mandola, keyboards, and bodhran, and Kennedy plays whistles and flutes. Guest fiddlers Marius Pibaret and Kevin Burke sit on several tracks.

Each of the ten tracks on the album is well worth repeated listening, as is the story as the artists have sequenced it. That said, several to listen out for especially include

Ta Na La/Day Is Come is an Irish language song, a cheerful drinking song at that. The trio offer it in a version known in Oriel, the ancient medieval area on the east coast of Ireland of which Nuala’s home town of Dundalk is part. As is fitting for that, Nuala’s light and lively voice leads the vocals after a short intro on the flute. The men join in on the choruses and their strings add sparkle to the vocals and join the flute for instrumental breaks framing the verses.

For the The Willow Tree, O’Leary takes lead voice. It’s a song in English by the scholar, singer, and songwriter Padraigin Ni Uallachain, whose music you have met here along the Music Road several times. It’s a reflective love song grounded in Irish landscape, which sounds as though it could have come from centuries back rather than being a contemporary piece. Harmonium and guitar weave a journey around O’Leary’s warm baritone and the graceful backing of Doyle’s tenor and Kennedy’s soprano. Kevin Burke joins on fiddle.

The Connaught Rangers has lyrics from a poem by Winifred M. Letts, set to music composed by John Doyle. The three musicians sing unaccompanied, with John’s strong tenor taking lead on lyrics which are a lament for those from Ireland who served in World War I. It is a fine way to hear just how good their harmonies are, and how well the three musicians work together.

You’ll do well to listen to each of the other tracks as well, which include a lively song in Irish which Nuala often sings to her young children, fine harmonies from Nuala and John backing Eamon’s lead on Paddy’s Land along with great playing from all three, two sets of tunes which mix originals from Kennedy and Doyle with tunes from the tradition, and a great version of the Child ballad Flower of Northumberland with Nuala on lead.

Day Is Come has no shortage of lively music, but through all that there’s a reflective, feeing, somewhat quieter in feeling than their first album. That John Doyle, Eamon O’Leary, and Nuala Kennedy created this outstanding collaboration during constraints on travel and connection is testament to their resilience and creativity as well as their musicianship.

Day Is Come is lasting music, with music to tap your feet or step along to,, to sing with, to enjoy quietly. Stories of Ireland well told in music indeed

You may also wish to see
Songs of the Scribe from Padraigin Ni Uallachain
The Path of Stones from John Doyle
The Alt, the trio’s first album, self titled
A bit about Nuala Kennedy’s album Behave the Bravest along with three other albums you may enjoy...

-->Music Road is reader supported . Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Another way to support: you could

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

Ireland's Music: four albums to explore

The island of Ireland is a small place, really. For all that, it has landscape both dramatic -- think the Slieve League, Bloody Foreland, the Cliffs of Moher -- and quiet, such as the countryside near Saul where Saint Patrick walked, the green fields of Monaghan, and the backroads of County Louth. There are lively cities and quiet towns, winding roads and mountains wrapped in mist. Condensed into two countries and one small island, these are aspects of landscape that call forth dreaming, connecting, and creating. This is part of the reason Ireland is known as the land of saints of scholars -- and of musicians.

As you might be thinking about, dreaming of, or making your own way across the landscapes of Ireland, here is music you will want to include in your soundtrack for such a visit, whether you travel through geography, memory, or imagination:

The members of the band Danu take in quite a few places in Ireland in their own geography: musicians come from east and west and north and south of the country. So do the songs they have chosen for the album Buan. The word means lasting in Irish, an right enough title for a recording that among other things is meant to celebrate twenty years since Danu began. There are waltzes, marches, hornpipes, and reels, and songs aplenty too, with words in both English and Irish. There is music from the tradition and music newly composed, some of that from Danu’s own folk. Listen out especially for Donal Clancy singing the outlaw ballad Willie Crotty that tells a story of times past that resonates with today’s events, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh with John Spillane’s powerful emigration song passage West, and the whole of the band on the slides and reels that make up the Kerry to Donegal set.

The musicians of Altan are well grounded in the music and landscape of their home place of Donegal in Ireland’s far northwest. They have delighted audiences from Asia to Austraila with it, and for their album The Widening Gyre they decided to explore the connections of their music with the the music of the mountain south in the United States. That’s an interesting journey, with song and tune that draw on both of those traditions and on what connects them. There’s a set beginning with Buffalo Girls from the bluegrass side of things and taking a fast paced path to the fiery fiddle style of Donegal, a set which the the musicians say evolved from them sitting around swapping tunes in the studio. Plenty of American folk musician guests on the album, which was recorded at Compass Records studio in Nashville, among them Mary Chapin Carpenter, Bruce Molsky and Alison Brown. It is Altan’s sound which anchors the vision, though. For a fine example of that check out Altan founder, fiddle player and singer Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh’s duet with bluegrass master time O’Brien on Gypsy Davey/The House Carpenter.

