Stars, stories, and music

Looking forward, looking back...

and wishing all here, regular reader or first time visitor, all the best in this coming year

It is likley to be a year of uncertainty and change.

Music wil continue to be a good companion and a way to conect in these times.

I’ve many more good ideas on that to share with you here in days to come.

For the looking back part, several of your favourite stores from the past

Irish music, Irish landscape

Music and Mystery: a conversation with Carrie Newcomer

Scotland’s music: Laws of Motion from Karine Polwart, inge Thompson, and Steven Polwart

Spell Songs II: Let the Light In from Kris Drever, Julie Fowlis, Seckou Keita, Rachel Newton, and more...

Fine Winter’s Night from Matt and Shannon heaton

To the looking forward part, I expect to b telling you about music from a range of musicians from Ireland, Scotland, Canada, and the many musics which make up the folk music of the United States.

I invite you to explore otehr places where I write too including

The ongoing Music for Shifting Times series at Wandering Educators

Regular stories at Perceptive Travel

Alongside the Music Road, my newsletter at Substack

You may also find me on facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and BlueSky

Thank you for reading here.

As we come into this new year, I’d also remind you of these words about courage in hard times, true for the United States auduence to whom they were addressed and beyond America as well:

"There is an adage: Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time. For the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case. But, America, if it is: Let us fill the sky with the light of a billion brilliant stars.

"May the light of optimism, faith, truth, and service guide us—even in the face of setbacks—toward the extraordinary promise of the United States of America."
Kamala Harris

and these words also

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Photograph of birds by Andreas Hoja from Pixabay

Carrie Newcomer: A Great Wild Mercy

The intersection of a rainy day, an umbrella, and a prayer, a glimpse of swift passing fox in the autumn woods, what to do with a sleepless night, memory of a mother’s ideas on what would heal a bee sting, walking into the night after gathering for a potluck dinner...

These are several of the ideas Indiana based singer and songwriter Carrie Newcomer drew on for the stories she tells in her songs on her album A Great Wild Mercy.

“There’s news of the world and news of the heart” Carrie Newcomer sings as one of the lines in the title track.

Newcomer has been making music at the intersection of those two ideas for a good while now. A Great Wild Mercy is her twentieth album.

“I think songwriters each have certain ideas, certain themes they return to,” Newcomer says.

One of Newcomer’s themes is seeing the sacred in the everyday, the depths beyond the surface.

That has, among other things, resulted in a body of work which finds big ideas -- community, hope, grief, the lessons and uncertainties of parenthood, of love, of change, what to do with anger, and many other facets of life, grounded in vivid detail and image.

That has been true across the albums of Newcomer’s work. It is a practice and a style in which her work has evolved, too, both musically and lyrically.

In A Great Wild Mercy, for example, in addition to her own voice and guitar and the work of her frequent musical collaborator pianist and arranger Gary Walters, Newcomer is joined by artists on violin, percussion, cello, harmony vocal, bass, and mandolin.

If you are new to Newcomer’s music, you may be drawn first by her voice -- she has one of the best alto voices around in any style of music -- the way she uses her voice in service f music and story, and the thought provoking stories she tells

There’s much more.

A co-write with John McCutcheon offers a lively melody framing images and ideas inviting you to think about what going back to basics and/or starting over means.

Singing in the Dark took a spark from experiences Newcomer had when attending early morning service at the Abbey of Gethsemani where Catholic theologian and writer Thomas Merton spent part of his life.

Newcomer is a Quaker. “My faith is part of my life,” she says, “so it comes through in my music. Though a faith based record label wouldn’t touch me with a ten foot pole,” she adds, laughing.

At times Newcomer’s music invites you to laugh, or to dance. At other times she invites you to think of hard circumstances, to consider choices, to think about memories. And to take a walk through a woods at evening, seeing what you may find on that quiet path.

Newcomer’s songs are invitations to reflection, to ask questions, to consider connections.

Give them time and thought. You will be well rewarded.

You may also wish to explore
Carrie Newcomer has a Substack called A Gathering of Spirits.
She has also published several books of poetry and essays. We had a conversation about her writing process for that sort of work
Another album by Carrie Newcomer
Carrie was invited to take her music to India...
At the turning of the year: 5 songs including one from Carrie.

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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!

Winter music: the album Fine Winter's Night from Matt and Shannon Heaton

It is a season of giving, these days as one year turns to another.

