Jackie Daly is credited with revitalizing the image of the accordion and concertina by taking them out of the dance band and into the trad band.
Daly was also a founding member of some of the most prominent Irish bands since the mid-70s including De Dannan, Arcady, Buttons & Bows, and Patrick Street. Born in the Sliabh Luachra region of Ireland in 1945, he remains one of the most emulated carriers of the Sliabh Luachra-style tradition.
Throughout his career, Daly surrounded himself with distinguished fiddlers with whom he would play in tight unison. This fiddle-accordion duet style has now been imitated across Celtic music micro-genres. After playing with Kevin Burke on Burke’s debut solo album,If the Cap Fits the duo continued to play, tour, and record together throughout the 20th century and into the next.
Forty years after If the Cap Fits was first released, Kevin Burke is still considered to be the most prominent living master of Sligo-style Irish fiddling. Burke has recorded over twenty albums, taught at countless camps, universities, and summer schools, and has toured extensively all over the world. A founding member of Patrick Street, Planxty, Bothy Band, The Celtic Fiddle Festival, and Open House, Burke is instrumental in keeping the Sligo music tradition alive.
Together, Daly and Burke founded the band Patrick Street with Andy Irvine and Arty McGlynn. Before leaving the band in 2007, Daly had played with them for 21 years, on all of their nine recordings, and at countless worldwide performances.
Vinnie Kilduff has been heralded as one of Ireland’s greatest tin whistle players, having shared the stage with everyone from Clannad to U2, he succeeded in gracefully spanning the gap between traditional Irish music and contemporary Irish rock.
A founding member of the Irish rock group Tue Nua, Kilduff released his first solo record The Boys from the Blue Hill in 1990, which is a collection of traditional tunes featuring Kilduff’s multi-instrumental abilities.
Born in Straide, County Mayo, and now living in Galway, Sean is an All-Ireland champion on both fiddle and whistle.
His 1993 solo debut, The Blue Fiddle, was named one of the ten best albums of that year by The Irish Echo.
Other recordings on which Sean appears include Ceol Tigh Neachtain, Music at Matt Molloy’s, Brendan O’Regan’s A Wind of Change, Alan Kelly’s Out of the Blue and Mosaic, and Dónal Lunny’s Coolfin.
Karan Casey is one of the most influential and imitated vocalists in Irish and American folk music; a natural innovator, she proves that the ancient and the modern make excellent bedfellows. On Ships in the Forest, her fifth solo album and debut with the Compass Records Group, Casey’s warm, soulful voice ebbs and flows around ballads both timely and timeless. Produced once again by Donald Shaw (of Capercaillie fame), the album was recorded at Casey’s home in County Cork and features the members of her current touring band, Caoimhín Vallely (piano), Kate Ellis (cello) and Robbie Overson (guitar) along with special guests Kris Drever, Niall Vallely and Cillian Vallely.
The songs found on Ships in the Forest range from fresh arrangements of tried and true folk standards (“Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” and “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye”) to “The Fiddle and the Drum”, Joni Mitchell’s 1969 anti-war madrigal and Martin Furey’s newly-composed “The Town of Athlone”. Casey says of the album: “I feel that this is by far my most ambitious album to date. I think it has taken me all my years as a singer to come to the point of feeling confident enough to tackle the big songs within the traditional repertoire.”
As well as touring extensively with her own band, over the past two years Karan has performed with Peggy Seeger, Liam Clancy, Solas, Lunasa, Breton guitarist Gilles le Bigot, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Karen Matheson and Donald Shaw and was involved in Mick Moloney and Paul Wagner’s Absolutely Irish film project which will be screened on PBS in 2008.
New ventures for 2008 include The Vallely Brother’s Big Band, Karan and Seamus Egan’s new project involving Aoife O’Donovan and Lau, and Niall Vallely’s “Turas na dTaoiseach/Flight of the Earl’s” event, which was premiered in Belfast’s Grand Opera House in November 2007 and is to be repeated during 2008 in Louvain, Belgium.
Casey began 2008 with critically acclaimed appearances at the renowned Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow and will be touring North America throughout February and March.