Speaking of vision, the one singer and flute player Nuala Kennedy had for her album Behave the Bravest was to include quite a bit of music sourced from areas near where she grew up, Dundalk in County Louth in the east of Ireland. The ten tracks on the recording offer that, with a fine balance of song and tune, and Kennedy also lets in hints of her travels with her music and longtime residence in Scotland along the way. Listen out especially for the Fair Hill of Killen, a love song in Irish with lyrics by Ulster poet Peadar O’Doirnin, the emigration song Lovely Armoy, and the set of reels which begins with The Glen Where the Deer Is.

Cathie Ryan sources the songs she writes and the songs she chooses from contemporary and traditional sources in light of her heritage as the first generation daughter of parents who came from Ireland to America, and in light of her own path as an adult which has seen her live for years in the United States and equally years in Ireland. That dual respect is evident in the music on her album Through Wind and Rain. The Wishing Well is a song with an Irish melody framing words Ryan wrote herself, while Fare Thee Well finds Ryan adding and changing verses to an Appalachian tune to reflect her own take on the story the song tells. The title comes from a thoughful song about friendship from Kate Rusby. Mo Nion O, written by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh is a song about sharing hopes and wishes with a child, so it seems only right that Ryan kept some of the verses in Irish and with Ní Mhaonaigh’s blessing, translated some into English. Speaking of blessing. Ryan’s take on May the Road Rise to Meet You may give tou a whole new thought about the song, and the Irish blessing which inspired Roger and Camilla McGuinn to write it.

Photograph of Altan courtesy of the artists; all other photographs by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

Several ways to explore Irish music further:
Cara Dillon: A Thousand Hearts
The Clancy Legacy
Matt and Shannon Heaton: Tell You In Earnest

-->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.

Ireland's Music: The Alt

Knocknarea, near Sligo in the west of Ireland, is a place of history marked by stones and tombs going back to the Neolithic Age. It is a place of legend and story, going back, perhaps, beyond that. It is also a place of connection and friendship, qualities much in evidence when three Irish musicians gathered near there to rehearse for what would become a new collaboration. They named they decided to name their band and the first recording they would create after a glen on the side of the mountain which is called The Alt.

It is not that John Doyle, Nuala Kennedy, and Eamon O’Leary were looking for extra things to do: each has a lively career in solo work, in bands, and in teaching. When Kennedy and Doyle crossed paths on Cape Breton Island at the Celtic Colours Festival, though, they found a musical connection they wanted to explore further, and soon added O’Leary to the mix. Each of the three is an accomplished singer. Kennedy plays whistles and flutes. Doyle and O’Leary are both guitarists and play bouzouki. All of them are rooted in the music of Ireland, and have deep knowledge of songs and tunes of their native country, and each has experience of living and traveling in other lands.

All of these things play into the music they chose to record together. Though each is an accomplished writer of song and tune, they decided for their first album together to focus on music from the tradition. Each brought music to their gatherings, songs and tunes with story and melody that spoke to and of the traditions of the music of Ireland and to qualities of life, connection, and story that speak across time as well. There are love songs of varied sorts, songs of travel and of change, despair and hope, a touch of wry humor, and through it all, really fine stories well told. There is journey in the words and in the melodies as well, from quiet to rollicking, from rhythms to dance or tap your foot along to ones to lean in and listen closely. Songs include Finn Waterside, Willie Angler (also known as The Banks of the Bann), The Eighteenth of June, Lovely Nancy, Cha Tig Mor mo Bhean Dhachaigh sung in Scottish Gaelic, a nod to Kennedy’s longtime residence in Edinburgh), and One Morning in May.

Trading lead and harmony singing, lead lines and backup on their instruments, Doyle, Kennedy, and O’Leary create music which is at once intricate, delicate, strong, and straightforward. Begun in the shadow of Knocknarea in the west of Ireland and brought to recorded form in a quiet cabin the Appalachian Mountains of the southern United States,The Alt holds history, melody and stories well told, and the heart of friendship in the sharing of them all.

You may also wish to see
Shadow and Light: Irish Music from John Doyle
 music and journey

-->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.

Traditional & contemporary: Nuala Kennedy

Nuala Kennedy hails from County Louth, in Ireland, an area that is known as a land of myth and legend. She moved to Edinburgh for art college, and with her whistles and flute in hand, became immersed in that city’s vibrant music community. Though still based in Scotland, Kennedy has recently spent time in New York, as well. Each of these experiences weave through the songs and tunes on her album Noble Stranger.

The collection begins with a song of Kennedy’s own devising called Gabriel Sings. The lyrics and ideas are a vivd mix of image that could be at home in pop and traditional styles, while the arrangement was in part inspired by a vintage but not so traditional instrument: Kennedy was given a small Casio keyboard by by Norman Blake of the Glasgow based band Teenage Fan Club, a group with who she has worked in the past. “ I was immediately drawn to the simplicity and transportability of the instrument,” Kennedy says.

