Sep 4, 2010

The Celtic Music Radio Album of the Week this week is The Seedboat (Bàta an t-Sìl) by Maggie MacInnes and Colum Sands.

“The Seedboat sails from Barra shore, young Donald’s gone to Newry. And though he swears a swift return, til then she’ll miss him dearly.”

Lines taken from a beautiful bitter-sweet Scottish Gaelic love song. This song has inspired these two musicians, both extremely highly regarded exponents of their respective traditions, to recall an historic voyage between their homelands with a bi-lingual treasure trove of song and story, old and new, in celebration of the musical bridges between Ireland and Scotland.

“The Seedboat is a totally captivating experience of tunes, songs, stories and rememberings crafted together seamlessly by two master musicians, singer/songwriter and traveller Colum Sands and Gaelic singer and harpist Maggie MacInnes.

Maggie and Colum are superb performers individually: together they achieve a sweet harmony that transports you gently and effortlessly to another time and place.With such capable hands on the tiller, The Seedboat is a journey for the soul.” Jan Nary

We at Celtic Music Radio can’t argue with that quote!

Click here to purchase a copy of this excellent album for yourself!

Aug 28, 2010

This week, Ross Macfadyen talks to George Millar of Canadian/Irish band The Irish Rovers about their new CD album Gracehill Fair. (Saturday 12 noon; 12 midnight; Monday 18:00)

George Millar and his friend Jimmy Ferguson started out singing together as The Irish Rovers performing mostly Irish folk songs in Toronto. They traveled to Calgary where they met up with George’s older brother Will Millar who was singing children’s songs in the International House of Pancakes in Calgary. Will asked if he could join them and the core of the group was established. Will introduced the boys to Les Weinstein, who helped arrange for them to appear on television, and would later manage the group throughout the group’s career. They then invited George’s cousin Joe to join the group. Later, the boys became part of a popular folk club of the time called the Depression, a club that also kick-started the career of Joni Mitchell.

The Irish Rovers traveled to California in the USA, which at the time was the focus of many folk singers.  On the journey there their car broke down in Northern California, which is when they met some Irish pub owners and an agent who helped them secure a gig at the popular Purple Onion in San Francisco. The group subsequently began performing in folk clubs all over California. Wilcil McDowell joined the band in 1966, around the time the group was signed by Decca Records when “The Unicorn” became a global success.

The group is best known for their recording of Shel Silverstein’s “The Unicorn” (1967) and Irish ditties “The Orange and the Green” / “Whiskey on a Sunday” (1968). They also hosted several variety television programmes in the 1970s on Canadian television – the Pig And Whistle from Vancouver being one. 

Although they recorded many albums after that, they weren’t as successful commercially as “The Unicorn” until 1980 when the band had a crossover hit with a cover of Tom Paxton’s “Wasn’t That a Party.” The success of this, which was performed in a country-rock style rather than the band’s familiar folk style, led to the band rebranding itself as The Rovers and changing styles for the remainder of the 1980s, scoring follow-up hits with songs such as “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy,” “No More Bread and Butter,” and the Christmas hit “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” By the 1990s, however, the band was once again known as the Irish Rovers.

Will Millar left the group in 1995 but George and the remaining members of the band have continued to have a successful career, touring in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.  They have recently release their latest album (Varese Sarabande) celebrating 45 years in the music business.   They are currently filming live on location in Ireland.

Founding member Jimmy Ferguson died in 1997.

More information and to buy the album, go to The Irish Rovers website.

Listen to Ross Macfadyen talking to George Millar on Saturday at 12 noon; 12 midnight (00:00) and on Monday 30 August at 18:00.

Aug 21, 2010

Aug 14, 2010

Kilburn, London based singer songwriter Sean Taylor whose 2009 release CALCUTTA GROVE received rave reviews the world over has now produced his best work to date.

WALK WITH ME is a stunning collection of eleven new tracks, nine of which are from the pen of Taylor; the remaining two are his take of the traditional She Moved Through The Fair and a superbly unique arrangement of a Shakespearian sonnet entitled Love Hate On. The album was produced by esteemed Trevor Hutchinson (The Waterboys, Sharon Shannon, Eric Bibb, Lunasa) and notable musicians guesting on the album include BJ Cole (Elton John, Sting, REM) on pedal steel, Vyvienne Long (Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan) on cello, Justin Carroll on Hammond Organ (Van Morrison), Dave Hingerty (The Frames, Josh Ritter) on drums and Michael Buckley (Joss Stone, Mary Coughlan) on sax.

