Road Trip Music: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving across America: it is a season of gathering in, of hope, of reflection, of family -- and of exploration and landscape and travel as well. Music is always part of this. Here are three recordings to go along and perhaps open up new ideas for you.

Midnight Special, Goodnight Irene, In the Pines, Stewball, House of the Rising Sun, Pick a Bale of Cotton: chances are, you know these songs. Whether you’ve heard them from rock stars, blues musicians, country singers, folk storytellers or schoolteachers. Chances are too that the reason they and you know these songs today is because of Huddie Ledbetter -- Lead Belly. From prison inmate to in demand artist in the folk music revival, from a childhood in the deep south to stages in New York City and Europe, he became, as Eric Bibb writes in the liner notes of Lead Belly's Gold, “the most famous Black folksinger ever, bringing the attention of millions to the power of African American song, well outside the boundaries of his own community.” Lead Belly, Bibb continues, “...owes this extraordinary status to his uncanny talent for bridging gaps.“

That’s a talent Bibb and his collaborator on Lead Belly's Gold, JJ Millteau, share in their individual careers, and that they each bring to their appreciation and understanding of the sixteen tracks they’ve chosen for this project. They open with Grey Goose, which could among other things be seen as a poetic allegory for immigration and refugee issues.

Bibb’s melodic voice with an edge of growl works well on this and other cuts, in fine counterpoint to Milteau’s bluesy with a helping of jazz and folk harmonica lines. Where Did You Sleep Last Night, a folk/blues song from the deep south also known as In the Pines, is one of the many songs Lead Belly learned from southern blues and folk tradition and made his own. Milteau and Bibb put their own stamp on it as well. There’s a fine combination of When That Train Comes Along and Swing Low Sweet Chariot. An original by Bibb, When I Get to Dallas, stands in good company with the older songs. The first eleven songs are live recordings from a performance before a small audience at The Sunset in Paris. The last five, among them Stewball and Titanic, are studio recordings. Bibb and Milteau conclude the disc with another original song from Bibb, which finds Lead Belly musing on his life and legacy, called, appropriately enough, Swimmin’ in a River of Song.

Dulcie Taylor knows about that river of song. In her recording Dulcie Taylor and Friends: Wind Over Stone she offers songs touching on love, family, travel, changes, time, courage, and other things, all done with lyrics which combine a clear poetic sense with a clear down to earth sense of connection and communication. Most are written or co written by Taylor, who sings the lead on many of them in a fine soprano.

She also has the confidence and good will to step aside and share the spotlight with her equally talented friends and longtime musical collaborators. Tony Recuipido and George Nauful each have songs on the collection and they take the lead voice on those, with Taylor adding harmony. The California based songwriter, whose songs could fit in with Americana, folk, country, and other sorts of playlists, is a fine guitarist, as well. At this Thanksgiving season, you might want to listen out especially for her songs When the Cherokee Roamed and Not Here, Not Today.

Songs with story are and long have been a hallmark of Kathy Kallick’s work. A moving force in the west coast and national bluegrass scene, her work is rooted in bluegrass, but contains much to appeal to lovers of all forms of good acoustic music. Foxhounds leads listeners on a journey from the title track, inspired by a time when Kallick sat with bluegrass icon Bill Monroe listening to his foxhounds run to the closing song, In Texas, a spare and visual evocation of a journey that didn’t turn out the way it might have, inspired by a conversation Kallick had with her daughter.

Along the way are other fine originals from Kallick including My Montana Home and Snowflakes, fiddle player Annie Staninec steps into lead singing on a pair of high energy songs, there is a Bill Monroe tune and there’s a song from not so bluegrass musician Richard Thompson. Through the journey Kallick and her fine band -- in addition to Kallick herself on guitar and vocals, and Staninec on fiddle and vocals, Cary Black is on acoustic bass and vocals, Greg Booth ads vocals along with banjo and dobro, and Tom Bekeny sings and plays mandolin -- Foxhounds is a fine and thoughtfully sequenced work that that calls in past, present, and future of bluegrass, one of the forms of American music to celebrate at this Thanksgiving season. .

-->Music to celebrate the season and for listening all the year around. blues, folk, Americana, country, and bluegrass: vibrant parts of America’s soundtrack. Take a listen and see what you find.

Top and bottom photos by Kerry Dexter, center photo by and courtesy of Skitter Photo. Thank you for respecting copyright

You may also wish to see these stories:
It would not be Thanksgiving around my house without the music of Jay Ungar and Molly Mason. Read about their albums that works especially well for this season: Music for Thanksgiving
Music of the First Peoples is appropriate to the season, too, as is music inspired by sharing with family. read about two albums which embrace these ideas: Autumn and Thanksgiving listening
Saint Andrew’s Day is on the way: Scotland’s Music: A Saint Andrew’s Day Tapestry at Wandering Educators
Advent is approaching too. A story for that: First week in Advent: 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.

