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SIGER (Ward & Hartwin Dhoore)

https://www.siger.be/en/live

Musicians: Ward Dhoore (Mandola, Guitar, Piano, Harmonium, Soundscapes)

Hartwin Dhoore (Diatonic Accordion)

Known for their innovative instrumental compositions rooted in Flemish traditional music, siblings Ward & Hartwin Dhoore have been roaming international stages together for over fifteen years. They have been the oiled engine behind award-winning bands & projects such as Trio Dhoore, Estbel and The Flemish Folk Caravan, just to name a few.

Two albums on TRAD RECORDS

https://www.siger.be/en/shop

1ST SIGER – “RODELAND” TRAD021 Trad Records)

2ND SIGER “WHEN WE FLY” TRAD028 (NEW - Out Now 2023 Trad Records)

See ‘We’ll Meet Again’ (from the new album When We Fly)

You Tube https://youtu.be/rKbv8BESiFo?si=EhucgB-p9U9wpJ7c

About SIGER (Ward & Hartwin Dhoore)

Known for their innovative instrumental compositions rooted in Flemish traditional music, siblings Ward & Hartwin Dhoore have been roaming international stages together for over fifteen years. They have been the oiled engine behind award-winning bands & projects such

as Trio Dhoore, Estbel and The Flemish Folk Caravan, just to name a few.

Throughout the years the brothers managed to create their own musical identity that has attracted many listeners far across the Flemish borders. With concerts in almost every country in Europe, the UK, and North America and performances at festivals such as ‘Celtic Connections’ (Scotland), Underneath the Stars (England), Folk Alliance International (USA), Rudolstadt (Germany) and many more, the brothers established a wide fanbase on which they have built a strong career.

Today they are performing mainly as a duo called ‘Siger.’ ‘Siger den Rode’ was the first landlord of ‘Rodeland’, a Flemish area (Belgium) with a rich cultural history that the two brothers call “home”. He ruled in peace with the local population until the Spanish conqueror came and overthrew him.

“We find a lot of inspiration for our music in being on the road together. On tour, we find ourselves in so many different situations that evoke certain emotions, which are then often translated into new tunes” explains Ward, the youngest brother and Mandola player of Siger. “It’s not uncommon for us to start playing a new melody during a soundcheck. If that happens, and the other person immediately joins in, playing some chords or a harmonious tune, we both know that the tune is going to make it to the next album.” adds Hartwin, accordionist of the duo.

But Siger’s music is also appreciated in Flanders, the duo’s home base. Their instrumental music can be heard regularly on the national radio. The brothers regularly perform at one of the biggest folk festivals in Belgium; the Dranouter Festival and presented their modern folk music in many Flemish art centers. Although the brothers have been playing together for over 15 years, their excitement to introduce new music and enthral new audiences is never-ending. Diatonic accordion and octave mandolin complement each other seamlessly in a musical adventure where you sit on the edge of your seat.

Catalogue:

SIGER WHEN WE FLY (NEW Nov 2023)

SIGER RODELAND (2022)

John Devlin

www.johndevlin.net

Next In Line

Cat No. RFR 001. UPC 5006051335068

Label & Distribution: Ruthless Flowers Records via own website @ www.johndevlin.net

Track Listing

1. I’m Not The One 2. Walking Out In Style 3. The Great Northwest Silver Express 4. Next In Line

5. Blackout 6. Homunculus & Wilde 7. Stop! 8. Everlasting Love 9. Paint It Red

10. Hill Of Beans 11. Keep Her Satisfied 12. Wood Lane Station

YouTube I’m Not The One

Musicians: John Devlin (Vocals, Rhythm Guitar) Don Stick (Lead Guitar) Barry Gill (Lead Guitar) Henry Stephens (Bass, Backing Vocals)

Charlie Evans (Bass) Cormac O’Kane (Keyboards, Orchestration) David Rose (Keyboards) Dani Marin (Drums)

Pat Moore (Drums & Backing Vocals) Dave Simpson (Drums)

Album produced by Cormac O’Kane at Red Box Studios Belfast

Tracks 2, 4, 8 and 12 produced by John Devlin and Kevin Pyne

Remastered at Earth Music Studios, Belfast by Vic Bronzini-Fulton

John Devlin -- Next In Line “John Devlin – the best 60’s garage rock birthed in the twenty-first century!

A singular mind mining a golden seam of musical magic. It sounds familiar at first…and then you realise that nobody has thought of it before…”

Colin Harper (Music Journalist)

About: Next In Line: The album is sort of a “best of” what my band were playing out at the time in clubs and bars around London - with a few curios like Humunculus & Wilde and Paint It Red thrown in for good measure. We played the circuit - Dublin Castle in Camden, 12 Bar Club in Denmark Street, 100 Club on Oxford Street – and then went into the studios and bang! - put them down live and added overdubs later. Trying to channel the spirit of Dr Feelgood or early Elvis Costello and The Attractions.

I wanted to capture the warmth and energy of the band on stage so I took the tracks that we recorded in London to Red Box Studios in Belfast and Cormac O’Kane produced up tracks that weren’t finished adding brass, electronics and orchestration to the material.

If you were to ask me what my songs are about I don’t think I could give you a simple answer on that. If you take a song like Wood Lane Station the last verses are based on a deserted platform from the old Wood Lane Station that was closed in 1947. As you whizz between Shepherds Bush and White City on the Central Line you can see the old Wood Lane ghost platform lit up and frozen in time. It just caught my imagination! There’s a mysterious quality to songwriting...songs have to be expressive and resonate with people or else what’s the point?

About John Devlin: John is an Irish singer/songwriter who cut his teeth many moons ago in Belfast with his band North Parade and later with John Devlin & The Revolvers in London in 2000’s. He draws heavily on his roots in Americana, Irish folk rock, British power pop.

His band include Davy Bates on drums, coming from a rock background in band Storm Zone, Ross Montgomery on bass who really comes as a package with Davy, and Slawek Kordys on lead guitar who provides soul and power.

John Devlin was born in Limerick in the Republic of Ireland but his family come from Belfast, N.Ireland, where he is now based. Asked about how his Irishness plays in his music John says “I grew up listening to all the great British and American music (Beatles, Lennon, Madness, Kate Bush, Paul Simon, Lou Reed, CCR, Prince) but when I write songs subconsciously the Irish thing seems to come out as well, particularly in tracks like I’m Not The One, Keep Her Satisfied, Blackout, Homunculus & Wilde and Wood Lane Station.

I guess it was growing up listening to my da singing Irish ballads at parties such as “She Moved Through The Fare”, “My Lagan Love” and “Carrickfergus”. It’s the pentatonic scale used in Irish songs that does it for me..not sure if any of my songs use the pentatonic but it’s dreamlike and gorgeous. I’ve played all around Ireland, both North and South, on my own and with my band John Devlin & The Revolvers venues such as The Spirit Store in Dundalk, Monroes in Galway, in Templebar in Dublin, Derry and The American Bar in Belfast.