 Sean says: “Like everything I have ever done this album came directly from live performance. The songs were developed in a variety of ways. Some of them were written very quickly, such as ‘Perfect Candlelight’ which came together after reading Lorca’s ‘Poet in New York’. Others I started writing years ago. ‘Fare Thee Well’, started life as a gigging riff eight years ago and has become more and more powerful over time.”

Click here to buy a copy of Walk With Me.

Aug 7, 2010

This week’s Album of the Week is from Iain Thomson, who is sometimes known as … the Singing Shepherd.

A folk singing solo act with a varied repertoire of Scottish, Irish, and contemporary songs and tunes.  The Iain Thomson Trio and Iain Thomson band also perform for ceilidh dancing and festivals.

Campbell Cameron of Oban FM writes:

“The singing shepherd has grown up, matured and is playing with the big boys now. When I first met Iain all those years ago we had similar dreams and ambitions and a friendship grew from that meeting of minds. Since then my friend has had some serious growing pains to contend with, moving away from his beloved Isle of Mull tentatively to the mainland and a house south of Oban while he shepherded locally, then to Glasgow for the ‘single man in the city’ experience.

That involved developing business online and driving lorries long distance at night then to Fintry and a gradual progression back to the land and the love of a new family to bolster his confidence and a wedding and Aileen which has nourished the hero inside.

Then finally the move back to Mull, the magnetism and the land and the hills calling, but always the music. Always the songs; the lyrics, the links, and hook, the line as he drove thousands of miles or walked the foreign lands of the central belt.  Always the music for that is the passion.

This album ‘Fields of Dreams’ is the result of the distillation of all those disperse ingredients and experiences.  A fine man was established as producer and a great studio and director found in Leith and the process began. The director has patience; the producer is a perfectionist and all three are well connected.  Fine established musicians pop in here and there and add the magic; the wee touches that are hard to spot unless you sit back with a dram and the music when they become evident.

Many a night we talked.  Sometimes over a dram sometimes over the phone many times as he hauled a forty foot articulated lorry over the Sloch into Inverness or navigated the side streets of a southern city on an overnight trunker taking goods to market down the M6. We chatted at the end and during our many adventures on business going to see folk all over the UK and developing our dreams by building theirs.

But always we returned to the music and the land.  A wee croft for Iain where he could raise the animals he loves working with and where he can play the music and write the songs.

I hope you enjoy the results. I know you will as the stories take you into the hills of Mull, down the M6 to Manchester and back  around the world to New Zealand and finally back to the old country.

The Singing Shepherd has grown up – in the Fields of Dreams.”

Click here to purchase a copy of Fields of Dreams.

Jul 31, 2010

This week it’s An English Tale from Catherine Howe and Vo Fletcher

The duo started working together in 2007, just after the reissue of Howe’s legendary album ‘What A Beautiful Place’ produced by the late Bobby Scott. Catherine knew Vo as a musician and songwriter and admired his work and from the very outset there was a musical rapport and understanding between them.

It naturally followed that as a duo they should perform some local concerts together and start recording. Catherine says, ‘We decided to record as ‘live’ an album as possible so the basic performances of guitar and voice were recorded together and without separation.

We chose to record this way, ‘knee-to-knee’ as it were, because we wanted to retain all spontaneity for these songs. The recordings have been enhanced wonderfully by Ric Sander’s fiddle playing, and we later laid down some harmonies too.

We’re called the album English Tale because, in essence that’s exactly what it is, a collection of songs inspired by people either Vo or I have known and loved, others we wish we’d known, and others we’ve welcomed to England. There are no co-written songs here, each comes from the pen of either Vo or me. The guitar pieces, which punctuate the set nicely I think, are, of course, Vo’s compositions. Nevertheless, you can hear how much of a collaborative piece of work English Tale is in the performance and choice of song.’

About Catherine Howe
Catherine Howe has been a virtual recluse for the last twenty five years having walked away from a successful acting and music career. She reappeared two years ago with her critically acclaimed album Princelet Street which in turn generated huge interest in her back catalogue and in particular her first album What A Beautiful Place (1971) produced by the late Bobby Scott. (Available now on Numero Records)

A Halifax lass Catherine was sent to London at the age of twelve to be a pupil and later graduate of the original Corona Stage School. In the late sixties she appeared in many classic TV shows such as Dr Who, Z Cars, Dixon of Dock Green before deciding in 1970 to follow a career in music. She recorded four now classic albums winning an Ivor Novello award along the way for her song ‘Harry.’

About Vo Fletcher:
In a long and varied career Vo has played, recorded and toured with: Nigel Kennedy, Fairport Convention, the Ric Sanders Group, Rik Mayall, Touch & Go, The Albion Morris Band and Brent Ford & The Nylons to name but a few.

To purchase a copy of An English Tale and to assist Celtic Music Radio in doing so, Please click here!