The Ferryman is the fourth studio album by the Philadelphia based celtic rock band. This album leans more towards the folk side than rock ‘n roll with songs like The Lakes Of Ponchartrain, Dominick Street and a dance worthy version of A Wife In Every Port. There’s dabbling in country with a delightful cover of Gone by John Hiatt, and some pop in their cover of Richard Thompson’s Galway to Graceland. For pure celtic rock there is the instrumental Bear Walk. Also an awesome version of Dol-li-a and I’m certain that they mixed in some In the Hall of the Mountain King just for me.

Also apparently I don’t hate the song Caledonia. I thought I hated that song with a passion that is generally reserved only for supervillains, but I don’t. I just have strong negative feelings about Celtic Woman and Celtic Thunder. Thanks to the Hooligans (and the Dougie MacLean interview before this post) for helping me find that out.

Overall, The Ferryman is an even-keeled album, and well worth your  attention. There’s a little something for everyone here.

Artist: The Hooligans

Buy Album: The Ferryman

Gail Rybak is an occasional writer, artist, photographer, Avon Lady, and she helps run Amelia’s Heirlooms. She is also a full-time geek and cat owner, and enjoys writing for Celtic Music Magazine. She will hopefully (assuming she can remember her password) be writing on her personal blog Machinations of a Robothobbit.  Fame and fortune has eluded her so far, but she has many fine hats.

photo: Lahri Bond

by Lahri Bond

It has been a busy time for Dougie MacLean, who after nearly 40 years as a professional musician, could have easily sat back and rested on his formidable laurels. Early in his career, MacLean made waves playing guitar and fiddle for short stints with two of Scotland’s mightiest traditional bands the Tannahill Weavers in 1976 and Silly Wizard in the early 80s. He was also part of a celebrated early duo with Alan Roberts, and a trio, which included Roberts and the great Alex Campbell; both groups producing one album each. Among his other early and rare recordings were two solo albums for the Plant Life label (Snaigow [1980] and On A Wing And A Prayer [1981]). While containing an embryonic rendition of his signature song “Caledonia,” these early records only hinted at the more mature and staggeringly beautiful music that would follow.

His true solo career coincided with the formation of his own label Dunkeld Records both in 1981. The company was formed with his wife Jenny MacLean, who among her many duties has also provided graphics for all of the label’s many releases. MacLean’s own Craigie Dhu was the label’s first release, and contained a mix of traditional and original songs. Among those songs was the definitive version of his “Caledonia,” which has gone on to have a life of it’s own, being covered by many artists, becoming something of the unofficial anthem of Scotland and even having a superb single malt whiskey inspired by it. Seventeen more albums have followed (not including compilations) and MacLean continues to tour the world; sometimes with a full band, but most often with a single guitar, harmonica, occasionally a fiddle or a didgeridoo, and always with his honey soaked, tenor voice, and a head full of amazing songs.

Recently, he has released a lovely new album called Resolution, and he is working on yet another with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) backing him. A new DVD called Songmaker is available, and he even has his own 10-day, multi-venue event called the Perthshire Amber Festival in Scotland. In 2013 he received the BBC Folk Lifetime Achievement, has started his own live streaming site on the net, and just to round things off, he was just awarded an OBE (The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) and it was pinned on his chest by none other than herself, the Queen of England.

We caught up with Dougie MacLean this March, via phone from his home base in Butterstone, near Dunkeld in the beautiful Tay Valley in Perthshire Scotland, as he was preparing to leave for a tour of Australia

Lahri Bond: Tell about the making of your new album Resolution, which is your first album of new songs in six years.

Dougie MacLean: I’m in a nice position, where I don’t have to make albums all the time. One of the best decisions we made about 25 years ago was setting up our own independent record company(Dunkeld Records). Where I live is, what was the old village school in a little town with about 12 houses in it. My father went to school here, and I went to school here, so we’re really independent. A new album comes along when I have ten new songs and I think that makes for a better kind of album, it’s a nice organic process.