Music has played a huge part in bringing both parts of this island together, I hope my music can play a small part in that.

Discography

Next In Line - Sept 2023

I’m Not The One - Dec 2020

Rock 'n' Roll E.P - May 2020

Down On The River E.P. - Mar 2020

The Legends of Tomorrow

https://legendsoftomorrowband.com/

“Better Weather” (Single edit) - Featuring the voice of Katie Spencer

Taken from the album

The Weather at World’s End: 1997–2022

The Weather at World’s End: 1997–2022, an anthology of author/musician

Colin Harper’s long-running studio ensemble The Legends of Tomorrow.

“Better Weather” (Single edit)

Musicians: Katie Spencer – vocal + Colin Harper – guitar

Linley Hamilton – flugelhorn + Scott Flanigan – piano

Ali Mackenzie – bass + Louise Potter – drums

Release: Available Now -- Distribution: PROPER -- ISRC code GBGDM2348222

YouTube The Legends of Tomorrow “Better Weather” Vocal by Katie Spencer (Full album length version)

This is a Marry Waterson's created promo video (courtesy of Arts Council NI)

LEGENDS OF HARPER BBC iPLAYER

Belfast writer and composer Colin Harper is in reflective mood as he is joined by his merry band,

The Legends of Tomorrow, along with some world-renowned admirers

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001wmjw/legends-of-harper

‘Better Weather’ (single edit)

From the album The Weather at World’s End: 1997–2022, an anthology of author/musician Colin Harper’s long-running studio ensemble The Legends of Tomorrow.

Colin Harper: ‘Better Weather’ is a gentle rumination on the state of the world, written last year. No finger-pointing or hectoring, just a bit sad. It feels like end times – there’s no point pretending otherwise. Still, you never know… A few people have told me it’s my best song and yes, it probably is. We’re all time-poor these days and I can’t expect radio to want a six-minute, slow-burning song that starts like something from Joni Mitchell and becomes something akin to the Who before the embers fade. I couldn’t face trying to cut it in half myself – I’m too close – so I wondered if my great pal Sarah McQuaid, whose songwriting and fearlessness I’ve always loved, and her sound engineer Martin Stansbury would give it a go. They did – and somehow they’ve removed the rock and kept the roll and it still makes some sense.’

Sarah McQuaid: ‘Colin is an old friend and has enlisted both me and my long-time manager/sound engineer Martin Stansbury to work with him on various projects over the years — but never both of us on the same project until now, so I was absolutely thrilled when he asked us to come up with a “radio edit” of his new single, especially as the vocals on the track are by the wonderful Katie Spencer, an artist whose work I admire tremendously. It’s a tricky job reducing a six-minute song to half its original length while trying to retain its “epic” feel, but I hope we’ve managed to boil it down to its essence and keep the lyrics — and Katie’s beautifully understated delivery of them — front and centre.’

‘Better Weather’ is a microcosm of the Legends of Tomorrow’s ‘supergroup’ ethos, featuring four notable musicians from the worlds of Irish jazz, blues-rock and folk along with Katie Spencer, a fast-rising young singer, songwriter and guitarist from Yorkshire:

Colin: ‘I met Katie through encountering her partner Henry Parker’s music online. I sought Henry out on a holiday in Yorkshire and he introduced me to Katie’s music – which is just as wonderful, but in its own unique way. They both draw deeply from the well of 1960s British folk influences – the sort of artists I’ve written about in magazines, books and box set essays for the past 30 years. I was stunned when I was told they were each reading my book on Bert Jansch, Dazzling Stranger, when they met. Asking Katie to sing on ‘Better Weather’ felt rather karmic. Her performance on it is, as it always is, dazzling – and she’s no longer a stranger. I feel very blessed that she was keen to do it. I definitely owe her a favour, so here it is: Katie, I promise never to play guitar on one of your own records!’

ink caption

The Legends of Tomorrow

https://legendsoftomorrowband.com/

The Weather at World’s End: 1997–2022

The Weather at World’s End: 1997–2022 anthologises 20 songs from 25 years of Colin Harper’s under-the-radar ‘studio band’ the Legends of Tomorrow.

Dozens of musicians/recording artists from Northern Ireland’s rock, blues, folk, punk, jazz and traditional music communities and guests from further afield

have joyously contributed to Legends’ recordings over that period – only a few of which have been nationally released – and this anthology features 50 of these collaborators.

ISRC codes GBGDM 2248201 TO GBGDM 2248220

LEGENDS OF HARPER BBC iPLAYER

Belfast writer and composer Colin Harper is in reflective mood as he is joined by his merry band,

The Legends of Tomorrow, along with some world-renowned admirers

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001wmjw/legends-of-harper

YouTube The Legends of Tomorrow “Better Weather” Katie Spencer (Vocals)

This is a Marry Waterson's created promo video (courtesy of Arts Council NI) for a new version of 'Better Weather', exclusive to the anthology.

YouTube The Legends of Tomorrow - ALL WE NEED IS LOVE (2023 promo) Janet Henry (vocals)

Personnel: Janet Henry (vocals), Colin Harper (guitar), Norman Boyd (lead guitar), Dave McLarnon (bass), Louise Potter (drums) Backing vocals (on recording): Joby Fox, Alison O’Donnell Bass (on recording): Ali Mackenzie

PICTURE IN DROPBOX Left to Right,: Dave McLarnon (Shock Treatment), Norman Boyd (Protex), Janet Henry (solo artist), Louise Potter (Wookalily), Colin Harper (Legend-in-chief).

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‘Colin Harper writes passionately about the music of these islands.

The Weather at World’s End showcases his own remarkable contribution to that music over 25 years with “the Greatest Northern Irish Supergroup That Never Existed”. Essential!’ Barry Devlin (Horslips), 2023

The Weather at World’s End: 1997–2022 anthologises 20 songs from 25 years of Colin Harper’s under-the-radar ‘studio band’ the Legends of Tomorrow. Dozens of musicians/recording artists from Northern Ireland’s rock, blues, folk, punk, jazz and traditional music communities and guests from further afield have joyously contributed to Legends’ recordings over that period – only a few of which have been nationally released – and this anthology features 50 of these collaborators.

Of the 20 tracks, 18 are Harper compositions and the others are by 60s British folk enigma Anne Briggs and 70s Australian rock god Billy Thorpe. There are two 2023 remixes of 1997 tracks, one previously unreleased track and two new tracks: ‘Better Weather’, featuring rising Yorkshire folk sensation Katie Spencer (vocals) plus jazz stars Linley Hamilton (flugelhorn) and Scott Flanigan (piano); and ‘All We Need is Love’, featuring soulful Americana recording artist Janet Henry (vocals) in her first new collaboration with Colin in 15 years, plus Belfast guitar hero Norman Boyd (Stonefish/Protex) and, on BVs, Alison O’Donnell (Mellow Candle) and Joby Fox (Bankrobbers/Energy Orchard).