Music for Thanksgiving

Harvest. Gathering in. Gathering together. Preparing for winter’s colder days and nights. Watching the change of light, the changing color of leaves. Singing hymns of Thanksgiving, songs of harvest, giving thanks for grace. Songs of hope for a cold winter’s night, and a family gathered around. Whethter you live close to the land or you do not, close to songs of faith or not, with family or not, these things still form part of this time of year. A time, indeed, for thanksgiving.

James Galway, Jay Ungar, and Molly Mason have an album that is well suited to this time. It is called Song of Home. On it, with fiddle and bow, flute and guitar (Peter Ostroushko adds mandolin too), they travel from Cape Breton to the west and back again, finding common threads and contrasting colors in the celebration of what it means to come home.

The album is a meditative door opening to this season of sharing and connecting, and a fine companion through it. Music includes My Cape Breton Home, West Texas Waltz, Bound for California, and Oh Shenandoah/Shenandoah Falls. There are also selections from the Harvest Home suite, music which Ungar and Mason wrote following the urn of seasons across the land and the landscapes of life.

Ungar and Mason have another album well suited to this season of thanksgiving .It is called Harvest Home and includes music from the Harvest Home suite as well as original and traditional music. They have anew album out, too which focuses on the winter holiday season and is called A Fiddler's Holiday With The Jay Ungar & Molly Mason Family Band.

You may also wish to see

harvest time

Autumn music: preparation and presence

photograph of pumpkins is by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright

-->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.

Autumn & Thanksgiving listening, continued

In the second half of autumn. there’s gathering in of harvest and looking back toward summer, while heading into the work of winter.

Autumn is a very fine season all on its own, though, with work of transition, and work of connection, work of creation and work of preparation.


As you walk through the season, good musical companions are Hanneke Cassel’s For Reasons Unseen and Jay Ungar and Molly Mason’s Harvest Home.

Harvest Home comprises an orchestral piece of that same name, done in collaboration with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra (now known as Orchestra Nashville), and a selection of tunes crossing landscapes of place and musical geography of the United States. . Ungar plays the fiddle, Mason is a guitarist, and other musicians you’ve met here along the music road sit in, among them Christine Balfa, John Kirk, Keith Murphy, and Paul Gambill, who conducts the Nashville Chamber orchestra for this outing. It’s a fine collection all around. Haymaker’s Hoedown, Prairie Spring, and Bound for Another Harvest Home are good ways to get an idea of the spirit of things, and you may very likely recognize another original tune, Ashokan Farewell.

Cassel’s album wasn’t designed especially for the harvest time of year, but the music she chooses for it holds a reflective idea, even in the fast paced pieces, that works well with the season. Cassel is a fiddle player, pianist, and composer whose work is grounded in Scottish tradition with dashes of Americana and Irish flavor , and in this case, music she learned while traveling in China, as well. Musicians you’ve crossed paths with along the music road sit in with Cassel too, among them Natalie Haas, Alasdair Fraser, and Lissa Schneckenburger. As is Harvest Home, For Reasons Unseen is an album to listen to all the way through, and with especial note of the Blackberry Meadow Footrace set, The Goat Whisperer, and the Dusky Meadow set.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: harvest time
Music Road: autumn skies

-->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.

Music for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving time in the United States. Musical ideas to explore for the holiday

Hanneke Cassel and Christopher Lewis: Calm the Raging Sea Top Scottish style fiddler and guitarist turn their attention to a set of hymns

Jay Ungar and Molly Mason Harvest Home
fiddle and guitar on lively and reflective music of the American landscape


Mark O'Connor: Americana Symphony
classical and Americana meet in the hands of a composer who is master of both


Donal Clancy Close to Home Irish music, on guitar, close to home


bluegrass, jazz, Celtic, and folk keep good company on this recording from Alison Brown
The Company You Keep


you may also wish to see

Music Road: Daisycutter: Sara Milonovich

Music Road: holiday gift list: American harvest

Music Road: harvest time: Native American music

-->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.

For your holiday gift list

It’s a time for getting together, for celebrating, for sharing and giving at this season. What better gift than music? Not expensive, easily portable, works equally well as a hostess gift, a gift for a well loved friend, and for yourself. and always a lot of fun, to give and to receive.