LB: It seems like the new album and many of your last adventures have been a real family affair, with the album produced by yourself, Jenny and your children Jamie and Julia.

DM: Yea, my son Jamie produced it, and played most of the other instruments on it, which is fantastic. Basically it’s just me and him.

LB: On certain songs there is almost a neo-country feel to it.

DM: We have some dobro on a few of the tracks, that was the instrument of the moment when we were doing the record. Jamie had just got himself a dobro, and we were playing around with that a bit. It’s got a nice feel. That’s one of the nice thing about the way we make the records, it has the feel of a particular time. It’s whatever’s in Jamie’s head and my head at the time.

LB: Tell us a little about the Perthsire Amber Festival, how it evolved, and what’s it like to have your own folk festival.

DM: It’s become a monster now. Next year will be my fortieth year as a troubadour musician, which is pretty scary. I’ve played at festivals all over the world. I thought it’d be quite cool to have a festival back here in Scotland, in the area where I grew up, and in the area that inspired all the songs, and have everybody come to here, and hear the songs in context. That’s basically what it started off as, and now it’s a ten day festival, with all these shows in all these unique venues, like castles and cathedrals, as well as the theaters and all of that. We do all kinds of things to educate people about the wonderful county that Perthshire is. I get to play with all kinds of musicians I might not get to tour with or take on the road. I get to invite all my friends to come and hang about for two or three days, in Perthshire, all these great musicians.  It’s pretty cool to be a musician and have your own festival.

LB: It seems like it has been a particularly productive time for you. Among other things, you just received a BBC Lifetime Achievement Award.

DM: It was a really big thing for me to get. It’s Radio 2 which is the main radio station that goes across the whole country. The awards were held this year in Glasgow.

LB: I saw the video on-line of the all-star cast singing “Caledonia” behind you, it looked like you had Barbara Dickson, Rab Noakes, Martha Wainwright, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Eddi Reader, Ralph McTell, Karine Polwart, Kris Drever, Dick Gaughan, Phil Cunningham, Aly Bain and Steve Knightley, if I counted everyone.

DM: (laughs) That was a bit cool as well. I’m singing out to whole of the UK and I turn around, and everybody’s there behind me, which was pretty amazing.

LB: Any chance of an official release of the song or video with that cast?

DM: We’re very bad about following up on these things over here, I think. That would be a great release, yea, but I suppose it would be too complicated to secure all the rights, and all of that. It was a great thing to do; it was one of the more interesting versions of Caledonia I’ve ever sung.

LB: Tell us about how you are now doing live streaming from  your own Butterstone TV.

DM: I’m really excited about that. Luckily both my son and I, and my daughter are kind of teckie in that front. We were looking at the world, and were looking for a new model of how a musician deals with his public; ’cause technology has changed everything, and the CD has lost its value. For a while, music had become devalued, because it was the type of thing you swapped on the internet for free. We were just thinking how a musician would go into the future with the technology available. We discovered a way of broadcasting in high definition on the internet, and it’s fantastic. I do a one-hour live show, every month from the school here, or we’re mobile, so we can take it out. During the summer last year, we did a couple of shows from various places up on the western isles. We have all the cameras and the equipment. My daughter Julia does all the vision-mixing, and we have a little team of technical people who are friends of my kids, well, they’re not kids, they are all in their late twenties. We are broadcasting live to the whole planet. After doing these shows, I tap into the email at the end, and I get emails from people in Florida, Alaska, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Sydney Australia, it’s the whole planet just watching live.

It’s subscription-based, and I also do guitar classes on it, and show people how to play my kind of style of guitar playing, and we put up some archive video. I’m just getting geared up to start doing little documentaries of my own, and put it up there. So there’s all kinds of interesting things, it’s not limited. Because it’s micro economics, you don’t have to have thousands of subscribers to make it viable. It becomes this really interesting little place to go to meet the fans, meet the people who are interested in what you are doing. I’ve not been so excited about something as I have about this, in the last twenty years probably. The main broadcasters are quite fickle, they decide when they come and film you. This way, I suspect every musician will have his own broadcast channel, and do things with his musician friends It’s a lot more interesting stuff to have happen; I don’t know of any other musician in my field who is doing something like this.

We’ve done 12 shows; that would be a year now, just to test that the technology would work. I invite special guests along and we chat away and we talk about things you’d probably never find on the real television, and it’s much better quality than YouTube. You can plug it into your television and it’s just like watching TV, because it’s high definition. People don’t seem to mind paying, it’s like seven pound a month. Even for the one hour of live show, that’s much cheaper than going to a gig, and you can sit in front of your own fire and watch it. Its very personal, and I like that.

LB: And now you can sit by your fire drinking your very own Dougie MacLean inspired Caledonia Whiskey.

DM: That’s right (laughs),  I’m very lucky. A few years ago, our local distillery, which is a beautiful little distillery, it’s the smallest distillery in Scotland, very very old, called Edradou, they decided to put all their 12 year old malt over to what we call Dougie MacLean’s Caledonia. It’s got the words of the chorus of my “Caledonia” song on the back of the bottle. It’s excellent, it’s a beautiful whiskey. The smaller distilleries make the best whiskeys, because they have a small still, so they can take their time to make it. They don’t manufacture it like the big people, so it’s a real classy 12 year old malt. I do have to go in and sample it from time to time (laughs). If you drink half a bottle of Caledonia, you can sing the song with a beautiful tenor voice, and if you drink the whole bottle of Caledonia you get the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra playing along with you in the background. It lovely and it’s a real thrill to have the whiskey associated with the song. It’s sold all over the world.

LB: To top everything off, you also awarded recently an OBE.

DM: That was a big deal. Not just for me but for the whole musical, folk genre that I work within. To get recognized by the establishment in that way was really a big deal. You don’t get these things on your own; it’s all the really good people who have helped me over the years, and my family, that culminates in something like that.

LB: So do we call you Sir Dougie now?

DM: Noooo, no, no. no, no. I get to put OBE after my name. It’s an Officer of the Order of the British Empire; it’s an ancient thing really. The Beatles got MBE which is a Member of the British Empire, the officers are above the members, and then there’s a thing called the CBE which is a Captain or something. It’s very bizarre; it’s a very British thing. The Queen presented it to me down at the castle, down at Holyrood Palace, which was amazing, cause I’m from a very working class, rural family.

(Photographer, The Herald)

LB: And you got to bring your mom. . .

DM:  I was allowed to have four people with me, and I phoned up my mother, and I said “Mom go buy a hat, because you’re going to meet the queen.” She had a great time, for her it was very, very special. The queen was a lovely lady. I really admire her for being able to do all that stuff and not appear to be bored. We had a good wee chat about music, and it was lovely. It was all done it Holyrood Palace, so we didn’t have to go down to London, it was all done in Edinburgh, which was pretty cool. I’m a great champion of Scottish independence, but I love the history of that monarchy and our own monarchies.

LB: So what’s next besides touring?

DM: Well, I’m planning on making a new record this year with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO). I’m working with an arranger at the moment, and we’ve got like half of the songs done, both old and new songs, with full orchestral arrangements. I’m having fun with the arrangements, because I love French horns, so I keep getting them to do these French horn things.

Dougie MacLean will be touring the US in May and September. Information on his recordings, videos, songbooks, live streaming, the Perthsire Amber Festival, whiskey and more can be found at: http://www.dougiemaclean.com.

A Lament for Boston     Mist Covered Mountains MP3 C

In all of our lives there are just a few events that are imbedded in our memories to the point where most of us can say “I know exactly where I was when I heard that news.”

Those of us of a certain age can remember where we were when we heard the news that President Kennedy was shot. I was in 4th grade and I can remember leaving Miss Dienlien’s class with my friends and standing on the corner and contemplating what it all meant in our 9 year old minds. I can see my mother in the living room with tears in her eyes ironing clothes for her husband and 6 children.  I remembered President Kennedy as the man in the huge campaign poster that took up most of our picture window during election season.