Talking to Jeb Loy Nichols about his life is like watching a road movie. The restless pursuit of an unnamed goal, the constant search for something just out of reach. “It’s true”, he says, walking through the fields of his Welsh farm, “I’ve done some moving.” It’s all there in his music. The country, bluegrass, and pop of his early years, the rebel music of punk and reggae, the deep grooves of the south. “It’s all a road”, Nichols says, “one connecting to the other, all of them intersecting and crossing over.”
Born in Wyoming and raised in Missouri, Nichols absorbed the sounds of both rural America and the records played around his house. “We got it all”, he says, “my mom played jazz records, Don Shirley and Ella Fitzgerald, while my dad played bluegrass and Hank Williams.” But it was from the radio that Jeb received his most lasting education. Through the day and late into the night Jeb would listen and take to heart the disparate sounds of the airwaves. “The main station I listened to was out of Kansas City and played country music all day, then at nine o-clock at night they’d switch and become a soul station. It was magic, all this great music; Bobby Womack, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, The Staples Singers, all of it right there, in my bedroom, for free.”
When Jeb was fourteen the family moved to Austin, Texas. “The best thing I learned in Austin”, Jeb says, “was how great live music could be. I saw everything from Funkadelic to Bob Marley to George Jones to The Ramones.” It was in Austin that he first heard, and was knocked out by, The Sex Pistols. “That was all new, the sound, the fury, the politics, all of it.” And it led straight to the road again, this time to New York. “I was seventeen”, recalls Jeb, “and New York was like nothing I’d ever seen. I’d always felt like an outsider and then there I was, in a town of outsiders. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.” In New York he was awarded a full scholarship to study painting at Parsons School of Design. He also started hanging out at clubs like Tier 3, The Loft and the Mudd Club where he became friends with members of the Slits and Neneh Cherry. “It was a great time to be in New York, the whole scene was so wide open.” It was the emerging hip hop scene that was most fascinating for him. “It was 1979 – and nothing in the world was more exciting than rap. The Treacherous Three, Funky Four Plus One, Grandmaster Flash – that stuff was so great! And then you had DJs like Larry Levan, it was fantastic.”
After three years in New York, Jeb hit the road again, this time to London. He shared a house with Ari Up from the Slits, Neneh Cherry and producer Adrian Sherwood, and, as he had in NYC, dove into London’s artistic community. “I formed a country band with Joe Brack and we played every kind of show you can think of. We did some bluegrass, some country, a lot of old protest songs.” In 1990 a tape of songs ended up at OKra Records, a small label in Columbus, Ohio. OKra offered Jeb a deal, and Jeb put together a band that included his wife Loraine Morley, On-U Sound man Martin Harrison, and jazz trombonist John Harbourne. The Fellow Travellers merged country-tinged, acoustic-based songs with a dub bottom. “It was fun”, says Jeb “it just worked. We all played what we wanted and stayed out of each others way, and it sounded great. I’ve never had more fun.” The Fellow Travellers released three more albums and were described in Spin as “the lonesome children of Merle, Marley and Marx”.
In 2000, after releasing three solo records, Jeb Loy and Loraine Morley moved to Wales where they’re slowly reclaiming ten acres of neglected scrub land, renovating a barn and putting in a large garden. “I’m sure I’ll move again”, he says, “but not just yet. This feels good, feels like something close to home.”
Alan Dargin was born and raised in an Aboriginal tribe in Australia’s northeast Arnhemland and is an internationally acclaimed didgeridoo player as well as having roles in a number of feature films. Dargin began studying the didgeridoo at age five. Dargin’s grandfather taught him how to play, passing on secret techniques which have been passed dow
Dargin’s primary didjeridu is over 100 years old and was given to him by his grandfather. It is made from the branch of a eucalyptus tree which is naturally hollowed out by ants that hatch under the bark and burrow into the wood. The didgeridoo is decorated with Aboriginal tribal markings and was originally used in tribal ceremonies to induce Dreamtime.
Dargin toured extensively in Australia and the US and has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall. He toured Korea on behalf of the Australian Foreign Affairs Department. Alan appeared in over 30 feature films and earned a science degree from the University of Toronto.