As you are considering your holiday shopping list, here are several ideas:

*if you know someone who loves history
Wilderness Plots: the dvd will be an excellent gift. Five top songwriters share stories and songs of how they came to write about the history of southern Indiana and the Ohio Valley. This would also am make a fine gift for the songwriters on your list

*if you or someone on your list is thinking green
read about the music of Adrienne Young and check out her three albums. Young, who comes from a farm backgorund, works to support sustainable agriculture and independent farmers and community gardens. He music is vibrant mix of folk, country, and bluegrass,, touching on the deeper sides of everyday actions.


*for those who love Ireland and Irish America
Any of Cathie Ryan’s four solo discs is a great choice -- my favorite is her most recent, The Farthest Wave. Ryan builds bridges between history and present day, legend and reality, and Ireland and America in her work. There’s more about all that here: Cathie Ryan: Irish and American


*parents and grandparents on your list
will go for the album Mother by Robin Spielberg, Cathie Ryan, and Susan McKeown. it’s varied and thoughtful collection of songs and instrumental pieces to do with motherhood and being a parent that you and they will not have heard before.

*for the Francophile and Francophone on your list
Christine Albert’s Christine Albert: Paris, Texafranceis a great pick. Albert’s family background is French and French Swiss; she’s known as an American folk and country musician. She weaves both of those together on this recording. For more the folk side of her work, check out Albert’s Christmas CD collaboration with her husband, Chris Gage, called One More Christmas


*for those who are considering questions of faith


add Carrie Newcomer’s The Geography of Light to your list. Darkness and light, laughter and prayer, and the idea that there are often more questions than answers even when working in the realm of faith inform Newcomer’s work.


*for who those like to try new things
the album Dual, from Julie Fowlis and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, is a good choice. The two A list singers offer music which explores connections and differences between songs in Irish and in Scots Gaelic. And no, you needn’t understand the languages to appreciate what they’re getting at. Catriona McKay’s Starfish is another musical adventure, as she combines Scottish traditional music, original compositions, the harp, and computer generated elements in her work.

*for those who are learning music, or would like to
Shannon Heaton plays flutes and whistles, but her book, Oil for the Chain, has information about learning tunes, playing in sessions, backing up lead players, and writing music, that’ll be of use to those who play many different instruments.
there’s plenty of music included, and it’s played through clearly on the CD which accompanies the book, which you can find here

Ellery Klein’s Complete Idiot's Guide to Playing the Fiddle
is another book with information that’s useful to musicians of many styles and levels. Klein, former member of the band Gaelic Storm, takes you from the basics of buying and caring for a fiddle to caring for yourself as you’re playing, to learning tunes, and offers guides to practicing. She includes plenty of music and loads of resources for learning more. The book is filled with examples and tunes to learn form Scottish, Cape Breton, Irish, and bluegrass music, and there’s a CD/dvd which comes along with the book as well.

*for those who’d like refreshing holiday music



Gretchen Peters’ Northern Lights is a fine mix of traditional contemporary and original music, catching the spirits of both solitude and connection at winter time, while Matt and Shannon Heaton’s Fine Winter's Night considers the holiday season from perspectives both Celtic and American.


Its’ a time for giving, receiving, sharing, and listening....enjoy the music.

Here’s another article you might like to see
Music Road: creative practice: new years eve

-->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.

creative practice: thanksgiving

At times, it’s challenging to get to the focused place of creative practice when the world, both in large scale and in day to day life, seems to be calling for attention in so many ways,p ositive hopeful things, and difficult, hard ones both. Give the gift that only you can give. That idea makes a good center point. Though I’ve often had -- am having -- challenging times in making that work to make living, still it is what being an artist is about, and it is what other sorts of vocations are about too.

In the United States this week we celebrate Thanksgiving, a remembrance, among other things, of a time when communities and individuals cared for each other, and when, remembering that, a broken nation took a stand for hope.

Music is and has been and will be a way to connect, to create and to think about all these things. Especially at this Thanksgiving, I offer thanks to all the musicians you've met here, and those who help them out at home and along the road. I look forward to many more shared journeys.

for more on vocation, you may want to see Parker Palmer’s book
A Hidden Wholeness




and for music to go along with these ideas
Music Road: now playing: cathie ryan: the farthest wave

Music Road: now playing: Carrie Newcomer: The Geography of Light

Music Road: Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

Creative practice: giving thanks

a season of giving
a season of thanks
a season of sharing
a season of wonder

the gift of music is a gift of substance
a gift of time
a gift of connection


music that’s in that spirit includes
In the Moment, by Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas
Christmas Heritage, by NewGrange
On Christmas Night, by Cherish the Ladies
Winter Tidings, by Al Petteway and Amy White
Just in Time for Christmas, by Pam Tillis

There’s more on all this to come. Meantime, take a look at the post below called Winter Music.

happy Thanksgiving