The anthology majors on the ‘classic rock’ aspect of the Legends’ canon and features 14 lead vocalists, including Dave McLarnon (Shock Treatment), Tíona McSherry (Tamalin), Mickey Rafferty (the Minnows), Rick Monro (Sweet Mary Jane), Alison O’Donnell (Mellow Candle), Ciaran Gribbin (INXS) and Lyndsay Crothers (Wookalily). The 32-page booklet includes Harper’s telling of the secret history of the ensemble and a ‘reunion photo session’ bringing together almost all of the featured vocalists along with Harper and his key collaborators over the past 25 years: Ali Mackenzie (bass), Cormac O’Kane (keys, production) and Mark Case (graphic design/promo videos).

Promotion will include promo videos of the two new tracks: ‘Better Weather’ by acclaimed animator Marry Waterson, including film of vocalist Katie Spencer; and ‘All We Need is Love’, an ersatz performance video shot at a Belfast club by Mark Case.

Colin Harper is an established music historian – author of six books including acclaimed biographies of Bert Jansch and John McLaughlin and a history of uillean piping, and curator of increasingly colossal box sets for various labels on the likes of Ian Carr’s Nucleus, Pentangle, the Pretty Things, Horslips and Lindisfarne. His current project is a 20CD Martin Carthy at the BBC for Snapper.

In the 90s, Colin was a full-time writer for Q, Mojo, The Independent, The Irish Times and others, and chronicler of the vibrant Northern Irish live scene for the Irish News. Discreetly, he began a parallel path as a recording artist and songwriter. In 1997, the first Legends album – featuring 33 musicians – was ‘released’ in a run of 200 cassettes. Most further works were similarly low-run affairs – but demand for Sunset Cavaliers (2016) and Titanium Flag: Expanded Edition (2017) (both released nationally under his own name but effectively Legends projects) convinced him there was no longer anything to be coy about.

‘It started as just scratching a creative itch,’ says Harper, ‘and it became a festival of friends over the next 25 years, appearing and disappearing like the Cheshire Cat. It spans generations – Mia O’Donnell (21) to Alison O’Donnell (69, no relation) on this album – and it ignores status. I’ve had the likes of Jan Akkerman, Chris Spedding, Martin Hayes and Duffy Power on previous releases – but I’m just as honoured to work with unsung heroes and rising stars. There’s a line in ‘Be the One’ (1997): ‘I met my heroes then / I made them all my friends’ – and by and large I did. These days, we huddle together for warmth – creating music ‘because it’s there’. Too late to stop now!’

‘There’s always been a notion in music that those who can, do. And those who can’t, write about it. Colin Harper, one of our most authoritative voices in music journalism, thankfully disproves this…’

Ian Abrahams, Record Collector, 2016

‘Immaculately crafted…’ Fred Dellar, Mojo, 2016 ‘He really can play...’ Nigel Williamson, Uncut, 2016

Simon Mayor

https://mandolin.co.uk/

Carolan

Fantasias On Themes By Turlough O’Carolan

New settings and musical explorations celebrating the melodic gems of Irelands musical treasure Turlough O’ Carolan (1670 – 1738).

Featuring instruments of the mandolin families

Available Now – Distribution: RSK

Track Listing 1 Hewlett 3:21 – 2. Princess Royal 3:22 – 3. Mrs Sterling 2:40 – 4. Snowy-Breasted Pearl 2:21 -- 5. Carolan’s Frolic 2:45 --

6. Carolan’s Devotion 4:42 – 7. Sí Beag Sí Mhór 4:29 8. Carolan’s Dream (guitar) 3:32 -- 9. Lord Inchiquin 3:05 -–

10. Dolly MacDonough 4:43 –

11. Carolan’s Concerto 1:59 – 12. George Brabazon (second air) 2:23’ 13. Katherine O’More 4:01 14. Carolan’s Dream (string quartet) 2:25

ISRC codes GBASG2308201 to GBASG2308214

Musicians: Simon Mayor mandolin, mandola, mandocello, violin, viola, guitars

Hilary James vocals, double bass, mandobass, bass guitar

Florence Petit violoncello

YouTube Hewlett (Carolan) performed by Simon Mayor

Simon Mayor Writes:

I remember well the first time I heard the music of the Irish harper and composer Turlough O'Carolan (1670 - 1738). It would have been 1973 and the Irish group Planxty were playing at Reading University Folk Club. As a student haunt, it was one I vastly preferred to the lecture hall or seminar; Russian social thought of the 18th century was never as exciting as this! But let's not digress. Planxty had been booked by Hilary James, who - no coincidence here - features on this recording. The band played a couple of Carolan pieces, and I was immediately captivated by the strength and grandness of the melodies. I subsequently became intimately acquainted with their first album and lost count of the times I heard their versions of Si Bheag Si Mhor and Planxty Irwin.

Carolan's loss of sight through smallpox at the age of eighteen caused an intriguing twist to his legacy. Unable to notate his own music, those who did failed to record the harmonies he must have used, given that he played a polyphonic instrument, the harp. It was an unfortunate omission for anyone wishing to recreate his music with absolute historical accuracy. For me, this was never a strong desire, not least because I don't play the harp! On the contrary, the 'bare bones', 'melody only' approach of his archivists had always proved alluring in itself. I wasn't bound by the perceived constraints that hang over the music of more meticulously documented composers.

Because the task of archiving Carolan wasn't undertaken to any large degree until some years after his death, some have argued that it would be impossible to notate so much music from memory, but this is not true. Those who play traditional music, and in particular those of us who have not been through music college, are usually blessed with well developed musical ears (helped in my own case by a father who taught me to sing in tonic sol-fa as a child). The trad musician can easily memorise tens or even hundreds of tunes.

Carolan stayed with me over the years. I gradually wrote numerous arrangements of his pieces for solo guitar, as well as duets, trios and quartets, mostly for the residential mandolin workshops I regularly host. While these all formed a basis for the music on this album, I decided to go beyond simple harmonisation by varying tempos, incorporating changes of key and mode, and using the harmonic sequences as a basis for extemporisation. With multi-track recording I was able to build arrangements using the instruments I play: guitar, violin, viola, and all sizes of the mandolin family, with splendiferous assistance from Florence Petit's 'cello and Hilary James' basses and cameo vocals.

More About Simon Mayor. Bio: https://mandolin.co.uk/biography/ Tour Dates: https://mandolin.co.uk/tour-dates/

Fil Campbell and Tom McFarland

www.filandtom.com

Shoreline

Time has really flown by since the last release - six years!

So we're excited to share our new CD Shoreline with you - it'll be available from the start of April 2023.

The cover art is taken from a painting by the wonderful Colum McEvoy who illustrated Tom's ‘The Birds’ Song’ book.

Track Listing

1. Shoreline (Campbell/McFarland IMRO/MCPS) (4’24”) 2. Another Leaf (Campbell/McFarland IMRO/MCPS) (3’20”)

3. People (Campbell/McFarland IMRO/MCPS) (3’20”)

4. When I Don’t Feel Like Singing Anymore (Eilidh Patterson) (4’21”)

5. Don't Let The Old Man In (Toby Keith) (3’01”) 6. First of February (Campbell/McFarland IMRO/MCPS) (4’01”)

7. Day’s Gonna Come (Jody Gallagher IMRO / MCPS) (3’40”) 8. Forest (Campbell/McFarland IMRO/MCPS) (4’24”)

9. The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea (Koehler/Arlen) (2’34”)

10. A Little Song For You (Campbell/McFarland IMRO/MCPS) (3’11”)

YouTube First of February VIDEO

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Musicians

Fil Campbell - Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards on First of February Tom McFarland - Vocals, Percussion, Drums, Djembe

We don’t have a band when we play live. However, in the studio we get our dream band. Thank you to all these fabulous players.

Steve Cooney - Guitars and Bass on First of February and Guitars on People, Nicky Scott – Bass, Rod McVey – Keyboards, Ciara McCrickard – Fiddle, Nuala Curran – Cello,

Jarlath Mulholland – Saxophone, Peter Benson - Trumpet, Flugel Horn.

Label: Glenshee Music Cat No: GSR007 © ℗ 2023 UPC: 689232113001 ISRC Codes: uscgj2359870 to uscgj2359879

Credits: Recorded and mixed by Tom McFarland at Ballyneddan Studio Rostrevor, Ireland. Cover Artwork: Colum McEvoy

Inside Photos: Fil and Tom © Glenshee Music 2023 (p) Glenshee Music 2023

About Fil Campbell and Tom McFarland

Originally from Belleek in Co. Fermanagh, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Fil Campbell has been a performing musician and singer since she was a teenager. Fil was brought up on the folk songs and music that was popular around the localities and townlands of Fermanagh and Donegal.

Since the 90's Fil and her husband Tom McFarland who hails from Belfast have been singing and playing as a musical duo. Their unique combination of blending vocals, guitar, and percussion plus the ability to mix their original compositions with traditional and contemporary songs -- punctuated by the Irish gift of chat and craic -- has won the hearts and minds of audiences around the world.

Fil is well known locally for her work presenting both television and radio shows alongside her keen interest in community choirs and working with adult singers. With a critically acclaimed catalogue of eight studio albums and several independent recording projects the repertoire

of Fil Campbell and Tom McFarland is both varied and eclectic.

Tom, working out of his own Ballyneddan Studio where he is at home both as an engineer and producer has played drums and percussion for singers as diverse as John Wright, David Knopfler, Finbar Furey, Ben Sands and many more.

As a percussionist he is much in demand as a bodhran tutor and session player making appearances on numerous recordings. Tom’s interest in percussion stretches to instruments from all over the world. In his live work he plays, the bodhrán, the African Djembé, Latin American congas and bongos, the cajon, and basically anything else that can be shaken or hit including your normal drum kit.

Discography

Together (Tom and Fil) (2017)

Back There (featuring Tom McFarland) (2015)

The Emigrant Woman's Tale (with poet Csilla Toldy) (2015)

A Place of My Own (more songs from the Songbirds catalogue) (2012)

Farewell To Cold Winter (Songbirds Part Two) (2011)

Songbirds DVD of TV Series (2006)

Songbirds (2005)

Beneath The Calm (2002)

Jaimidi - Turn of the Day (2001)

Dreaming (1996)

The Light Beyond The Woods (1992)

James Keelaghan

https://keelaghan.com

Second Hand

Distribution UK (Proper) + Germany (Alive) France (Socadisc) Italy (IRD)

Tracklisting

1. Walk On (3:09) (Keelaghan/Maclellan)2. Second-Hand (3:38) (Keelaghan/Edwards/Luft)

3. La Cattiva Strada (4:37) (De Andre/De Gregori) 4. Just A Letter (3:38) (Keelaghan/Miles)

5. Before The Morning Sun (4:06) (Keelaghan/Gunning) 6. Gave It All Away (3:17) (Keelaghan/Alcorn)

7. Alberta (4:26) (Keelaghan/Luft/Edwards) 8. Gathering Storm (3:20) (Keelaghan/Lopez)

9. Eulalie (4:00) (Winchester) 10. The Benefits of Surrender (3:27 (Keelaghan)

The Players

Adam Lalonde (Drums) David Woodhead (Bass) Bob Stagg (Piano, Bass, Accordion, Hammond Organ) Bill Garrett (Guitar)

Bob Cohen (Guitar) Dave Clarke (Guitar) Kelly Prescott (Vocals) Pharis & Jason Romero (Vocals) Gilles Castilloux (Percussion) Joe Grass (Pedal Steel)

About James Keelaghan

Contemporary folk songs, at their very best, offer an insight into the hardships, attitudes, and resolve of characters and events that shape our lives. These are the components at the basis of JUNO and CFMA award winning songwriter James Keelaghan’s songs.

Through ten solo albums Keelaghan has created a repertoire of incalculable importance. From the historical Hillcrest Mine and Cold Missouri Waters to Kiri’s Piano (a triumph over adversity), Keelaghan delivers stories that touch the heart and remind us all of our shared history and humanity.

It’s not surprising that Dave Marsh, the eminent Rolling Stone critic, simply described Keelaghan as “Canada’s finest songwriter.”

Keelaghan’s latest album Second Hand finds James at the top of his game with ten new songs that include co-writes with Catherine MacLellan, Lynn Miles, and Dave Gunning. “I love co-writing,” he says, “it’s the spark that gets me motivated – the fresh approach to a lyric or a different way of forming a melody for a song is so stimulating. Besides, it’s also a great impetus to finish the song.”

About Second Hand

Borealis Records are exceptionally pleased to announce that JUNO and CFMA award winning singer-songwriter James Keelaghan has just put the finishing touches to a fantastic new album entitled, Second Hand.

James’ songwriting has often been cited for its keen sense of history. With Second Hand he takes on a number of topical issues of concern to us all. This, coupled with a command of the language and delivered with an unmistakably rich baritone it’s not surprising that James has come to be considered one of Canada’s all-time great singer songwriters.