On September 11, 2001 I was working at home in the basement when my 11 year old son who was home sick from school called down, “Dad you better come up and see what’s on the TV.” Because of my background as a grief counselor I ended up leaving Boston at 3am the next morning and driving to New York, abandoning my car near a police blockade and taking the train to Manhattan. I remember emerging from Grand Central Station into a world that looked so much different, “changed utterly” as the poet said, from the day before.

I learned a lot about terror and loss in the coming weeks. I spoke with dozens of people who needed to tell someone about their escape from that horror. Many trudged for hours covered in dust across the Brooklyn Bridge or uptown towards home, some waited frantically on the docks to be rescued by a passing ferry or tugboat. A few intrepid souls ventured into the subway and were rewarded by the last arrival of the No. 1 which whisked them uptown where minutes later they miraculously emerged from the tunnel and into the sun. My mind holds a virtual cyclorama of escape from every angle of lower Manhattan on that day.

I heard so many stories of loss, for no matter what town you came from in that tri-state area you surely lost a friend. I wrote a song about the experience, September 12, 2001 which was featured on the podcast on the 10 anniversary of the day.  Of all the stories  I heard in those weeks, this one now strikes me as one of the saddest.  A young woman who worked in lower Manhattan belonged to an after-work darts league at a local pub. The league was a great way to meet new friends.  Several relationships and even a couple of marriages grew out of those dart games over the years. This woman struck up a friendship with a young man and this led to a dinner out on the town. They had a nice time together and after a goodnight hug and exchange of phone numbers she thought on the subway ride home how nice it would be to get together again. The night was September 10, 2001. In speaking with her weeks after 9-11 she was still nearly inconsolable and almost embarrased by her reaction. “It seems silly to be so upset by this, I hardly knew him…but I think I would have.”  Like the song says, grief is like the ripples from a stone dropped into still waters.

I am thinking of all of this because recently in the Boston area, another date, April 15, 2013 is now emblazoned in our memories. On that afternoon I received a call from my brother who is part of the FBI counter-terrorism group- “turn on your TV.” I had returned that morning from watching the marathon runners pass the end of our street. We used to bring our kids down and marvel at the elite athletes from Kenya as they ran in a close group of a dozen or so, at that point in the race banded together in an amazing fluid circle about the size of a kitchen table.

And so now in Boston we experience yet  another senseless act of violence and we pass into the familiar stages of dealing with it as a community. As Americans we seem most comfortable moving past sadness into the recovery phase, helped on by inspiring stories of sacrifice and heroism. In Boston this spring, there are many of these.

I think the Irish are much more comfortable residing for awhile with the sadness and loss. After all, more than 100 years after the Famine, we are still building monuments to it. My brother- in- law and his friends recently petitioned and had a statue erected in Northampton Mass. to honor Halligan and Dailey, 2 men hung (incorrectly, it seems) for horse thieving more than 150 years ago!  I remember stories of my grandmother talking on the phone with a neighbor whose husband was gravely ill.  “Now, now, don’t you fret, he’ll be up and about before you know it, good as new.”  Then she hung up the phone and said to my grandfather, “Where do you think Mr. Dunn will be waked,  Hobart’s or John B. Shea’s?”

Along with the Irish familiarity with mourning comes of course a strong musical tradition. It is no coincidence that the funeral of nearly every firefighter or police officer is accompanied by the mournful yet stirring stains of the Celtic pipes, usually the Scottish bagpipes.  One hundred and fifty years ago when a son or daughter was emigrating from Ireland to England, Australia or America, families held an “American Wake” usually not complete without tunes and ballads to see them off.  And a whole genre of fiddle tunes, the Laments,  pay homage to those who have passed on.

