Long Time Courting: Alternate Routes

Alternate Routes:
that is the name of a tune, a set, and a new album from the band Long Time Courting. It also works to give a hint of the music within, and the routes the four women of the band took to get to it.

The story of Maggie Dean starts things off. Maggie disguises herself as a man to sail away on a ship bound for America, not, as is common in such songs, to follow her man, but rather to seek a trade. She ends up making a life on the sea, not, as is also common in such tales, rescued by becoming the captain’s wife, but rather learning the seafaring trade herself and marrying a fellow sailor. A traditional melody carries this turn on the familiar story in words composed by Shannon Heaton.

Heaton plays flutes and whistles with Long Time Courting. Sarah Blair is on fiddle, Liz Simmons plays guitar, and Ariel Friedman plays cello. All four of the women sing. The New England based musicians also have other commitments from teaching to touring to playing in duos, trios, and other bands, and among them they have worked with artists ranging from the Eagles to the Clancy Legacy.

What they have created with Long Time Courting is not so much a blend of talents as it is a tapestry, with bright threads of voice and instrument weaving in and out, coming to the fore and supporting in the background through a series of musical conversations that comprise both song and tune. LTC is rooted in Irish music, but they bring in American roots and on occasion other threads of music as well. The song Barbara Allen is well known on both sides of the Atlantic and in many different styles. LTC offers it in slowed down form, almost as a lament, with a nod to Johnny Cash as as well as to tradition. It is also a very fine instance of how the women’s singing creates a whole that is more than the sum of its parts.

Their collaboration through their instruments is equally strong The Alternates Routes set, which bookends Heaton’s original title track with two traditional pieces, finds the meeting of rhythm from Simmons guitar, breath of Heaton’s flute and dialogue between the bright sound of Blair's fiddle and the darker tone of Friedman’s cello all carrying the story with no words needed. The York Street Stepper set is another place to note this, as the title tune from LTC founding member Ellery Klein kicks off the journey and weaves in to two pieces from the tradition.

Each of the songs -- there are five of them, including My Johnny Was a Shoemaker, from the tradition, and Islander’s Lament, a contemporary song written by Robbie O’Connell -- offer strong story, engaging voice, great harmony, and thoughtful playing. The six tune sets deliver as well, and all show greater depth which each listening. A well woven tapestry, this, and a thoughtful musical journey, one which reveals more color and depth with each listening.


you may also wish to see

Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Music Road: The Clancy Legacy
Music Road: Shannon Heaton: The Blue Dress
Music Road: Cherish The Ladies: A Star in the East

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Long Time Courting: help kickstart their recording

Long Time Courting is a four woman band, based in the Boston area, whose members each bring a love of traditional Irish and American music as well as an interest in contemporary material to a group that has been delighting audiences across New England for several years.

All of the women sing, and their harmonies are a strong feature of their work. Each is also a talented instrumentalist, and their instrumental collaborations are as engaging as their singing. Sarah Blair plays fiddle, Liz Simmons handles guitar, Shannon Heaton plays flute, and Ariel Friedman plays cello. That is an interesting enough line up in itself -- add to it the fact that each brings a varied range of professional playing and recording experiences, and touring histories that cross the globe. Long Time Courting is a group well worth your listening.

Up until now, though, you had to catch one of their live shows to do that. They have not had funds to make a recording: as professional musicians with other band commitments and working women with other family demands, the money has not been there. However, they’ve decided it’s time to do something about that, and there is opportunity for you to help.

A recording is nearly complete, with the assistance of an engineer who was willing to wait for his pay. Long Time Courting have started a Kickstarter project to gather the funds to pay him, and to the get next steps of mastering, design, and promotion of the CD done to get their music out there.

Small investments go a long way -- and the way Kickstarter works, if they do not raise the full amount of their goal by a certain deadline, no one is charged and no money changes hands. In LTC’s case, the deadline is March 2nd, as and of this writing they’ve raised a bit more than thirty per cent of the three thousand dollars that is their goal amount to get their recording on to its next steps.

Want to invest in this recording, or to learn more about it? There are details at the band’s Kickstarter page.

Here is the band’s website, where you may hear a bit of their music, read their biographies, and find out their touring schedule: Long Time Courting

update: things are moving along for Long Time Courting's project -- they now have less than three hundred dollars to go to reach their goal -- and as of 23 February, nine days in which to do it.
further update: congratulations to Long Time Courting for meeting and exceeding their goal, and thanks to all who contributed to that. looking forward to hearing the recording.



you may also wish to see
Music Road: Boston Celtic Music Festival on the way
Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Music Road: early autumn: music and transition

Update: They did get to make the album!

-->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.

Long Time Courting: road trip visits New Hampshire

Long Time Courting is a four woman band which features four equally strong instrumentalists, fine lead singing, inventive harmonies, and music which is based in the traditions of Ireland and includes original music as well as songs and tunes from Scotland, Appalachia, Quebec, and Cape Breton. Fast flying jigs and reels along with ballads and songs with soaring four part harmonies are the group’s trademarks.

It’s not as though any of the four women were exactly at a loss for things to do when they decided to join forces. Guitarist Liz Simmons [who provides the New Hampshire connection here; she grew up in the state and is still based there -- and LTC performs often in the state too] plays in the band Annalivia; Ariel Friedman teaches cello and performs in a duo with her fiddle playing sister Mia; Ellery Klein, for seven years fiddler with the top touring band Gaelic Storm, now teaches in a mother and child music program and is herself the mother of toddlers; and Shannon Heaton, who plays flutes, whistles, and accordion, tours internationally as a duo with her guitarist husband Matt. Founding member Klein will soon be leaving to group to move overseas, and Sarah Blair, top traditional Irish style fiddler who plays often for contra dances with her band The Sevens and also teaches, will join the group.

All that means that the women bring powerhouse musical and creative backgrounds to Long Time Courting. It also means they balance their work in LTC with other demanding commitments. That’s one of the reasons they have not, at this writing, as yet made an album. Their concert tours, mostly in the New England area, are short, focused, and well worth catching. You can find out more about the band and their tour schedule at their web site.

For a taste of what Long Time Courting is like live, check out the video here

photo courtesy of Long Time Courting

you may also want to see

Ellery Klein & Ryan Lacey: Kick into the Beat
Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Cherish The Ladies: A Star in the East
Music of Maine: Lissa Schneckenburger

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 this (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

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