Celtic Connections
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The Jack Badcock I saw at Oran Mor was a very different person from that I had previously seen with his award-winning band Dallahan. Gone was the brash straight-ahead trad band frontman, in his place was a laid-back writer and singer of gentle melodic ballads that, to be frank, showed off his voice to greater […]
It’s the final day showcase at the Danny Kyle Open Stage at Celtic Connections, celebrating its 30th anniversary, today (Sunday, February 5, 2023.) The show promises to be a real musical treat and it is going out live at 5 pm with station presenter, Auntie Liz Clark hosting. Binky Blue – CÀRNAN – Chloe Matharu […]
The haunting darkness, the taut lyrics for a cast list of characters including serial killers and dodgy law enforcement officers plus doleful songs with wayward, mixed-up souls make “Nebraska” the powerful and wonderful Bruce Springsteen album that it is. Released on the final day of September 1982 it is well documented how he recorded the […]
Lau Noah, a 28-year-old self-taught composer from Reus in Tarragona, Catalonia, resident in New York, is a prodigious musical talent. Her voice soars effortlessly over complex guitar arrangements that seem to speak of advanced classical guitar training. It turns out that she just picked up a guitar on a stormy night 6 years ago, decided […]
The fun began with an energy-charged set from DALLAHAN – Jack Badcock (guitar and vocals); Ciaran Ryan (banjo, mandolin and fiddle); Andrew Waite (accordion) and Benedict Morris (fiddle). They opened with a hundred-mile-an-hour reel before seguéing into a mixture of songs and tunes from their forthcoming album “Anchor.” The melodic Durbar Square was written as […]
WILLIAM PRINCE’s open-ness, whole-hearted attitude and sense of enjoying the moment are uplifting throughout this appealing, 75-minute appearance, where he offers what he describes as “country folk with a touch of gospel to it.” The Oji-Cree musician from Peguis First Nation in Manitoba, who begins with Johnny Cash’s epic “Ring Of Fire,” has a gentle, preacher-like manner […]
Celtic Connections, celebrating its 30th anniversary, gets under way in Glasgow this week (Thursday, January 19.) And one of its main attractions is the Danny Kyle Open Stage where 160 new musical talents get the chance to shine each night of the festival in the Exhibition Hall at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. The six […]
She has an autobiography and a new album coming out, and here she is, a couple of days shy of her 70th birthday, edging us along a bittersweet, rugged, emotion-laden song route where no-one delivers quite like her. The revered Lucinda Williams has gritty, dust-blown grief and heartache down to perfection in her imperious catalogue […]
When a concert’s support act is as good as Basco – a four-man trad-based band based in Denmark – you know you’re in for a treat. Hal Parfitt Murray (fiddle, mandolin, vocals) is Scots by birth Australian by upbringing, and Ale Carr (cittern) is Swedish. The other half of the band, Andreas Tophoj (violin/viola) and […]
The announcer jokingly referred to this as a night of “Beauty and the Beast” – Ellie Beaton’s voice and presentation amply filled the “Beauty” category and Archie Fisher proved yet again that, at the age of 83, he’s still one of Scottish folk music’s “big beasts.” Ellie is a former BBC Young Trad Singer finalist, […]