The tune that accompanies this blog is an old Scottish lament called “Mist Covered Mountains of Home.”  It was taught to me by Peter McAvoy from our band Boston Blackthorne who plays the fiddle on this rendition. The tune is perhaps best know for being played at President Kennedy’s funeral.   At times like this when as in the words of Yeats, “The world’s more full of weeping than you can understand,” we trust that the beauty of the lament brings comfort and makes us  just a bit less “anxious in our sleep.” (from The Stolen Child by W.B. Yeats)  Like all of our community we thank the brave and selfless first responders and bystanders for their service and remember those who died and those who continue to suffer from this act of madness.

     We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse-
     MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly.
     A terrible beauty is born.

-W.B. Yeats Easter, 1916

Since the coming of Cambro-Norman mercenaries under Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, nicknamed Strongbow, in 1169 there have been numerous attempts by the Irish to reestablish themselves with Home Rule. Perhaps two of the most well known rebellions are the Rebellion of 1798 and the Easter Rising 1916, both of which failed.

Today marks the 97th anniversary of the unconditional surrender of the leaders of the 1916 Uprising. After four days of fighting and bombardments, the leaders of the Easter Rising decided to lay down their arms to avoid further civilian deaths. “At 3.30pm Pearse handed General Lowe his sword and wrote the surrender order.” The surrender order read:

“In order to prevent the further slaughter of Dublin citizens, and in the hope of saving the lives of our followers now surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, the members of the Provisional Government present at headquarters have agreed to an unconditional surrender, and the commandants of the various districts in the City and County will order their commands to lay down arms.”

What makes this particular uprising so significant is that the leaders and soldiers knew that it had virtually no chance of immediate victory and freeing Ireland from British rule. Instead they saw it as a powerful symbolic gesture to help spur the Irish social conscience into a further rebellion that would perhaps than lead to Home Rule for Ireland.

In this there was success.

For, it was the failed Easter Rising that swayed the populace into voting in the 1918 General Election that would give Sinn Fein a landslide victory, hence, allowing the Declaration of Independence and the War of Independence, 1919-1922. The connection to the Easter Rising is seen because too many of the Irish Republicans, including Michael Collins, the War of Independence truly started with Padraig Pearse’s reading The Proclamation on the steps of the General Post Office in 1916. Moreover, many of the leaders of the War of Independence were also involved in the Easter Rising itself.

At the end, the Rising cost 450 persons killed, 2,614 injured, and nine missing. Military casualties were 116 dead, 368 wounded and nine missing. The Irish and Dublin police forces had 16 killed and 29 wounded, and a total of 254 civilians died. Sixty-four rebels lost their lives (Easter 1916.net). The following leaders were executed by firing squads and thrown into a mass grave: Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, Thomas J. Clarke, Joseph Plunkett, William Pearse, Edward Daly and Michael O’Hanrahan, John MacBride, Eamonn Ceannt, Michael Mallin, Sean Heuston, Conn Colbert, James Connolly (who was shot while tied to a chair because he could not stand due to his injuries) and Sean MacDiarmada.

It was the treatment and execution of these leaders that is said to have swayed public opinion and created more social awareness of this group’s goals and desires. It also angered much of the Irish populace, many of whom showed no support during the actual uprising.

Ninety-seven years later, the bullet holes in the front of the General Post Office still exists as evidence of the turmoil of 1916. Next to the Post Office is No 16 Moore Street, the building where the leaders met for the last time. However, while it should be a National Monument, today it is at risk of being redeveloped. Thankfully, there has been a great push to save this historic building. To learn more about the fight to save No 16 Moore Street click here.

Likewise, to learn more of the Easter Rising 1916 click here. Or you can read the following books:

1916: The Easter Rising by Tim Pat Coogan
1916 by Morgan Llywelyn
Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion by Charles Townshend
Letters from Dublin Easter 1916 by Sally Warwick-Haller (Editor), Adrian Warwick-Haller (Editor)
The Rising: Ireland: Easter 1916 by Fearghal McGarry
The Rising of the Moon by William Martin
Myths and Memories of the Easter Rising: Cultural and Political Nationalism in Ireland by Jonathan Githens-Mayer

Stephen Mc Sweeney is a high school English/Drama teacher. Besides writing for the Celtic MP3s Music Magazine, he enjoys acting, writing and playing Celtic music. He can be seen as one of the members of the band Terrible Musicians, where he plays percussion and mandolin.