Second Hand finds James at the top of his game with ten new songs including co-writes with Catherine MacLellan, Lynn Miles, JD Edwards, Cara Luft and Dave Gunning. Joining James in the studio is long time musical pal David Woodhead Bass, Bob Stagg Keyboards, and guitarists Bob Cohen, Dave Clarke and Joe Grass. Harmony vocals were provided by Pharis & Jason Romero and Kelly Prescott. The album was produced at The Treatment Room in Montreal by Bill Garret

And Did Those Feet

Islands Over Time

Track 1. Islands Over Time featuring Ina Williams

(Islands Over Time is dedicated to the memory of a much loved fine lady who passed this way)

Release Date: Available Now Label: RnR Records. Cat No: RnR DL02 Barcode: 5016700141122 ISRC: GBEXX 22 000001

Track 2. Who Fills These Eyes featuring Ina Williams and Cecilia Jones

(Taken from the CD ‘Forgetting the Shadows of History’)

Release Date: Available Now Label: RnR Records Cat No: RnR DL02 Barcode: 5016700141122 ISRC: GBEXX 22 000002

The latest single from And Did Those Feet -- Featuring the voice of Ina Williams

Written by Richard Ellin -- String arrangements by Harvey Summers

Recorded at Red Kite Studio -- Engineered by Martin Levan

Cover art ‘Opal Angel’ by Jackie Henshall

YouTube https://youtu.be/6VV8-dCz9G0

From the forthcoming album ‘ I Am God of Einstein’ release date Autumn 2022

About And Did Those Feet:

And Did Those Feet were formed in 1995 as a vehicle for the songs of Richard Ellin which are dreamy and spiritual in nature. Since its formation there have been six albums and several singles with a few live concerts on the BBC and various CD launch events.

They are currently working on their seventh album to be called ‘I Am God of Einstein.’

The last four releases have featured Ina Williams as principal singer with Harvey Summers taking more responsibility in the arranger role. Tracks have been licensed by Time Warner and Readers Digest Europe with videos played on Classic FM TV.

are a distinct one off kind of a group. Their 2002 single ‘Avalon Yet’ was likened to a Welsh Enya only better.

About Ina Williams:

Ina Williams is a Welsh singer trained in Carmarthen and highly popular within the Welsh speaking communities of West and North Wales where her performances are in great demand. Rightly regarded by many as one of the great Welsh voices of our time she has won several Blue Ribbons at Eisteddfod over the years and recorded her first Welsh language album for Fflach in 2001. Her work with ‘And Did Those Feet’ represents her first recording in English and she has been featured on the last four releases. A couple of Ellin’s songs have been translated into Welsh specifically for her to perform.

About Harvey Summers:

Harvey Summers is an English composer, producer and sound engineer with over thirty years experience. As a composer he is known for his ambient/world/new-age albums which have sold over two million copies and his most recent work, "Moon" has seen him compared to the likes of Vangelis and Hans Zimmer. As a producer and engineer he has worked with countless artists across a wide variety of genres. Based in East Sussex, he has been operating from his Broadoak Studios facility for the last twenty years."

Click to add an engaging title. High quality images go a long way in looking professional online.

Peter Baron

https://www.albertleeandhogansheroes.com/ + www.heroicrecords.co.uk

ANOTHER LIFE

Track Listing: 1. In Another Life (Bell/Baron 5.45) 2. Earthbound (Crowell 4.18)

3. Baby Come Home (Askew/Gould 3.42) 4. You Get What You Pay For (Bell/Baron 3.42)

5. Heaven (Wilson/Sun/Smith 4.28) 6. Halfway Down (Russell/Lauderdale 3.27) 7. Merry Go Round (Bell/Baron 3.59)

8. I Don’t Understand (Bell/Baron 3.34) 9. Little Things (Kennerly/Stuart 3.08) 10. Homefire (Bell/Baron 5.11)

11. Country Club Cousins (Travis/Tager 5.25)12. Friends To Burn (Webb 4.59) 13.The Ghost Is Laid (Hodges 4.18)

14. Take Me Where The River Flows (Bell/Baron 4.40)

Session Musicians Taking Part

Musicians: Peter Baron (Lead Vocal, Drums) Phil Cranham (Bass Guitar) Dave Bishop (Tenor Saxophone)

Mike Bell + Gavin Povey (Piano and Keyboards) Kevin Healy (Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar) Pete Beachill (Trombone)

Helen York, Peter Baron, Derek Holt, Jimmy Johnston, Lucy Baron de Moresco, James Baron, Grace Healy, Karen Healy (Backing Vocals)

Albert Lee (Electric Guitar) Shanks Putwain, Mike “Ozzie” Osborn (Percussion) Chris Palmer, Andy Pask, (Bass Guitar) Dave Bishop - Tenor Saxophone

Bob McKay (Alto Saxophone) John Thirkell (Trumpet) Anna De Bruin, Vaughan Jones (Violin) Reiad Chibah (Viola) Julia Graham (Cello)

Paul Morgan (Double Bass) Steve Pearce (Bass Guitar) Andy Findon (Flute) Phil Hopkins (Harmonica) Jerry Douglas (Dobro Guitar)

Produced, Arranged & Recorded by Kevin Healy at GraceNotes Studio. Design & Artwork by Adam McCarthy

About Peter Baron

Peter Baron started playing the drums in the early sixties and since then he has gone on to play many styles and types of music.

In 1972 he became a member of Marty Wilde’s band where he first met Brian Hodgson (RIP). This band went on to become Fatso, and with the arrival of Gerry Hogan they

became Hogan’s Heroes.

During the seventies Peter was also working extensively in the recording industry as a professional session man playing for radio, television, films and also with various bands.

He made regular appearances on BBC Children’s Television during the seventies and eighties, but eventually made the decision to give this up in favour of live playing.

As a result of his varied live and studio work he has been fortunate to play with many bands, orchestras and artistes, in styles of music as diverse as Charles Aznavour,

Marvin Hamlish, Spike Milligan, Neil Innes, Ray Ellington, The BBC Radio and Concert Orchestras, Geno Washington, B.A.Robertson, Leo Sayer, Dave Edmunds,

Joe Brown, Sam Brown, Lulu, The Three Degrees, The Nolan Sisters, Kit Hain, Elaine Page, Salena Jones, Cleo Laine and John Dankworth, The Bay City Rollers,

David Allan Coe, Marty Stuart and Lonnie Donegan. He was a member of the Elkie Brooks Band in the late seventies.

In 1979 he joined American based band Night which featured Chris Thompson, Robbie McIntosh and the late Nicky Hopkins. They toured in the U.S.A. during that year as the opening act on the Doobie Brothers “Minute By Minute” tour and enjoyed Billboard 100 chart success with the single “Hot Summer Nights”. This was followed by a spell with the English Classical Rock band Renaissance with whom he recorded two albums and toured both Europe and the USA. Both Night and Renaissance enjoyed a lot of success in the USA.