Dusk is a bittersweet time of day. There’s no other point in the sun’s arc that captures the imagination quite like it. Maybe the Nashville-based alternative folk-pop trio the Bittersweets can’t literally splash a sunset across the sky, but they can bring the same striking contrast of shadow and luminescence to the ears.
The Bittersweets—Chris Meyers (guitar, keyboards, vocals) and Hannah Prater (vocals, guitar)—live up to their name. They fuse yellows and blues, sunniness and melancholy, with evocative lyrics and lush arrangements, transcendent melodies and Prater’s alluring voice. On every track of their new album, Goodnight, San Francisco, their recent live set, Long Way From Home, and their 2006 full-length debut, The Life You Always Wanted, the Bittersweets weave a captivating tension between hope and poignancy that rings true.
“I think the name fits us because a lot of the songs talk about life’s tensions and that you can’t just have happy or just dwell on the sad,” Prater explains. “I feel like a lot of the songs embrace both, the beautiful and the ugly, happy and sad—life’s paradoxes.” And the Bittersweets are well-equipped for that sort of musical alchemy.
There’s a reason why Prater’s singing is such a satisfying pleasure. Both of the California native’s parents are music teachers; she sang in jazz groups and musical theatre productions; and she pursued a degree in vocal performance before discovering a different style of vocal expression in Joni Mitchell and Over the Rhine. Prater drew the best from each approach to hone her sumptuous vocal instrument.
“Hannah has so much vocal control,” says Meyers. “That’s a rarity for pop
vocalists. The technical stuff just seems like second nature to her.”
Before the Massachusetts-born Meyers ever picked up a guitar in his late teens, he was an accomplished jazz pianist. His musical epiphany came during college. As he dug into the history of American roots music and wrote at length about how country music made its way from front porches to radio airwaves, his musical palette was forever changed. Of his college studies, Meyers says, “They turned me on to a bunch of artists that I never really listened to before—everything from bluegrass to Johnny Cash or Gram Parsons, the whole spectrum.”
Meyers is the Bittersweets’ primary songwriter. He crafts poetic, often abstract lyrics and the kind of melodies that send shivers of sensory pleasure down the spine. “He keeps everything so interesting,” says Prater. “He keeps me thinking, he keeps me on my feet and having to interpret, and that’s something I’ve always loved to do.”
The chain of events leading up to Goodnight, San Francisco reads like a fairy tale. Meyers and Prater discovered their musical kinship in the Bay area after college. The manager of a teenage musician Meyers was tutoring got the Bittersweets’ demo into the hands of taste-making San Francisco station KFOG, and KFOG’s instant embrace of the Bittersweets built so much buzz that 200 people came out for their very first show—on Superbowl Sunday, no less. By only their third performance, the head of Virt Records was flying in to see them, and their first record deal soon followed. When the band arrived in Nashville two years later, Compass Records was ready to sign them the moment they breathed a word about starting a new album.
That new album, Goodnight, San Francisco, flows seamlessly through eleven gorgeous mood pieces. Lex Price—Mindy Smith producer and sideman—lent his delicate producing touch, and brought in a perfectly sympathetic team of players: steel guitarist Russ Pahl (Don Williams), bassist Dave Jacques (John Prine), drummer Steve Bowman (Counting Crows), guitarist Doug Lancio (Patty Griffin), cellist David Henry (Ben Folds), organ player John Deaderick (Emmylou Harris) and others. GRAMMY nominee Jason Lehning (Guster) also lent his mixing and playing abilities to the project.
Goodnight marks the end of the Bittersweets’ season in San Francisco and the beginning of a new one in Nashville with a leaner lineup (the Bittersweets recorded The Life You Always Wanted as a quintet). “Basically we were all going through various personal struggles the last year we were there, even as a band,” says Meyers. “One of the band members went to law school and another one had a baby—both of which are wonderful things.” But that meant shifting from their five-person lineup—which included bassist Daniel Schacht and multi-instrumentalist Jerry Becker—into a duo, a change that’s ultimately made the Bittersweets even more versatile.