Music is always a good gift. Whether enjoyed together or alone, music evokes connection, community, and reflection.

Fine Winter’s Night is a song Shannon Heaton wrote to honor both cold of winter weather outside and warmth which may be found behind lighted windows.

Shannon and her husband and musical partner Matt Heaton decided to call their seasonal album after the song. Fine Winter's Night makes a good choice as the songs and tunes they include within take note of those differing aspects of winter.

There are carols, among them the Wexford Carol from long ago in Ireland and O Little Town of Bethlehem from nineteenth century New England.

There are songs and tunes from varied sources and places with influence and origin from Shetland in Scotland’s Northern Isles to African American spiritual.

These varied sources are brought together by Matt and Shannon’s deep knowledge and love for Celtic music, their knowledge of and love for their instruments (Shannon, flute; Matt, guitar) and their grace in playing and singing together as well.

The original songs and tunes add grace notes to Fine Winter’s Night as well.

Among these are a song in which Shannon takes notice of a perhaps often overlooked part of the Christmas story. There’s another in which Matt, looking at a house he often passed not far from his neighborhood, began imagining a story which might have taken place there back in time.

Fine Winter’s Night offers music for listening, reflecting, and sharing through the winter season and in to the new year.

If you enjoy winter music from Ireland and Scotland, you may also want to know about

Three Christmas albums from Cherish the Ladies
Upon a Winter’s Night from Cara Dillon
Two songs from Emily Smith’s Songs for Christmas

Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. One way to do that: 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!

O Come Emmanuel from Hanneke Cassel

O Come O Come Emmanuel is music for the season of Advent that goes back in time. Far back, that is: it is a latin hymn thought to have first been sung in the ninth century.

Star of Wonder is a tune recetly composed by New England based musician Hanneke Cassel.

Cassel pairs the two in a thoughtful and intriguing way to open ehr album on which you will find them recorded. She chose the title from that pairing, as well: the album is called. O come Emmanuel.

With this opener, Cassel sets the tone and begins the journey on which she takes her listeners through the music on the album.

She offers creative re-imagining of winter season classics alongside thoughtful original music in a journey that becomes both timely and timeless.

Hanneke Cassel’s instrument is the fiddle (she’s ace on piano too).

Among other things, she is the former US Scottish National Fiddle Champion.

She began studying music with Texas style Western swing. When her teacher challenged her to learn the music of Scotland, she did, but was a bit impatient with it.

When she won a chance to study on the Isle of Skye, though that changed. She set her course toward what would be a musical practice rooted and grounded in the music of Scotland and of its Canadian Celtic cousin, Cape Breton.

All that said, Cassel brings her own background and interests into her exploration and creation of Celtic music.

She grew up in Oregon and came east to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston, receiving a degree in violin performance, and these days. sometimes returning as a guest instructor. Though she’s brought her music across the US and across the world to places including China and Kenya, she remains based in New England.

On O come Emmanuel Hanneke does not sing herself. She does, however, invite in musical friends from differing points of the compass to add their voices to several of the tracks, and partners with them beautifully with her playing.

Musical friends joining in on instruments are Christopher Lewis, Keith Murphy, Yann Falquet, Mike Block, Jeremy Kittel, Jenna Moynihan, Casey Driessen, and Tim Downing. The really are musical friends, too: each of them have worked with Cassel in duo, trios, and other ensembles.

The music on O Come Emmanuel is a creative mix of song and tune, well known pieces and original music, all in the spirit of winter, Christmas, family , and friendship.

Tracks include See Amid the Winter Snow, O come All Ye Faithful, Dancing Among the Cloud, Eilidh’s Christmas Morning, and Silent Night withe verses sung in four languages with Hanneke’s fiddle taking a verse as well as backing the singers.

In her sleeve notes, Hanneke writes among her thanks a note to thank he mom and dad “for filling the house with Christmas music every year-- from Handel to Amy Grant to Mannheim Steamroller to Raffi to Emmylou Harros --one of my favorite parts of the season is getting outthat stack of CDs.”

Once you’ve listened to O Come Emmanuel from Hanneke Cassel. you’ll be adding this recording to your stack of well loved seasonal classics, as well.

You may also wish to see
Hanneke Cassel’s web site
I’ve introduced you to several of Hanneke’s earlier recordings. Here are stories of several:
Dot the Dragon's Eyes (and several albums from others to explore
Trip to Walden Pond

an earlier story about Hanneke's career, at Perceptive Travel
For Reasons Unseen

For a time Hanneke toured backing up Irish American singer Cathie Ryan. You can hear Hanneke’s work especially well on Ryan’s album The Farthest Wave.