He was a regular performer at Gerry Hogan’s annual festival of pedal steel guitar. As a result of the meeting with Gerry Hogan he soon started to play with Albert Lee, in the band that became Albert Lee & Hogan’s Heroes. This gave Peter more chance to exercise his vocal skills and although he is known primarily as a drummer, singing too, has always been a passion. Albert Lee & Hogans Heroes recorded many CDs and DVDs during the nearly thirty years they were together Peter was featured vocally on both these recordings and also the extensive tours the band undertook.

About 'Another Life' by Peter Baron

Another life is what I got in 2016, when after nearly thirty years Albert Lee & Hogan’s Heroes decided to call it a day. It had been a great time in a fine band. We toured and recorded relentlessly during that period.

For many years it had been my intention to record a solo album, but I had never before been able to afford the necessary time. Following a fortuitous meeting with my old friend,

guitarist and producer Kevin Healy it was decided we would work together on this project. In addition to contributing some great playing, Kevin engineered, arranged and

produced Another Life at his GraceNotes Studio.

The album contains fourteen tracks, six of which I wrote with former Albert Lee & Hogan’s Heroes’ keyboard player Mike Bell. We are both thrilled that they have finally seen the light of day. The other tracks are either covers of lesser known, or previously unreleased songs by friends, colleagues and musicians who have been very dear to my heart.

When making this album, I was privileged to have the company of and play with some of the finest musicians in the world. Many I had played with over the years, but eventually circumstances had taken us in different directions. I am proud to have shared their company again. They have played with the likes of Alison Krauss, Lisa Stansfield,

Robbie Williams, Boyzone, Climax Blues Band, Sting, James Taylor, Eric Clapton, Sir Paul McCartney and many more…

About the Songs

‘In Another Life’ is the opening track and was written with Mike Bell. It describes an evening spent watching a great gig by a fine performer, songwriter and friend who will remain nameless.

Rodney Crowell’s ‘Earthbound’ follows and although he is Texas hayseed and I am not, I feel I am just as down to earth as he…I am a big fan.

‘Baby Come Home’ was written by two old friends of mine, Roger Askew and Steve Gould. Some may remember Roger from the band Arbre and Steve from Rare Bird. They are both excellent songwriters indeed and I had always intended to record this song one day, when Roger originally played it to me some thirty years ago.

I wrote ‘You Get What You Pay For’ with Mike Bell some twenty five years ago. It is merely something my dad would always say to me and I would often say to my son, who appears on a couple of tracks on this album…which reminds me, I don’t think I have paid him yet.

I am a huge Beach Boys fan and ‘Heaven’ is a lesser known song written by Carl Wilson. It appeared on his first solo album in 1981.

Those who have never heard Jim Lauderdale, should check him out. Jim is a superbly talented singer songwriter. ‘Halfway Down’ is one of his songs and although his version is more Cajun in its feel, Kevin and I decided to give it a slightly different treatment by using a horn section. Albert Lee plays the outstanding guitar solo.

‘Merry Go Round’ is another song I wrote with Mike. It describes the ups, downs, ins and outs of life as a musician, but life in general is a merry go round, so it could apply to all of us.

‘I Don’t Understand’ is another self-penned effort. It is something my son often used to say to me when he was in his teens…he was probably right.

‘Little Things’ is a straight ahead rockabilly number written by Paul Kennerly and Marty Stuart…these two have quite a pedigree. Marty recorded the original of this song. Both my daughter, Lucy and Kevin’s daughter Grace, can be heard on backing vocals.

I wrote the lyrics for ‘Homefire’ during a pretty dull period in my career, when there were many times I felt like quitting. I am glad I stuck it out. Jerry Douglas graces this track, with some superb Dobro playing.

I played on a Decca recording session In 1977 for the chap who wrote and originally recorded ‘Country Club Cousins.’ His name is Paul Travis.Paul sadly left the music industry some years ago, but for me he has great talent and having kept a copy of those recordings all these years, I tracked him down to tell him I would be recording his song. He seemed delighted…I surely am.

Jimmy Webb is in my view, one of the greatest songwriters of all time, ‘Friends To Burn’ is one of his from the early nineties. I certainly wanted to cover one of his songs and I feel this really fits the bill. One James Baron can be heard toward the end with his self-written rap.

I first saw Chas Hodges playing bass with Cliff Bennet and The Rebel Rousers in the mid-sixties. He went on to be one half of Chas and Dave. I later got to know them both through Albert Lee, who was their good friend. ‘The Ghost Is Laid’ is from a solo album by Chas, which is full of great songs. He played some piano on it, but I am so sad that he did not live to hear the completed version. I am sure he would forgive me for not singing with a cockney accent. You are sorely missed Chas, but not forgotten.

In the nineties I spent a little time in Luxembourg recording an album with a band called The Rebelizers. It was there that ‘Take Me Where The River Flows’ was conceived and it was inspired by some things said by my good friend Tommy Talton, when we would spend our spare time together in an area of the city called The Grund. It is there that we sat and watched the world pass by. Tommy played guitar with Greg Allman, before going to Luxembourg for a few years. He is a great slide player who is now back in the U.S.A., but we keep in touch and yes, our “hearts still speed across the ocean, faster than the sun”.

Anna Grindle

www.annagrindle.net

The Turning

Reflective songs for uncertain times, The Turning offers a timely pause between memory and prospect.

Track Listing: 1. A Memory That Comes To Mind 2. Decide 3. People (with Zenon Joel Otim)

4. Ask Yourself 5. Recognise 6. Skimming Like Stones 7. Meet Me 8. More Than I Deserve

9. Hold On 10. Tears Fall 11. At The End Of The Day 12. When I Am Free 13. This Could Be

ALL Songs written by Anna Grindle Anna Grindle Music ℗ & ©

Additional lyrics and vocals on ‘People’ by Zenon Joel Otim (Uganda)

Musicians: Anna Grindle (vocals, guitar, keyboard, saxophone, whistles)

Zenon Joel Otim (vocal) - Maurice Dickson (percussion, guitar)

Release Date: Available Now 2022 Label: Own Label / Anna Grindle Music ℗ & ©

Genre: Folk, Ambient, Mellow Cat. No: AG MUSIC002 UPC: 5 060051334573

Album recorded & produced by Maurice Dickson at Warren Studios, Lisburn

Album mastered by Cormac O’Kane at RedBox Recording Studios, Belfast

Additional recording on ‘People’ by Nathan Mukisa at Nathanet Studios, Jinja, Uganda

‘This Could Be’ recorded and mastered by Cormac O’ Kane at RedBox Recording Studios, Belfast

YouTube Both Sides Now - Anna Grindle https://youtu.be/OXbWiGDXRSA

Interview with Oonagh Derby

The Turning

At different times, travelling, creativity, active pursuits, or aligning myself strongly to my work, have formed my priorities. About 2016, I was trying to find a sense of place for myself musically and had begun frequenting informal music gatherings - mainly migrating long-dormant woodwind skills towards learning traditional Irish flute. I also had a more settled routine and was dividing my time between Belfast and the Inishowen Peninsula in Co. Donegal.