Her own primary instruments, flutes and whistles, are transportable themselves, and Kennedy takes their sound through music of Ireland and Scotland as well as to Spain and adds in the energy of time she’s spent in New York. Lord Duneagle is a songs from the Scottish tradition, a tale of a man leaving his love in order to go off across the seas, on his return finding things not as he had anticipated. This story line shows up in other Celtic traditions, as well, and it is often sung as a slow ballad. Kennedy creates a fast paced, percussive treatment, a take which adds urgency to the story and serves it well. She has always been a fine singer, with a light, expressive soprano which is framed well by the textures of guitar, mandolin, drums, flutes and other instruments here. Her work on this and other songs on the recording show that she is really coming into her own with her singing as well.

Flute takes the lead for sets that, in different ways, reference area in the north of Spain called Asturias. It is a Celtic location too, with its own accent for music. The first Asturias set comprises two tunes which their origins in sixteenth century Scotland, while Asturias Part Two is made up of pipe tines from Llena in central Asturias.

Through all the dozen tracks, Kennedy and her tight knit band show a gift for weaving tradition and present day in melody, lyric, arrangement, and choice of material. “Spending time in America has given me a renewed appreciation of my own traditional musical heritage, and this renewed appreciation is reflected in the choices of some of the older material on the album, “ Kennedy says. “Classic traditional songs such as My Bonny Labouring Boy and the bonus track Matt Hyland are songs I have known for a long time and they seemed to re-emerge as a natural part of this record.” These traditional songs are, indeed a natural part of Nuala Kennedy’s musical journey on Noble Stranger, a journey which weaves together sounds and ideas of past and present -- a journey well worth the taking.

you may also wish to see

Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh
Music road trip New York City: Irish Musicians
music and journey

-->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.

Music and journey

Music has many roles along life’s roads. At times it a companion, at other times a historian, sometimes music is a connector. At times music is immediate and of the moment, and at still other times it calls back memories. Whichever of these roles music fills at a given moment. it takes us on a journey.

That’s as true whether you are listening to a song, a dance tune, a chamber music piece, or an orchestra movement. Music tells a story -- may stories, really -- and invites us along.

When musicians are creating albums, they think of that aspect too, in the way they sequence the pieces on an album. Now that it is possible for listeners to pick and choose in purchasing and listening to tracks rather than having whole albums, this experience of following a sequence is one that many people choose to bypass.

That can be a mistake. Hearing how an artist chooses to set one song alongside another, listening to what sort of connection there may be across pieces that open an album and that close it, hearing how songs interact with each other melodically and lyrically and in all the ways musicians choose to present them -- those are things which help make the journey of listening to music one of discovery.

Kathy Mattea, Cathie Ryan, and Nuala Kennedy each take quite different journeys on their new albums. Mattea, who has said that her doorway into country music was through folk music, has been walking back through that door since her album Coal, and that she continues with Calling Me Home, an album that begins with a traveler far from home and ends with Requiem for a Mountain. Cathie Ryan draws on her background and experiences in both Ireland and America to create a wide ranging yet clearly focused journey through the joys and sorrows of life on her recording Through Wind and Rain.
Nuala Kennedy brings in her heritage of Celtic tradition and her work in the contemporary world in a collection that looks to past and present for its inspiration on her recording Noble Stranger. You will be hearing more of each of these recordings in days to come.

following up on that, you may want to see the article Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain for more on that album


It is also possible to lead this sort of journey through music without words. Two recordings you may want to check out to hear fine examples of this are Hanneke Cassel’s For Reasons Unseen and Alison Brown’s
The Company You Keep.

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Tune In: Nuala Kennedy

When Nuala Kennedy came upon an old radio in a shop in her street in Edinburgh, she began to imagine what it would be like to turn the dial and hear the passing and unexpected sounds of the world, from opera to country swing to late night talk shows, sometimes crystal clear and sometimes fading away, Given that Kennedy is a musician, this soon provided the idea for an album. She's called it Tune in.

It ‘s a framework which invites, even requires, invention and adventure. Kennedy, a composer, singer, and flute player, takes to it all with good result, and a bit like the radio station tuning in different frequencies, she brings in musical friends to add their own notes and ideas in support, as well. Her companions on the trip include Norman Blake, Julian Sutton, Donald Hay, and Sua Lee, just to name a few.

Kennedy is an Irishwoman, now living in Scotland, who has traveled many places through her music. She draws on Irish traditional music for several tracks, including the Donegal Song Down by the Strand and the Fermanagh one The Blooming Star of Belle Isle. She adds in songs and tunes she’s learned on other parts of her musical journeys, and music she has written herself, often inspired by those travels. Especially notable among Kennedy’s own work here are All of These Days and and the Footsteps/Julian and Iwona’s set.

you may also wish to see
Nuala Kennedy's album Shorelines

Music Road: Shannon Heaton: Oil for the Chain

Music Road: Saturday Sessions: Brian Finnegan on writing tunes

-->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.

If you enjoy what you’ve been reading here, another way to support more of it: