Music for Spring 2026: Catrin Finch; Boiled in Lead; Breabach; American MIle; Hallie Grace; Clayton Chaney; Michael Rudd

What could be better than spring and new music releases, including a few Celtic gems?

Catrin Finch hails from Wales, a place that knows a few things about great harp music. Her new Notes to Self has an interesting hook. She uses the prompt of writing letters to herself when she was 13 and went by “Katy,” then transposes the feel of those notes into music for an all-instrumental album. Finch is 45 now, and has learned a few tricks along her path. For instance, many of the tracks use repeating musical patterns topped by bass lines, and looping. There are, at once, memorable melodies and an intimate feel. “13 opens as if a teen is practicing her lessons, but quickly shifts to her mature side in which the strings ring like bells amidst quieter secondary melodies.  Call it where force meets airiness. The video for second single “Kin” takes this a step further. In a girl-is-the-mother-of-the-woman sweep we see footage of Finch as a child practicing before cutting to her as an adult playing “Kin.” The music is majestic with lullaby-like contrast , but we can see her having some fun. (Check out the sneakers!)  She’s more formal on “Clear Sky,” though its ringing strings could also evoke a gentle rain. Most of the record is on the formal side, but “Black Holes” is… well, it’s hard to say. Soundscaping for sure, but with enough structure to make it more than random.  Put simply, Ms. Finch simply commands her instrument.

 

 

 

Does the band Boiled in Lead ring any bells? This Minneapolis-based quartet has been around since 1983, generally (but not always) as either a punk band or some sort of Celtic outfit (Celtic rock/punk/post-punk/world music, etc.). Bass player Drew Miller is the only original member in a band that has changed styles and personnel to follow the direction the musical winds are blowing. Their punk roots notwithstanding, the Boiled in Lead moniker comes from a version of the folk standard “The Two Sisters” as interpreted by Clannad, that gentlest of plugged-in Celts. At one point, BIL was seen as America’s answer to Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. Later they drew comparisons to Hüsker Dü and more lately to Gogol Bordello.  On King of the Dogwoods BIL opts for a more subdued sound. Former lead vocalist Todd Menton has rejoined the band, Mo Engel now pounds the drums, and Haley Olson Miller plays a fiery fiddle. The song “King of the Dogwoods” does have a bit of early Steeleye vibe, though the song itself is somewhere along the musical spectrum between bluegrass and Goth. It’s about movie monsters and the things that perhaps lurk in the dark woods. Its very ambiguity is a step back from creepy. “Je t’Aime, Helena’’ sounds like something swampy from the bayou. They go full rock and reel on “Haley’s,” but what do you want to do with “Bucimis,” which is Bulgarian for both a folk dance and poison hemlock. It’s more a headbangers' dance than village fa-de-da, though one could imagine a poisoning. There are others built around folk melodies. So, what kind of band in BIL? The word eclectic comes to mind on an album with more variety than Jimmy Fallon.

 

 

I recently saw the Scottish band Breabach in concert and picked up their latest recording, Fás, a Scots Gaelic word that means rejuvenation, sprouting, or growth. The CD is from 2022, but it wasn’t yet part of my collection. I will go on record as saying they are far more exciting live than in the studio, but the song "Fás" is a good way to introduce yourself to a band whose Gaelic name translates “bouncy.” Breabach (bray’-ah-bak) will bounce you right out of your seat when both Calum MacCrimmon and Conal McDonagh put down their Celtic whistles and heft the Highland pipes. “The Old Collection” is a lively tune that shows how the band balance the pipes with normally quieter instruments such as fiddle, guitar, and double bass. The melody and song leads come from the husband/wife team of Ewan Robertson (guitar) and Megan Henderson (fiddle), which Henderson picking up most of the Gaelic-language offerings such as “Fàs” or “Eadar an DàBhràigh” (“Between the two braes), the latter on which she warbles like a fragile bird. “John Mackenzie’s March” is a lovely tune and song about loss. Breabach might not yet have the stature of classic bands like Silly Wizard, the Tannahill Weavers, or Ossian, but they’re getting there! Side Note: When I visited Orkney a few years ago I met Megan's brother and uncle!

 

To move away from Celtic, fans of Southern and country rock should sample American Mile and their album American Dream. “Straight from the Heartland” might make you think these guys are Bread Basket-born, what with talk of dusty roads, a beat-up truck, and a “worn-down home,” but they are based in Los Angeles. Lead singers Eugene Rice and Joe Perez belt out gritty songs and have voices made for arena rock, which is no doubt why they draw comparisons to both Aerosmith and Tom Petty. “Hard Workin’ People” has a soulful, funky feel to a song that celebrates the working class and an appreciation for their challenges. “TuffLivin’” is more of the same message, but their live version is dynamite: two electric lead guitars, bass, and a full drum kit. They’re plugged in, loud, and American Mile has stories to sing about.