I remember sitting for an hour one cold January afternoon after work in a coffee shop in Derry, writing thoughts in streams-of-consciousness, and later realised it was almost poetic in places. Within a couple of days, a song had emerged, and I found that after that, more songs just came. One thing leads to another. I thought about recording a couple of songs, and then met Maurice Dickson through a friend for who’s album I was recording some whistle and saxophone. I began recording my own music while still writing mainly for guitar, but after listening to early recordings and a helpful conversation and advice about what was emerging, I somehow transitioned to write mostly for keyboard.

The intent to write songs has always been there. When I returned to the UK in 2008 after a few years abroad, my piano had long been out of tune, and my guitar had become the subject of an insurance claim. I picked up a new guitar, and soon after when I moved to Scotland, a keyboard. I almost had to learn how to live with them again, as for the previous number of years travel and study had been a priority. I bought a spiral bound A4 notebook in a small independent stationary shop on Hyndland in Glasgow’s West End. A couple of songs on The Turning – Skimming like Stones and Ask Yourself – were moulded around that time. That notebook has always sat on the stand of my keyboard. Ten years later, when it got soaked during one of the last days of recording The Turning, I comforted myself in the thought it has served its purpose. The notebook was full, it’s content had found embodiment on the recording.

Song-writing, I think, is a way of coming back to myself. Every song is the reconciliation of layers of thought, feeling and questions. Some songs are observations, some just arrived, some I knew were there, but I had to find. The Turning is unhurried - it was recorded over a year and a half, a couple of the songs included were written when I was well into recording. Definitely an evolving project, the result is I think more mature and rounded than the initial concept.

Biography

Anna Grindle comes from Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is an educator, coffee-drinker, cyclist and traveller. Anna began in music as a woodwind player, spending summers busking in Belfast as part of a saxophone quartet. Anna has written songs intermittently over the years, mainly for guitar and more recently keyboard. Anna’s first album Journey (2004) was in service to a cause, being self-released in support of fundraising before several years of voluntary work in Uganda. A prolific journal writer, life observed and reflected is intrinsic to Anna, and is core to all her song-writing. Recent years have brought what Anna has described as a ‘flurry of song-writing’, and The Turning, is the result. Begun as a purely creative endeavour, friends in the music world persuaded Anna that it deserved to be heard widely. It is consequently her first ‘properly available’ (physically and digitally) body of work.

Essentially a solitary project, the song-writing on The Turning is an open, searching and honest interrogation of lived experiences and observations. Songs bear witness to questions, loss, process, memory and hope. The focus is on the lyrics, set against a mellow harmonic backdrop, and the words breathe on a simple and uncomplicated canvas.

Simon Mayor & Hilary James

https://mayorandjames.com

When Summer Comes Again

English folk, settings of English poetry and original instrumentals,

songs and poetry, spiced with a little Tchaikovsky and JC Bach.

Track Listing: 1 ‘We wouldn’t be here’ 0'29" 2 Sumer Is Icumen In (trad arr Mayor/James) 3'37"

3 When Summer Comes Again (Mayor/James) 2'30"

4 The Buttermere Waltz (Mayor/James) 4'00" 5 The Stick / The Middlesmoor Waltz (Mayor/James) 2'25"

6 Jockey to the Fair (trad arr Mayor/James) 3'12" 7 Jerry and Tom (Mayor/James) 2'55"

8 Lovely Joan (trad arr Mayor/James) 3'01" 9 Barcarole (P Tchaikovsky arr Mayor/James) 5'24"

10 Al Mio Bene (J C Bach arr Mayor/James) 4'10" 11 The Kissing Gate & The Strawberry Tree (Mayor/James) 3'48"

12 Linden Lea (Words: Wm Barnes, Music: Mayor/James) 2'56" 13 BONUS TRACK: The Buttermere Waltz (Mayor/James) 3'58" (live recording on mandolin and guitar)

Musicians: Simon Mayor: voice, violin, guitar, mandolin, mandola, mandocello, whistle Hilary James: voice, guitar, mandobass, double bass, bass guitar

With guests Janet Giraudo: harmony vocals Florence Petit: ’cello

Release Date: Available Now - Label: Acoustics Records ℗ & ©

Genre: Folk, Classical, English Pastoral & Poetry. Cat. No: CDACS 081 UPC: 5 020737 000819

Produced by Simon Mayor & Hilary James at Acoustics Studios Illustrations by Hilary James

YouTube Sumer Is Icumen In https://youtu.be/bQLaLdRIF10 Tour Dates 20 22: https://mayorandjames.com/tour-dates/

About The Album: When Summer Comes Again is an album of both reflection and optimistic anticipation.

Lockdown might have been a time of few physical journeys, but for Simon Mayor & Hilary James, free of concert commitments, it was a chance to journey back to their roots and revisit favourite songs and tunes, as well as to write new material.

For Simon, it was a time to rosin up the bow with a passion. His treasured 1740 violin (yes, it’s that old!) had long played, err... second fiddle (sorry!) to his international reputation as a mandolinist, but, as a diversion from his Russian studies, he’d been inspired to teach himself both instruments (the two don’t look related but they're tuned identically) in his late teenage years. Here, the violin is heard on intricate arrangements of the traditional songs Sumer Is Icumen In and Lovely Joan, on his own swing-tinged composition Jerry & Tom, but perhaps most strikingly on The Buttermere Waltz, a frequently requested mandolin piece on gigs, now heard on violin for the first time.

But there’s no shortage of mandolin too, or its big sisters the mandola and mandocello. All three feature on the starkly beautiful arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s Barcarole, and on the original tunes The Kissing Gate & The Strawberry Tree, written for the Classical Mandolin Society of America’s annual convention 2020 held ‘in the clouds'.

For Hilary, revisiting the title track When Summer Comes Again, a song she wrote and recorded some thirty years ago, seemed an appropriately optimistic way to hail the emergence from lockdown. It’s re-recorded here with her sister Janet Giraudo's harmony vocals arriving from France courtesy of cyberspace!

For all her reputation as a singer, it’s a little ironic that Hilary’s unusual taste in bass instruments attracts as much attention. Her mandobass (bass mandolin) was made by luthier Robin Greenwood in Bournemouth; she found it selling second-hand quite by chance just a week before the duo started their mandolin quartet The Mandolinquents. It’s become something of a calling card ever since, although she plays double bass on the album too.