-->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, 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!

Advent Reflection: 2 Songs

Advent. It’s the season of four weeks leading up to the celebration of Christmas.

If Christmas and/or Advent are not part of your faith calendar, this time in December is a good season in which to make time for reflection and for a bit of rest, perhaps, however busy your schedule might be.

Advent is a time for looking forward and for looking back.

It has been and continues to be a hard and uncertain time for many of us. All the more reason to look for the quiwt Advent may bring.

Music is good gateway and a good companion for this.

Sally Barris has a song called Magnify.

It was, she says, written during a time she was facing a number of challenges in her life.

In the song, she sings of making choices, of choosing, for instance, to focus on -- to magnify -- the hand held out to help rather than the hard stuff that led to needing that helping hand.

Sally, who is originally from Minnesota, has been based in Nashville for some time. Many artists turn to her cataloue of songs when they are looking for thoughtful, well crafted, and creative songs to cover.

At this writing, I am not aware that Sally has put Magnify out as a recording; it’s a relatively new song.

She has a number of her own albums out though well She is also well respected as a mentor, teacher, and member of Nashville’s music community.

Another good listen for your reflection this season is called Another Reason.

Aoife Scott sings lead; she and her partner, Andy Meaney. write the song several eyars back to celebrate the birth of Aoife’s first niece.

Good advice, good material for reflection in this gentle song. Aoife and Andy come from Ireland. You will find the song recorded on Aoife Scot’s album called Homebird.

You may also wish to see

Sally Barris website

Aoife Scott website

More about Aoife’s album Homebird

Over the years I’ve written quite a bit about music to listne to during Advent, Here’s a look back at one of those Advent listening ideas.

At this season of giving, a gentle reminder, too that Music Road is reader supported. You can help!

Three ways to consider

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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. There are both free and paid subscriptions availableCome visit and check it out! .

Music for your election thinking

Music offers ways to connect across place, across time, across language, across other divides.

There is more that connects us than divides us is one of the points US Vice President Kamala Harris often makes, as she campaigns to become president ot he United States.

Many of you who join in here at Music Road arebased outwith the United Staes. Perhaps you do not care about elections in the US. Perhaps you are of the opinion that they do not matter to you.

I’d ask you to rethink that.

Perhaps you are a US voter who is still thinking about who you wish to vote for, or if you will vote at all. You might, perhaps, think that is election does not matter to you, either.

Perhaps, wherever you live, maybe you think it will make no difference ot your life, whoever wins.

It will.

As you consider your decisions on these things, here are severla pieces of music to help you with your consideration.

If you are thinking your ideas, your conversations, your beliefs, and wat you do about them have no consequence, consider this from Carrie Newcomer

If you are feeling a bit isolated, consider this from Tish Hinojosa

If you are thinking about what to weigh, what to value as you make your choices -- in voting if you are a US voter, in conversation and thought if you are watching events for elsewhere -- consider this from Claire Lynch. This may not be your faith, your book, or your story. Every faith and system of ethics has things to say about situations like the one Claire speaks of in the song, though.

If you’ve children you’d like to involve or who are already involved in thinking about there events. this song from Matt Heaton will offer a few good ideas. Works for adults too.

I have also included a several non music resoureces to add to your considerations.

Well, okay, a musician speaks here -- listen to what Jennifer Lopez has to say about why she is voting for Kamala Harris, and about the power of community

and...take time to hear, to listen, to what Vice Preident Kamla Harris has to say

If you are a US voter, there is still time to vote. I encourage you to do so.

I have cast my vote for Kamala Harris. I ask you to join me. Consider well your choices on the rest of your ballot, too. Democracy really is on the ballot.

You may also wish to see
Music for Autumn’s Changes, at Wandering Educators
A useful discussion of both US presidential campaigns as of late in October, from historian Heather Cox Richardson in her Letters from an American newsletter
Four songs for the (political) season at my Substack newsletter Along the Music Road -- all different from those you find above
About the album Spell Songs II: Let the Light In

A way to support Music Road: 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!

Celtic Colours online and in person

Celtic Colours International Festival is on 11 through 19 October, with concerts and community events all across Cape Breton.