The album’s title track, a slow-burning R&B ballad, captures the bruising and beauty of embarking on a new journey as no one but the Bittersweets can. It eases in with piano and Prater’s breathy lilting and swells into a full-band catharsis, stoked by B-3 organ and an eruptive guitar solo. The lyrics move between past and future, pain and hope: “Goodnight all you dreamers / Goodnight all you refugees of hope / Get on home, it’s getting real late / And time stands like a chorus calling my name out loud / from behind the curtain / The voices in my head say, ‘You’re gonna be a rock and roll star, someday.’”
The fine-grained meditation “When the War Is Over” is another song that
captures the uncertainty of change with devastating accuracy, picking up the story after the leap has already been taken. Like many of the songs on Goodnight, there’s a question ringing at its core: “When the war is over/is it ever over?”
Just like dusk, the Bittersweets’ songs have a stirring, not-neatly-sewn-up
quality that’s hard to shake. And that’s just the point. Says Meyers, “I think art is at its best when it’s asking questions rather than giving answers.”
Weaving intricate patterns around a core of fiddle, melodeon, flute and guitar, the House Band’s rich, complex music spans the Celtic nations and beyond.
Flute/bombarde/bodhrán player John Skelton helped piece together many of the band’s arrangements. Ged Foley (guitar/small pipes/vocals), honed his talents in the Battlefield Band, and currently plays with Patrick Street. Chris Parkinson’s accordion playing has been a driving force in the English dance scene, and his keyboard work is incomparable. Roger Wilson adds texture to the group with his soulful singing and deft fiddle-playing.
Aidan is a fiddle player and composer from the Oban on the West Coast of Scotland. He has toured extensively in Europe and North America from the age of 15 and has made his name as one of Scotland’s most expressive and dynamic musicians. Aidan is much sought after as a session musician, having performed on over 60 albums, ranging from projects by Runrig to Michael McGoldrick and Karen Matheson. As a composer his tunes have been performed and recorded by Flook and Wolfstone among many others. Sirius is Aidan’s first solo album and has evolved from a commission by the Celtic Connections festival in 2003. A vast piece of work, Sirius incorporates a wide variety of musical styles from ultra-traditional folk to jazz, roots and groove, all of which have had an influence on Aidan’s musical style and expression.
Breabach is one of the most talked about new acts on the Scottish folk scene. Their innovative celtic style, blending double bagpipes, whistle, fiddle, song and Scottish step-dance, brings to the stage, flair, excitement and diversity rarely seen from such a young group. Winners of Scotland’s Danny Kyle Open Stage Award in 2005, and nominated for Best Up and Coming Artist at the Scots Trad Music Awards in 2006, Breabach has gone from strength to strength.
The trio comprised of guitarist and vocalist Robbie O’Connell, accordionist Mick Moloney, and piano accordionist Jimmy Keane formed in the mid 1980s after playing together with the Green Fields of America tour. They collaborated with fiddle virtuoso Liz Carroll to create There Were Roses in 1985, and then released KilKelly in 1987 as a trio.
Described as a “national treasure,” by Ireland’s top music magazine, Waterford-born guitarist and vocalist Robbie O’Connell played with the Clancy Brothers off and on throughout the 1990s.
Equally qualified as a musician and anthropologist, Irish-American immigrant Mick Moloney has recorded and/or produced over forty traditional Irish albums, has advised for hundreds of American festivals and concerts. Moloney has also taught at multiple American universities, been featured on PBS, Irish Television, and American Public Television, and holds some of the most prestigious awards in his field.
London native piano accordionist, composer, producer, and arranger Jimmy Keane has been considered the savior of the piano accordion. Starting his musical career with five consecutive All-Ireland championships, Keane has since recorded and performed with nearly all of the living greats of Irish music.
Chicago-born All-Ireland fiddle champion and National Heritage Award winner, Liz Carroll is considered one of the world’s leading Celtic fiddlers and composers. Named 2001’s “Traditional Artist of the Year,” by the Irish Echo, Carroll has become internationally recognized for her dazzling style and original tunes, many of which have entered the traditional repertoire here and abroad.
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