 

 

Hallie Grace is an Indie-pop singer, so naturally she gets compared to Taylor Swift, Maggie Rogers, Sara Bareilles, etc.  I suppose that’s inevitable when: (a) she has just released her first full-length album Motivation, and (b) she plays piano as do those better-known figures. Nonetheless, it’s ironic for someone with a song titled “Imma Just Do Me” Motivation contains 11 tracks that investigate life’s ups and downs and what to do when the second of those arise. She should know; she’s had quite a few herself. Grace, now based in Charlotte, is the kind of artist who appeals to Millennials and Zoomers, peppy, kind of sassy, and confident of her abilities. “Vice” has dance grooves but I was more impressed by Grace’s balance of lower, darker tones and her birdlike highs. “Her Fight Remains” is a look at battling disease, especially Epidermolysis Bullosa skin disorder (sometimes called “butterfly skin”). Grace tends to go vocally from gentle to strong. Sometimes the production on her full-tilt vocals comes off as overproduced, but it’s hard to deny that she has a great set of pipes. “When the Rain Falls” reminds me of Patty Griffin and given my enthusiasm for Ms. Griffin consider that’s high praise. 

 

 

Clayton Chaney recently dropped the single, “When the Light Comes In” from his new recording Too Far. It’s a musing on love and religion, but the title alone could be his theme song. He left Arkansas for Los Angeles at age 18, and put performers like Roger Miller aside for meatier material from bands like Dawes. Chaney has a big voice and a fondness for flamboyance. After all, he has a song titled “Something About Los Angeles.” It’s a country-folk song as well, but somehow California country sounds different. It’s cleaner production-wise for one thing, in-the-studio kind of way. I’m fond of title track, “Too Far,” which is about dreams that don't come true, yet has a hopeful edge. Call is stripped down country acoustic that wears its honesty on the guitar stock. It has a homespun feel that hits you like a freight train after some of the glitz wears away. “Roots Grow Deep” has a similar feel and, man, can this dude stretch his voice.

 

 

 

Folks in Western Massachusetts may remember Michael Rudd, who lived here for a time after leaving New Jersey. He lit off for the West and now lives in New Mexico, a place that can stun with its beauty and make you weep over its poverty. He was the principal of a K-8 school at Acoma Pueblo, which has been occupied for over 900 years yet has a poverty rate of around 24 percent. Rudd went back to music after hearing songs in his head; his third studio album Ways of the World samples some of them. It’s an often poetic album that examines the human condition by digging deeper and pondering transcendence rather than the quotidian. If you know New Mexico, a song like “Water” resonates, though Rudd’s deep voice takes us to the depths of the soul. “On My Way”oozes darkness, but again in a contemplative way. Rudd uses strong baritone to sing the blues, bring us down, and lift us up. One example is “There’s a Rainbow in Your Mind.” There’s a rainbow in your mind/You got thunder in your shoes… You got nothing, left to lose. If you want bluesy Americana at a faster tempo try “Not Today.”

 

Rob Weir

 

 

Not Today:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF844OsFF6k&list=RDlF844OsFF6k&start_radio=1

Sandy Denny Home Recordings

 

 

Sandy Denny

Early Home Recordings

First Vinyl, 2024

 

Every now and then something special comes my way. Readers may know that my favorite female vocalist of all time is Sandy Denny. I recently got my hands on a double CD of Sandy’s Home Recordings that I did not know existed. It comes with a hardcover storybook-sized booklet with essays by Patrick Humphries and Pat Thomas. The latter produced a project of 27 tracks. Many of them are versions of songs she later made famous. If you wonder how a superfan such as I did not know about these, it’s because Denny was never as famous in the States as she was in Britain, an injustice I explain as brain rot for listening to Top 40 radio.

 

I won’t say that Denny’s earliest works were masterpieces. You get it exactly what is promised, things that Sandy recorded at home before she made her mark in the folk world. She was born in 1947 and, like millions of teenagers, was  enamored of Bob Dylan. Humphries quotes Denny as saying “…he was the closest I’ve ever come to worshiping anyone.” It’s hardly surprising that we find  a cover of “It Ain’t Me Babe” among  Denny’s home recordings. Nonetheless, what drew her in to a musical career (rather than one in nursing) was the British folk revival. In the mid-60s Dylan vied with folk songs, many of uncertain origin. Sandy tried her hand on such time-tested gems as “Geordie,” “Let No Man Steal Your Thyme,” and “East Virginia.” At the very end of the disc however, Denny set up her tape recorder and recorded what would become her signature song, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”

 

It was her entrée into a career that began in folk clubs and gigs with various bands. She would soon be poached by The Strawbs, and it didn’t take long for the word to get out. She began to write more of her own material as well as covering traditional songs. The Strawbs repertoire became too inconsistent for Denny. She felt increasingly confident about her compositions but not yet about herself. In her words,” I always write [a] song… and make it into something which everyone can actually identify with… I did try to be a bit more down-to-earth about things, but I do find it … difficult because I’m a bit shy of people knowing me.” That would change in a big way. Several of the songs on Disc Two became beloved concert selections. This includes “She Moves Through the Fair,” “Carnival,” “Fotheringay,” “They Don’t Seem to Know You,” and of course, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”

 

It's remarkable to hear how much different her 1968 version of “Who Knows” is from the one from the year before. Her first recording effort seems rushed, as if she’s trying to get the words out before she withered. As she gained confidence, she slowed her treatment and it began to approach what the song finally became. In 1968, Sandy went to a tryout for a band that became a legend: Fairport Convention. She was only with Fairport for about 18 months, but she made three amazing records with them, including 1969’s Liege and Leaf. Alongside teen guitar phenomenon Richard Thompson (!), Fairport was among the bands credited with pushing folk-rock to new levels. 

 

The Thomas essay takes us beyond the timeframe of the two discs. In summary, Sandy formed her own short-lived band, Fotheringay with her musician husband Trevor Lucas, birthed a daughter, briefly rejoined Fairport Convention, and tried a solo career that included an attempt to break into the North American market. Neither of the latter two worked out as well as she had hoped. By 1976, Denny was spiraling out of control. Her marriage fell apart, her behavior was erratic, and she abused alcohol and drugs. When visiting her parents Denny fell and hit her head on concrete. Denny complained of headaches, but passed away on April 21, 1978. She was just 31.

 

Most Americans don’t know of Sandy Denny, though almost every music fan has heard her voice. She is the only guest vocalist Led Zeppelin ever used. She sang a duet with Robert Plant on Zep’s IV album. Listen to “The Battle of Evermore,” then by all means purchase Fairport’s Liege and Leaf. You’ll thank me.

 

Rob Weir

 

Note: Rather than provide links to various songs as I usually do, I thought it would be fitting to offer three versions of “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” They are in order, the 1967 Who Knows....., 1968 Who Knows, and definitive 1969 version from Fairport Convention.

Le Vent du Nord Grose Isle Chris Rawlins I’m With Her John Gorka Danish Vocal Ensemble Kiki Valera

 

Winter in New England deters a lot of touring musicians, but not those from Quebec. If you don’t do winter, you can’t live in the PQ. Sometimes I think Québecois musicians come to Massachusetts because it’s like Miami for them.

 

  

There may not be a better band anywhere in the province than Le Vent du Nord. They’ve just been through Massachusetts with their new recording Voisinages.  It roughly translates as neighbors or neighborhoods, but it’s a loaded word that can mean those next door, those who share your values, or those in the same general proximity. In other words, does Le Vent du Nord mean those who dance with them in their kitchens, those who share French language and culture, or the bad boy to the South of their borders (the United States). The short answer is yes. “Bienvenue” was written by Olivier Demers to welcome André Brunet to the band, but its flavor is that of set of tunes that begins slowly but eventually gets the dancers hot and sweaty. “L’Acadie” could be seen as Quebecois scat or mouth music, but the song’s title references a region that once stretched from Cape Breton to Louisiana; “Fleuve” is a wistful tribute to the St. Lawrence River; and “Du Nord Au Sud” is a spirited set of fiddle tunes, but the liner notes cheekily asks of the United States, “What comes next? When empires lose their marbles, we might as well try to redraw the maps!” The band positively rocks out on “Carillon.” If that sounds vaguely familiar, it’s about a battle at a fort now known as Ticonderoga. This album is brand new, so no live performance are up yet, but if you want to deeper taste of this amazing band, there are plenty of live music from previous albums. For the record, the Brunet brothers, André and the bear-like trickster Réjean, were once close neighbors of mine when I lived in Vermont and they in the village of Lacolle just across the border. They were the kind of neighbors you wanted to have!   

 

 

           

Whilst we’re in Quebec, let’s go deeper–to the place where the St. Lawrence River widens into a bay before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. There’s a fine trio of musicians who call themselves Grosse Isle, in part an homage to Fiachra O’Regan, who plays uillean pipes, banjo, and whistles. Let’s play the game of “one of these things are not like the others.” The lead vocalist, pianist, fiddler, and clogger is named Sophie Lavoie, and the guitarist and other clogger is Francois-Félix Roy. You probably worked out that O’Regan is Irish, so what’s he doing in a band with two Québecois musicians? It has to do with Grosse Isle whose permanent population is zero, not the one in Michigan or Manitoba. Visitors come to see the remains of the “Ellis Island of Canada.” From 1832-1937 it was a screening center for immigrants. Sometimes it was a processing center and sometimes a quarantine station for those with infectious diseases. You perhaps know that the 1840s/50s were the time of the Irish potato famine. Many Irish families passed through Grosse Isle, got better, and stayed in the Quebec City area. This means that O’Regan makes sense in a Québecois trad band, as do the band’s jigged up Irish song and tunes. The band’s latest record is titled Homérique, an energetic tribute to Irish and Québecois heroes. It opens with “Gráinne Mhaol aux Cheveux de Braise,” Lavoie’s tribute to Ireland’s “pirate queen.” (Look her up, folks!) and moves on to “Mathilde la Dame Blanche,” a woman who threw herself into Montmorency Falls and whose ghost now haunts the place. One of the more unusual  hero tales is that of “Victor Delamarre,” a 5’5” weightlifter who defeated the much taller and more muscular Louis Cyr in a contest. That feat and Cyr are honored in the second part of a Lavoie-written set of tunes! The band show off their Irish chops on “Seanamhac Tube Station” and a cover of Paddy O’Brien’s “The Coming of Spring.” There are other heroes/heroines on the album. A small hint: The record is quite good–you even get a version of “Rocky Road to Dublin” (wait for it!)–but Grosse Isle is way more dynamic live. Catch them if you get a chance.

 

 

Don’t confuse Chris Rawlins with the UK mentalist of the same name. This one is an indie (for now) singer-songwriter from Chicago. His latest record is called Flyover, a pushback at the idea that Mid-America consists of “flyover” states. He likes songs that deal with memory, connections, and home. Some of his new material reveals his attraction/dissatisfaction relationship to the Midwest, which is how I’ve felt in drives from the Appalachian ridge-and-valley states to the Rockies. The flat states are fascinating, but they often feel hypnotically big in a “am I ever going to get to Ann Arbor?” way. The material on Flyover is gentle, which invites analogies to the late Tim Hardin. It also invites introspection. The song “Flyover” is enigmatic in whether it’s musing while flying or a troubled relationship song. “After Dark” is a dreaming/waking up song that contrasts how Rawlins felt as a kid and how things are different now. Rawlins states that a lot of songs began as his interpretations of snapshots and the Flyover explores ambivalence, mostly without trying to resolve it. “Anywhere” shows a weakness in the material. It’s a sweet love song, but the tune and vocal sound structurally and tonically similar to his other songs. My favorite on the record is “Firefly,” written when he visited Oregon, where  no one had heard of one! It’s also about getting older and making or missing connections. “Firefly” is catchy and has more life to it.

 

 

 

Wouldn’t it be cool to have a trio featuring Aoife O’Donovan (Crooked Still), Sarah Jarosz (Grammy Award winner), and Sara Watkins (Nickel Back)? In case you haven’t gotten the word, there is such a trio that calls itself I’m With Her. Their latest Rounder Records release is Wild and Clear and Blue, which just happens to be up for three Grammy Awards this year. One nomination is for “Ancient Light” in the Best Song category. It’s about figuring out what you want to say, be, and remember in order to be swimming in the ancient light. If you like harmony, you’ll love this track on which Jarosz takes the lead. I’ve long been enamored with O’Donovan’s calming voice with just a touch of huskiness. She’s the lead vocalist on the title song “Wildand Blue and Clear” but again it’s the harmonies that linger. This one is of formative childhood memories.  There are some serious bluegrass licks on fiddle (Watkins) and mandolin (Jarosz) that shape another O’Donovan vocal. I sometimes think that Hawkins’ lead vocals are too strident, as on “Standing on the Fault Line,” but I love her fiddling and the way she orchestrates her partners like an old-time preacher exhorting the congregation. Check out “Mother Eagle (Sing Alive”) and you’ll understand how the quiet power of I’m With Her makes everything seem like a call to meeting.

 

 

 

 

John Gorka has graduated to being a grizzled vet of the American folk music circuit. His latest record, unentitled, is one of the most optimistic he’s ever made. It opens with “My Favorite Place,” whose reveal is in the middle of a song. It’s a sunny, memorable piece, as light as a spring breeze. Speaking of spring, his second selection is “A Light Exists in Spring,” which encapsulates the specialness of how we feel it coming before it arrives and how it settles in slowly. He’s not the first to make that observation, yet we all know what he means when he sings of the link between nature and human nature. “Particle and Wave (Goodness in the World)” is Gorka’s response to the March for Our Lives movement and is destined to be sung at gatherings in need of an uplift. If you are wondering about the title, it’s another song about light, which is made up of particles and waves. And who, but a dry wit like Gorka would write a song about “Richard III,” the last Plantagenet king. Most of Gorka’s songs are short, as he follows in the footsteps of Jack Hardy (1947-2011) who famously wrote at least a song a week. Gorka modified that to one, then two, songs per month. It means he always has a lot of material at his fingertips, which he refines and eventually records an album. I suspect he was thinking of the 2012 discovery of Richard III’s body underneath a Leicester, England, parking lot. You’ll have to ask him next time he’s performing out your way.

 

 

 

 

The Danish National Vocal Ensemble are 18 singers from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR).  Americans might recall that once upon a time we had PBS. It was a bit like the DR except that their vocal ensemble has an affinity for singing a cappella songs from the medieval through the classical and romantic periods. O Listen is a 22-track collection. It’s impossible to give you an overall review of 22 tracks, so here is a sampling of the righteous noise they can make. “Vester Camena” is Latin for “Your Muse.” They have a new conductor, Martina Batič, who leads the ensemble through works from Slovenian composer Uroš Krek. His “Three Autumn Songs” suite is powerful if you are a fan of choral music. Try “Autumn Song, No. 1.” The Ensemble also does work with the national symphony, this time from composer Else Marie Pad, who is described as “a modernist musical Rosary.” Lend your ear to “Maria: No. 2, Amare.”  Modernist indeed! It's a bit jarring for my taste, but it does have aspects of the sacred and might be your kind of mass.

 

  

Kiki Valera comes from a famous musical family in Cuba and has done just about everything a musician can do. He has taught, soloed, played in bands, produced, composed, directed, and has served as a sound engineer. He plays numerous instruments but is an acknowledged master of the cuatro, a mid-sized guitar about the size of the Martin 000 series. In the live clip of “El Cuatro de tula,” he is on your left with a cuatro in his hands. The album Vacilón Santiaguero features Valero in a group filled with blaring brass and hand drums and percussion. Here they play a rumba, “Sobre una Tumba una Rumba.” Other selections include boleros and danceable selections. There’s even a song titled “Marijuana.” Here’s a clip of him with other family members playing “Vida Parrandera” and the street crowd busting out their dancing shoes.

 

Rob Weir

 

Old and New Music for Fall 2025 Iona Fyfe; Carpenter, Fowlis & Polwart; Skye Consort; Debra Cowan; John Roberts; Windborne

 

The holiday season is just about upon us again, so why not give the gift of music? Some of these releases are a tad older, but they are new to me.

 

 

 

Iona Fyfe is a perfect name for a lass from Aberdeenshire. I  caught her show at Northampton’s Parlor Room in early October and enjoyed it immensely. Her newest release is titled Away From My Window (2018). It came home with me along with an EP East which she did with the Iona Fyfe Band. A “solo album seldom means a one-person recording project these days; the band’s fiddler, Charlie Grey, and piper/whistle player Ross Miller are on both recordings. Fyfe now lives in Glasgow, but she is the “Pride of Aberdeen,” which happens to be a track off her band album. For a lively treatment of a Child murder ballad listen to “Earl Richmond.” (That’s Child as in Francis James Child (1825-96), a ballad collector.) Fyfe’s solo record is also quite fine. “Guise of Tough” is a bothy ballad about a place with an unusual name in which her voice simulates a fiddle tune. (A bothy is a farm building and these songs were sung by laborers.) There’s a lovely version of “Glenlogie,” another Child ballad, which is sung akin to another old song, “Annachie Gordon.” It’s often the case that Aberdeenshire songs have slightly different tunes from other parts of Scotland, another reminder that “folk” songs were often regional in nature. Fyfe stays within tradition most of the time–like “Banks of Inverurie”–but she occasionally writes. The solo album has a stunner, “Banks of the Tigris,” which she wrote as a teen during the war in Syria. If some of her words sound unfamiliar, it’s not just her accent; Fyfe spearheaded an effort to have “Scots,” an English variant recognized as an official language. Yep–Scotland now has three “official” tongues: English, Scots, and Gaelic.

 

 

Let’s stay in Scotland (please!). There’s some moaning on Facebook. That’s not news, but this one is about an album titled Looking For the Thread, which is clearly marked as album by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis, and Karine Polwart. Some people who apparently never learned that “and” is a conjunction have whined they didn’t know it wasn’t a Mary Chapin Carpenter album; a few have complained about the “Celtic crap” on the recording. News Flash, oh ye of such narrow taste and ethnocentric attitudes: That “Celtic crap” has long been an interest of MCC–she began as a folk singer–and she is friends with Fowlis and Polwart, the first one of the finest Gaelic singers on the planet and the latter a singer who is as famous in Scotland as MCC is in America. Note the title. The three join forces both to do their own thing and find commonality. The album opens with Fowlis taking to lead on “Gràdh Geal Mo Chridhe.” There’s no hope for anyone who can’t hear the stunning beauty of this song. Mary follows with the wonderful “A Heart That Never Closes.” Note that it too has a gentle feel. So too does Polwart’s “Rebecca,” a tribute to a tree with that name carved upon it. MCC wrote the title track and it says volumes about the spirit of this project. You pick up their synchronicity in the studio on “Hold Everything,” their first UK single. You can almost feel Carpenter breathing away from the limelight on this treasure house of gentle songs. Enjoy MCC but don’t overlook gems like Fowlis’ “Silver in the Blue.”  The ”thread?” Three friends making music, nature, and MCC’s closing track, “Send Love.” Added bonus: I’ve not heard harmonies this beautiful since Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, and Gillian Welch in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou.”

 

 

 

Skye Consort is a terrific quartet that I caught live in Holyoke. I was intrigued when I saw that Emma Björling was its lead vocalist. As her surname suggests, she’s Swedish and I knew of her from work with Scandinavian bands. The other three members of Skye Consort live in Montreal, though Alex Kehler was playing fiddle and nyckelharpa that night and he was actually born in the U.S. though he has been in Canada for quite some time now. In an unusual arrangement, Skye Consort also employs Simon Alexandre who takes Kehler’s place when Kehler is busy playing dances or when Alexandre isn’t gigging with La Traverse, the Ximenez String Quartet, or Ochestre Philharmonique de Québec. Skye Consort bill their style as “trans-Atlantic chamber folk.” I’m suspicious of such labels, but this one is apt. Cellist Amanda Keesmaat and bouzouki/banjo/singer artist Seán Dagher round out the quartet. Their latest album Ode & Ballade is a bit of everything. First a word on the nyckelharpa, which might be unfamiliar. It looks a bit like a hurdy gurdy without the crank, but is actually a keyed violin with a unique sound. You’ll hear traditional music from Sweden, the Shetlands, England, Denmark, France, Québec, and Scotland–sometimes several of them in the same set. You can be excused for thinking “She’s the Swedish” is from Björling’s home country; it’s actually Scottish, melded with a Québecois tune. Just to confuse you more, “En annan polska” should not be confused with a Polish polka, though both are dance tunes. A polka (which is actually Czech originally) is in 2/4 time but a polska is associated with Scandinavia and is in ¾ time and tends to be slower than a waltz. I loved Keesmaat’s switches between percussive and straight cello.  Got all that? The best way to figure it out is to listen. Note how “Jungfrun” is like a pastiche of pastoral and classical compositions. Check out this live clip of the Quebec/Irish “Foxhunter’s Jig” set to get a sense of how voices and instruments blend. For a French flavor there is “Les Triste Noces,” complete with a bit of foot percussion. Highly recommended.

 

 

 

 

When I was a young whelp deep in my rock n’ roll phase of life, I saw a concert at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, that changed my life. On the bill were two musical partners from England, Tony Barrand and John Roberts. It was a holiday concert with Christmas carols as I never heard them before. Call it the beginning of a love affair with folk music that is now more than 50 years old. I got to know both Tony and John, with John the funnier and most approachable of the two. The duo was perhaps best known for their holiday mummers show Nowell Sing We Clear, but John also loved sea songs, recitations, and music hall material, the more offbeat the better. Tony passed away in 2022 and John in February of this year at age 80. One of his final recordings was A Shellback Songster (2024), so named because of a song by Ewan MacColl for a BBC film about sailing. John composed songs and tunes but he was most comfortable with traditional material and songs that sounded as if they were sprung from the mists of time. Shellback Songster is a baker’s dozen of trads and songs from people such as MacColl, Gordon Bok, Cyril Tawney, and Rudyard Kipling. This is sea music stripped to its basics, John’s distinct voice backed by concertina, banjo, or button accordion. It's hard to find John singing most of them, so forgive me if I offer a few with Tony and John that are solo of the record. One is “The Flying Dutchman,” the famed ghost ship. (John’s is the low voice.) He sand many Kipling songs. Here’s “Oak and Ash and Thorn.” (The record has Kipling’s poem “The Last Chantey.”) You can hear how John involved an audience. There’s also one called “Derelict” that you might know better as “Yo, Ho, Ho (And a Bottle of Rum).” Sorry I don’t have more to post, but if you’ve ever been to a sea songs festival, you’ve probably seen John and heard most of them.

 

 

 

 

You can purchase some of John Roberts’ material from his friend Debra Cowan, who is a mainstay on the folk circuit. Women and the Sea is her look at the seafaring life from the distaff side of things. Her website https://debracowan.com/category/product/ has two of John’s solo records and one that he and Debra did together. It also contains Cowan’s most recent EP, Greening the Dark. Cowan has a strong voice and sings what she likes. In that regard, Greening the Dark is a single traditional and five covers. The trad selection is “Hills of Greenmore,” which she plucked from a Steeleye Span album for a treatment that sounds Irish with a semi-nautical flair. My favorite covers are of Richard Thompson’s “The Old Changing Way” and Lester Simpson’s “Polly on the Shore.” The latter is a tough song, but has a sort of comeuppance ending. The EP is produced by Dave Mattacks, a legend in the music community since his early days with Fairport Convention.

 

 

 

Another musical highlight of 2025 was seeing the quartet Windborne at the Iron Horse. I mentioned Nowell Sing We Clear (NSWC) in the previous review; Windborne is heir to their throne, right down to the fact that one of the members is Lauren Breuning, the daughter of NSWC’s Fred Beuning. Brattleboro, Vermont, has been a folk music breeding ground ever since Margaret MacArthur (1935-2006) located to nearby Marlboro in 1951. Tony Barrand and John Roberts moved there in the early 1970s to teach at Marlboro College. Windborne’s Will and Lynn Rowan graduated from Marlboro and later taught there in a music program they started. The fourth member, Jeremy Carter-Gordon, also cut his musical teeth in southern Vermont. Windborne sing quite a few songs from NSWC’s Christmas mummer’s material. You can hear NSWC holiday standbys such as “The Boar’s Head Carol,” “The Cherry Tree Carol,” “The Darby Ram” and others on their To Warm the Winter Hearth album (2024). As for the rest of the year, they borrow from John and Tony’s old repertoire, but overall they are much more political and diverse. For example, Windborne’s Midwinter Meeting contains offerings from Basque country, Bulgaria, Corsica, the nation of Georgia, Québec, and the U.S. Appalachians. They are big supporters of unions and also include labor songs in their shows. As music scholars you learn a lot from their stage chat and Winter Hearth CDs come with a 44-page perfect-bound booklet. Windborne voices and harmonies are powerful instruments in their own right hence they usually sing a capella unless it’s some sort of special show. The two recordings have a total of 32 songs, so here are just a few to tantalize you.

 

Check their Website to see when they are playing somewhere near you. https://www.windbornesingers.com/concerts/

 

Sabodisho (Georgian)

Bentatik Nattor (Basque)

Boar’s Head Carol (England)

Come and I Will Sing You (English variant of 12 Days of Christmas; Lynn clogging):

Song of Hard Times (USA, from a forthcoming album):

 

Rob Weir

 

Le Vent du Nord a Mighty Force

 

 

 

Le Vent du Nord

Têtu

Borealis 236

 

There may not be a more joyful music anywhere in the world than that from Québec, even if you don’t understand a word of French. Le Vent du Nord translates as The North Wind, but I’ve felt it should Puissant Vent du Nord (Mighty North Wind*). I’ve seen Le Vent du Nord numerous times and I can attest that they leave it all on the stage. Têtu translates as stubborn, but in the case of this album it means something to the effect of defiant or persevering. Most of the 15 tracks on the album deal with precarious, tragic, or sad situations that might make non-Francophones glad they don’t know the words.  

 

The album opens with one such tragic song, “Noce tragique,” a sad tale of a newly married couple facing death. This live clip was filmed in Glasgow; Le Vent du Nord is actually a male ensemble and the woman playing penny whistle and singing is Scotland’s Julie Fowlis, ana amazing Gaelic vocalist. The male singer/bouzouki player is Simon Beaudry and if you don’t recognize the cranked instrument played by Nicholas Boulerice, it’s a hurdy-gurdy.

 

If you know that “Loup-garou” is a werewolf (seeking revenge on the Catholic Church), you can imagine it isn’t exactly a stroll in the park either. You will also no doubt notice that there is a lot of call-and-response singing in Quebecois music and that fiddles fly rather than sticking around for polite applause.  You’ll also hear percussive sounds from a type of clogging that developed in Quebec. You can see bits of it in the promo video for “La Marche des Iroquois.”

 

The other songs on Têtu deal with everything from a French take on Canadian Confederation, an orphan lad recalling his mother, and a man awaiting execution to  political events and a song about Louis-Joseph Papineau, an inspirational 19^th century defender of French heritage during the Patriots War against British domination thirty years before Canadian Confederation (1867). But surely the most unusual song is “Chaise ardente” in which a curious man decides to go to hell to check on his lover!

 

The greatest joy of all comes when the band decides to let loose on their instruments. The stage becomes a springboard for all manner of musical mayhem. Here’s a short clip of the band live with quality sound, and another from Glasgow of “Cardeuse-Riopel” (Leave it run and you’ll hear “Confédération.”) The man with the accordion is Réjean Brunet. His brother André, a fiddler, has recently rejoined to make Le Vent du Nord a quintet and trade licks with the fiery strings of Olivier Demers. My friends from Milton and the Champlain Islands might remember a small Québec town just across the border from Alburg, Vermont, called Lacolle. The Brunet brothers are from there and yours truly once interviewed them when they were starting out as a duo. Likewise, a music co-op to which I belonged used to book them at the Welcome Table in Burlington. If you can believe it, Réjean used to be a squirt!

 

Rob Weir

 

 

* For grammarians, puissant is one of many French adjectives that goes before the noun.

September 2024 Music: Lisa Bastoni Kylie Fox Moira Smiley Surrender Hill Yosef Gutman

 

Time for more this and that music. In other words, yours truly has fallen behind again!

 

 

If, like me, you often crave soothing music from an earnest songwriter who doesn’t do fake drama, check out Lisa Bastoni. I picked up two of her albums, her most recent On the Water and 2019’s How We Want to Live. Each is as soothing as a warm shower–even when she’s singing about painful things. On the Water includes a cover of Dylan’s “Workingman’s Blues” but her own “Pockets Full of Sighs” has a similar languid, phlegmatic vibe in that it’s personal yet sounds detached. Mainly it’s just a good song. Also try the upbeat good earworm “Walk a Little Closer.” That’s the versatile Sean Staples with her and the man is lethal with a mandolin in his mitts! How We Want to Live is practically self-defining. “Right Side of the River” covers topics of self-discovery and it’s a backdoor tribute to where she now lives (says her fellow Northamptonite). “Let’s Look at Houses” is a little bit of country and a cheeky sneak attack on property values. Ironically, though this album is often amusing, she wrote it as her marriage was dissolving. Many of the compositions were inspired by her grandmother’s wisdom–not to mention that she inherited “Nora’s Guitar,” a poignant and lovely song on the album.

 

 

Moira Smiley has an Irish name, but is a Vermonter by birth. She does some sean​-​n​ó​s (old style) Irish singing, and has performed with Irish musicians, but she’s also grounded in shape-note, jazz, classical, and Eastern European music, plays numerous instruments, and has a penchant for medieval music. For all that, she’s a folkie at heart, if you accept that any album named The Rhizome Project Album will veer into unexpected places. It’s actually the handle of the string quartet that accompanies her, but also descriptive of melodies that sheer in both lateral and horizontal directions. Smiley sings well known trads such as “Go Dig MyGrave, “Now is the Cool of the Day,” and “John o’ Dreams,” the first suitably haunting and sober, the last introed by a poem (that reappears), and makes us wonder about the significance of a vid featuring a beach and a woman in angel wings. The vocal of “Cool of the Day” is as minimalist as “Dig My Grave” is lush. “My Son David” (with Taylor Ashton) is a dark Child ballad that is somehow warm, yet invites eschatological contemplation. I’m assuming there aren’t many Welsh speakers out there, so listen to “Ar lan y mor” to appreciate Smiley’s considerable vocal chops. Pick any track on the album and you’ll discover that old ballads have more present-day relevance than you might imagine.

 

 

Kylie Fox specializes in Canadiana music, which like the Americana handle, is a kitchen sink of folk, folk rock, country, and jazz-pop fusion. On Sequoia Fox celebrates things we take for granted. That song pays tribute to firefighters who battled to save a giant tree from perishing, which she connects to other things her life that are rare. It might be a bit of a forced analogy, but many of the strands of Canadiana appear in it. “Brandi Baby” reveals that Fox leans harder toward the pop side of the mélange. It won’t surprise readers that I much prefer straightforward folk such as “Alberta,” which more clearly reveals the colors of Fox’s voice–its power, control, and high-to-low range. It’s inevitable that when musicians opt for a broad repertoire that some explorations will enthrall more than others, but in all honesty I liked Fox’s earlier repertoire better. To my ear it was less cluttered.

 

 

 

Seems only fair to turn to a “Americana record. River of Tears is the seventh studio release from the married duo of Robin Dean and Afton (Seekins) Salmon who perform as Surrender Hill. As noted, Americana is also a catchall category, though the dominant strain isn’t hard to find. For Surrender Hill it’s the rock-influenced modern country music. Nonetheless, it’s been a twisted road to get there; Robin Dean was born in South Africa and once played heavy rock, and Afton is a native Alaskan from a folk background. As songwriters, hers are often the more emotional contributions. On Valentine’s Day she wrote “Holding Me, ”a straight up love song. whose title says it all despite tinges of hopefulness. His contribution was "River of Tears," a love song for sure, but more in the vein of classic country. “Cry Baby” is basically a rock n’ roll song with vocal twang, but “Get Out of Your Own Way” has a Western flavour, right down to the spaces in the musical phrasing. If you like old-style country, “Angel, The Devil and Me” says it all.

 

 

 

Yosef Gutman Levitt is an observant Jew from Jerusalem, but the man plays a mean standup bass, including a five-string model that he had a hand in developing. Gutman’s music emanates from a spiritual place, but he is also interested in what he calls a “light, bouncy” effect created when classical music and jazz improv are made as accessible as folk music. His new release, The World and Its People, is on his own new label, Soul Song Records, a perfect handle for his intentions. He is joined by guitarist Tal Yahalom, cellist Yoed Nir, and pianist Omri Mor. The quartet might not always make music that you’d normally gravitate toward, but as odd as it might sound, many of the compositions have jam band-like explorations. Try the two tracks “My Soul Thirsts” and “Shifting Sky.” Note how the first has an understated yearning and the second what seems a loosely structured meandering that embodies its title. 

 

 

 

Rob Weir

A New Altan Record For St. Paddy's Day

 

 

 

Altan

Donegal

 

What could be better for St. Patrick’s Day than a new Altan album? And what could be more appropriate than one named Donegal, the Ulster County from which the band hails and which has produced some of the finest music in the Emerald Isle?

 

The usual formula for an Altan album is a “big set” of raucous tunes followed by a Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh song. (For the non-Irish speaker, that’s roughly, Mah rayad’ nah weenie, the Irish equivalent of Margaret Mooney). She has been both one of Ireland’s finest singers and fiddlers for nearly 40 years. Donegal instrumentals can often be differentiated from others in Ireland by the use of two fiddles instead of one. Within Altan, the literal second fiddle is usually Ciarán Currain, who is also the band’s bouzouki player, though sometimes young fiddle whiz Clare Friel does that duty. That’s much the same way that it depends on schedules whether Mark Kelly or Dáithí Sproule is the guitarist. Martin Tourish mans the squeeze boxes.  

 

Notice I said “usual formula. Donegal opens with “TheYellow Tinker,” which was also on the band’s The Red Crow (1990). It’s a reel, but in 1990 it was played fast but on Donegal it’s an unhurried slow reel. Don’t write it off as getting older. “The Donegal Selection” contains three fast reels that are joyous and chase their own tail as only reels can do. The middle one is titled “Tommy Peoples” and pays homage to the great Donegal fiddler (1948-2018) of that name.

 

In many ways, though, Altan seeks a different vibe on Donegal. Just about the time I went into mourning for the retirement of Clannad, Altan has caught much of their vibe. That’s no accident; Clannad was also a Donegal band and Ní Mhaonaigh is pals with Clannad’s Moya Brennan, whose vocal style is similar, as well as Moya’s younger sister Enya. “Faoiseamb a Gheobhasda” has a discernible Clannad feel in its delicacy, its moody interludes, and swelling instrumental meshes. These dovetail beautifully with Ní Mhaonaigh’s bird-like vocals.

 

What’s an Irish album without a set of jigs? Tunes beginning with “Port Arainn Mhór” fit that bill, but to return to an earlier point, they are lively but with a lighter touch than burn-down-the-hall big sets that bring the noise. Close your eyes and you could imagine  Ní Mhaonaigh and Brennan sharing leads on “The Barley and the Rye.” It’s as if Altan is inviting us to feel and dream rather than dance and shout.

 

There are exceptions to this. The fiddling on “Gabhaim Molta Bride” is melancholic with a tinge of Roma tears and a perfect example of why Ní Mhaonaigh is so revered in Irish music. And yes, Altan will make you jump up and kick your heels on the four-reel “Letterkenny Blacksmith combo. What a delight that after 15 studio recordings, numerous compilations, and a live album that Altan still has tricks up its collective sleeve.

 

Rob Weir  

 

Hear Maired and Moya  share a song here. 

Altan in truncated band for TV. Mairead goes to town.