The Kilmaine Saints was started in 2009 by a few members of the Lochiel Emerald Society Pipes and Drums. At first, it was simply a means to have fun all year round playing pipes and getting free beer and pub food. However, what started off as a bit of a side project quickly took on a life of its own. This high energy band that takes its cues from their predecessors, Drop Kick Murphy, The Pogues and the like, found that they had something special.

So after filling out their roster with Brendan, Liz, and Barry, they are now taking the Celtic Festival scene by storm. They have released two CDs, the Good, the Plaid and the Ugly in 2010 and Drunken Redemption in 2012, filled with wonderful fist pounding music and they don’t seem to be slowing down at all. Therefore, I say, keep it coming! I can’t wait to see what this wonderful group comes up with next.

For now, enjoy this video of their performance of The Pogues song “Streams of Whiskey” from the Celtic Fling in Manheim, PA on Sunday, June 24th, 2012.

Artist: Kilmaine Saints

Buy Album: Drunken Redemption

Stephen Mc Sweeney is a high school English/Drama teacher. Besides writing for the Celtic MP3s Music Magazine, he enjoys acting, writing and playing Celtic music. He can be seen as one of the members of the band Terrible Musicians, where he plays percussion and mandolin.

I’ve got something to say before the rest of the review. Johnny Depp, Gore Verbinsky, between the movie Rango and producing this with Hal Wilner, I am preemptively going to forgive you for The Lone Ranger.

 Okay, we’re back with a story. My brother had just married, his wife and I was still in that awkward phase where we were trying to get to know each but also not look like total fools. On a Girl’s Night Out, she asked what my favorite type of music was. And I honestly couldn’t answer in part because my taste is eclectic, and because I didn’t want seem lame. But mostly the latter. If I’d had Son of Rogues Gallery back then, I would have just been able to say, “Most of this.”

And it’s true because using the theme of life at sea, this album draws from all manner of sources and styles. Son of Rogues Gallery comes in at 36 tracks and 2 hours, 20 minutes and it’s hard to pick out just a few favorites. It starts out with strongly with our old friend Shane MacGowan drunkenly rocking out with Leaving Liverpool. There’s Macy Grey’s reggae version of Off to Sea Once More, Ivan Neville’s Mr. Stormalong or Chuck E. Weiss country fried Anthem for Old Souls. There’s the pure joy that infuses Sunshine Life for Me sung by Petra Haden and Lenny Pickett on sax, and Bear Away done by Kenny Wollesen & The Himalayas. If you want more traditional there’s Row Bullies Row sung by Shaun Lennon (which sets me swaying every time), Sam’s Gone Away with Robyn Hitchcock, General Taylor with Richard Thompson, and the heartbreaking Missus McGraw sung by Anjelica Huston.

And there’s so many more, but for me there are two standouts. One is a lullaby from Tennyson’s The Princess, Sweet and Low by the Americans. It’s great arraignment with wonderful singing, and beautiful instrumentation. The other is Shennandoah a call and response between the incomparable Tom Waits and a chorus of Tom Waits. Then add in Keith Richards harmonizing and you have pure magic.

There are a few that I didn’t like such as the discordant “Barnacle Bill the Sailor” and a couple of spoken word pieces. But those are easily forgotten and forgiven in the sheer tide of other good songs. Son of Rogues Gallery is an embarrassment of riches and that is not a bad thing at all.