Cape Breton is in the northern part of the province of Nova Scotia in Atlantic Canada.

That’s great, you might be thinking, but I am not near there at all...

However --> several festival concerts will be streamed on line. There is no cost to watch, but as the festival is a non-profit, you may want to consider making a donation to keep things going.

No worries if you cannot join at the time of broadcast, you should still have time to watch. In the past concerts have been left up through the next day at the festival's website and YouTube channel.

...and you will want to watch. Celtic Colours celebrates and draws on music mad on Cape Breton and from Scotland, Ireland, First Nations, Acadian, New England, and other aspects of Cape Breton heritage.

Artists from those places come to share their music, as do musicians from all across the Maritimes and from many other places in Canada as well.

Celtic Colours is known for its innovative collaborations as well as its respect for heritage.

Each concert is an ambassador concert of sorts: there are several acts on each bill. They each present a set on their own, and all join up to share in a finale. Sometimes, artists can’t resist sitting in with each other on the way to that finale, as well.

All this makes for concerts filled with heritage as well as filled with surprises.

There’s another surprise: there’s not an announced schedule of which concerts will be aired; what will be on is usually announced shorty before showtime each evening.

A word of respect must be said to festival artistic director Dawn Beaton, who puts all these collaborations together, and to the folks at Novastream, the Cape Breton based company whose people handle the broadcast of the shows. It’s no easy thing to shoot and direct live music, as I well know from experience; these folk know their stuff

Okay, but who might you see?

No guarantees, because, as mentioned, shows to be broadcast are not announced in advance.

However, a bit about just a few of the artists set to perform at Celtic Colours this year:

JP Cormier is a singer, songwriter and player of many instruments. The Cape Breton native will be at the opening concert and several other shows during the festival, including one which will feature JP and musical friends playing through music from his album Another Morning.

Mary Jan Lamond, also from Cape Breton, is a world renown Gaelic singer. Her friend fiddle player and step dancer Wendy MacIsaac joins her on stage at times; their duo album Seinn is well loved classic of Cape Breton music. This year, Wendy will be appearing on her own and as a memebr of the top rated band Beolach.

The three musicians who make up The Once bring top class singing to music which shows influences of Ireland, Scotland, Americana, and bluegrass over from their home base in Newfoundland.

Speaking of Americana, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason return to Celtic Colours with the decades of musical stories to share through song and tune; also from the US, Molly Shawn Scanlan and Connor Hearn as the duo Rakish walk the line between folk and classical as they make their Celtic Colours debut on fiddle and guitar.

You may find Dawn Beaton playing the fiddle, as well as playing keyboards and dancing. Often she on her siter Margie perform as a duo. Their heritage and practice in music inform their off stage creative practices as well, Dawn as artists director of Celtic Colours and Margie is in charge of school and college reatiosn and marketing at The Gaelic College.

Rose Morrison grew up and began her music career on Cape Breton. After some eyears living away, she’s returned, expanding her renown as a fiddle player to include songwriting and singing.

First Nations artists are always part of Celctic Colours, from drum circle members to dancers to fiddle players to songwriters this year Alex Kusturok of the Metis tradtion and Morgan Toney, who connects his Mi'kmaq heritage with Cape Breton style are among those from First Nations taking part.

Ireland is always well represented at Celtic Colours. John Doyle, Mick McCauley, and Oisin McAuley form u a trio to bring song and story from Dublin, Donegal, and Kilkenny to Cape Breton.

Cape Breton has strong connections to Scotland; it is one of the few places outside the Highlands and Island of Scotland where you will fidn Gaelic in daily use. It is natural then, that artists from Scotland always form a highy anticiapted and enjoyed aspect f Celtic Colours.

Among those joining in this year: top guitarist (she handles other instruments and is a singer, composer, and producer as well) Anna Massie; lengendary songwriter Archie Fisher; rising fiddle masyer Ryan Young; awatfd winning Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis ever creative five piece band Breabach, with special guest Moynihan joining in.

There;s msuch more to be explored, and there will no doubt be surprise in store as well as familiar friends to meet again in the broadcast concerts, or,if you have the opportunity, in person.

You may also wish to see
Brush you your knowledge of Cape Breton music
Venues on Cape Breton where you can find traditional music

Photographs: Julie Fowlis and Mary Jane Lamond courtesy of Celtic Colours; John Doyle by Kerry Dexter; Anna Massie courtesy of Innes Campbell Communications

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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!