Gail Rybak is an occasional writer, artist, photographer, Avon Lady, and she helps run Amelia’s Heirlooms. She is also a full-time geek and cat owner, and enjoys writing for Celtic Music Magazine. She will hopefully (assuming she can remember her password) be writing on her personal blog Machinations of a Robothobbit.  Fame and fortune has eluded her so far, but she has many fine hats. She wishes to thank Mattie Dalton without whom this reveiw wouldn’t have been able to happen.

Born in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada to a musical family multi-instrumentalist Jesse Ferguson was born and raised on music. Largely self-taught, Jesse has developed a wonderful style over the years that has developed quite a following. Having taken on the name “The Bard of Cornwall,” Jesse has had over 750,000 views and counting on YouTube. Jesse Ferguson performs this version of “The Wayfaring Stranger”, a traditional American ballad, on mandolin.

Artist: Jesse Ferguson
Buy Album: The Parting Glass

Stephen Mc Sweeney is a High School English/Drama teacher. Besides writing for the Celtic MP3s Music Magazine, he enjoys acting, writing and playing Celtic music. He can be seen as one of the members of the band Terrible Musicians, where he plays percussion and mandolin.

Coole Park is a Canadian based progressive Celtic Rock band that has been performing together for the past several years.  This video is recorded live at Hugh’s Room in Toronto, Ontario in 2010.  It is a Nova Scotia song from their album “Water Journeys”.  It is a wonderful song that is a tribute to an old ship as it is decommissioned.

Artist: Coole Park

Buy Album: Water Journeys

Stephen Mc Sweeney is a high school English/Drama teacher. Besides writing for the Celtic MP3s Music Magazine, he enjoys acting, writing and playing Celtic music. He can be seen as one of the members of the band Terrible Musicians, where he plays percussion and mandolin.

Gunn Clan Tartan

Watch for the National Tartan Day, April 6th.  In the Americas’s we acknowledge the men and women who gave effortlessly to give us the heritage that is honored this day.

From the framers of the Declaration of Independence to the first man on the moon, Scottish-Americans have contributed mightily to the fields of the arts, science, politics, law, and more. Today, over eleven million Americans claim Scottish and Scotch-Irish roots — making them the eighth largest ethnic group in the United States. These are the people and accomplishments that are honored on National Tartan Day, April 6th.

April 6 has a special significance to Americans because the Declaration of Arbroath, the Scottish Declaration of Independence, was signed on April 6, 1320 and the American Declaration of Independence was modelled on that inspirational document.

National Tartan Day of April 6 was officially recognized on a permanent basis when the U.S. Senate passed  Senate Resolution 155 recognizing April 6th as National Tartan Day.

Canada has been celebrating “National Tartan Day” since 1993. The idea and motivation for creating a similar American holiday was provided by the Scottish Coalition, a group of national Scottish-American cultural organizations.

What does “tartan” mean?  What is it exactly?

1. a woolen or worsted cloth woven with stripes of different colors and widths crossing at right angles, worn chiefly by the Scottish Highlanders, each clan having its own distinctive plaid.

2. a design of such a plaid known by the name of the clan wearing it.

Ed Yother is a Philadelphia area musician playing mandolin, octave mandolin and Irish tenor banjo.

He draws his repertoire mainly from Ireland, New England, and the maritime traditions. His aim is to treat these traditions with the sensitivity, detail, and liveliness that they deserve.

Band: Ed Yother

Buy CD: Ed Yother

Download MP3: “Paddy West”

Website: www.edyother.com

Hometown: Philadelphia, PA

Similar Artists: Planxty, Andy Irvine, Donal Lunny, Ewan McColl, A.L Lloyd, Stan Hugill, Louis Killen.

The Celtic Music Magazine is the Voice of indie Celtic Music online.
It features Celtic CD reviews, articles, and free Celtic MP3s since 2000.
We’re changing the way you hear Celtic music. Subscribe to our podcast
and monthly newsletter at www.celticmp3s.com.

Rob Howell actively wonders what wyrd has in store for him next. Since wyrd answers in her own time, he writes poetry, follows where his whimsy leads, and spends his weekends singly (badly) to whomever will listen to him.