No surprise that traditional songs, Hilary’s first passion, feature too. There’s also an excursion into Italianate opera in JC Bach’s Al Mio Bene, and a live recording of the duo’s own setting of William Barnes’ beautiful poem Linden Lea.

Oh, and on the subject of poetry, Simon makes his spoken word debut with his own The Stick (possibly the only poem about a stick).

And Did Those Feet

Single

Track 1 What It All Was Worth – Featuring Ina Williams

Track 2. What It All Was Worth - Instrumental version

The new single from And Did Those Feet -- Featuring the voice of Ina Williams

Written by Richard Ellin -- String arrangements by Harvey Summers

Recorded at Red Kite Studio -- Engineered by Martin Levan

Available Now -- Label RnR Records – Cat No RnR DL01 -- Barcode 5016700141023 -- ISRC GBEXX 21 000001

YouTube What It All Was Worth

From the forthcoming album ‘ I Am God of Einstein’ release date Autumn 2022

Richard Ellin – What It All Was Worth

“I always thought that ‘The Bonny Bonny Broom’ was a Scottish tune but after digging around it seems it could be English. I don’t think we will ever know for certain.

A reference to the song first appears in Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy in 1538 and the first notation of the tune appears in 1651 in Playford’s Dance Master , London. It is reckoned that the gipsy singer Alice Boyce sang it for Queen Elizabeth 1^st.

The first appearance in a Scottish collection was seventy five years after Playford. I have always doubted that many people could follow the meaning of the original words . A heavy dialect shot through with melancholia had lost some relevance, the melody was perfect for the voice of Ina Williams and I felt it could use a new text………

Weary from the days of callousness in the dance to the tune of make it pay.

What would I give for a moment in time to make these troubles go away

Yet this fool compelled to work this land, a victim of circumstance and birth

Will come to know at the end of his days precisely what it all was worth

So I dream of times that are to be where no one is prisoner to this fate

And all will know that the soul of the world is held within a newborn state

About And Did Those Feet:

And Did Those Feet were formed in 1995 as a vehicle for the songs of Richard Ellin which are esoteric and spiritual in nature. Since its formation there have been six albums and several singles with a few live concerts on the BBC and various cd launch events. They are currently working on their seventh album to be called ‘I AM God of Einstein.’

The name of the band is taken from the Blake/Parry song ‘Jerusalem’ and reflects aspects of the unseen and sometimes difficult to fathom side of the English and British nature. Ellin was envious that Woody Guthrie had ‘This Machine Kills Fascists’ written on his guitar so he had a young girl photographed with a guitar that said ‘ This machine goes one way but not the other’ and was the cover of their 5^th album called ‘We are Just Beginning.’ One reviewer noted that the key to this band is Dreaming, not in the way of fantasising but in the Albion equivalent of aboriginal dream time. And Did Those Feet walks that very thin line between the two.

About Ina Williams:

About Harvey Summers:

Ben Reel

https://benreel.com

Ben Reel Band Live @ JJ Smyth's Dublin

Track Listing: 1. Darkness & The Light 2. River of Time 3. What Is Done 4. Feel Alive 5. Heart Just Wont Heal

6. Before Your Time 7. Could’ve Been 8. One Of These Days 9. Our Fathers Sins 10. Who You Are

11. A Hard Days Night 12. All Souls Alive13. The Times They Are A Changin 14. Sweet Victory

15. Cosmic Shifting 16. This Is The Movie

Release Date: Available Now

All songs written by Ben Reel (IMRO) except - A Hard Days Night (Lennon & McCartney),

The Times They Are A Changin (Bob Dylan),

Heart Just Won't Heal by Ben Reel & Irene Kelley (BMI), Our Fathers Sins by Ben Reel & Tony McLoughlin (IMRO)

Cat No: CAT552864 -- UPC Code: 0750122649990

Foreword by Ben Reel

I'm delighted that I finally got to release Live @JJ Smyths in Dublin and share it with you. This recording was made on Nov 30^th 2013. It captures The Ben Reel Band at a moment in time, in full flow with all engines purring after the release of my Darkness & The Light album (2013).

Listen and you will hear the great musicians I have had the pleasure to play with down through the years, all in fine form at this gig.

My wife and soul mate Julieanne Black Reel on backing vocals and longstanding soul brothers Michael Black on drums, Ronnie O'Flynn on bass, Mick McCarney on electric guitar & John McCullough on piano & organ. This is my A team and we always loved to appear at JJ Smyths in Dublin. It was one of our favourite places to play and to me it was the Ronnie Scott’s of Dublin. I have dedicated the album to the memory of Brian Smyth.

Now sadly JJ's has closed its doors forever and this event was shortly followed by the tragic death of Brian Smyth who passed away before his time at the age of forty seven in 2017. Brian who ran the family venue built up JJ Smyths to be one of the most prestigious and respected Jazz & Blues venues in the world. The Ben Reel Band were one of the only original bands to play there as Brian was a fan of our music even though we leaned to the more roots rock side of the spectrum. I’m guessing there was enough shades of the blues there to keep Brian and the JJ's audience happy. I am forever grateful that Brian gave us the opportunity to play there to showcase my songs in front of a musically intellectual audience who knew a good band when they saw one. RIP Brian Smyth & JJ Smyths venue.

More About Ben Reel

Live @JJ Smyths: A concert that was recorded in 2013 in the legendary, iconic but sadly now closed Dublin jazz & blues venue. Ben mixed the album during Covid lockdown when he had plenty of time on his hands. This album might never have seen the light of day during normal times with Ben’s usual busy touring schedule. The live album features mostly songs from that period, his 2013 album Darkness & The Light & some of his finest songs from the previous five albums. It also includes two great cover versions,

Bob Dylan’s, The Times They are a Changin’ & The Beatles, A Hard Days Night. It is now available on CD and all digital platforms.

This follows on the heels of ‘The Nashville Calling` the title of the 9^th studio album which was released at the start of the pandemic on the 27th March 2020. Produced by Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack and featuring Garry W Tallent on bass from the legendary E Street Band. Recorded in Nashville the album was done and dusted in just three days with all live takes with a rootsy rock, live band feel. Work has also commenced on a 10th studio album.

Since his debut album `This Is the Movie’ back in 1999, Ben has reinvented himself from album to album, influenced by different styles of music over the years. As one critic said, " He's not afraid to throw in some in folk, soul, reggae vibes, which in turn call to mind John Hiatt at his best". Another describes him as “somewhere in the middle ground between rock and jazz or a sound that is sometimes reminiscent of Dylan and the Band”.

In a solo career which now spans over twenty years, Ben has received worldwide critical acclaim with numerous high profile TV/Radio appearances like BBC, RTE and Dutch NPO Radio.

Supporting the likes of Jools Holland, & The Cranberries and he has collaborated musically with such names as Hal Ketchum & The Blockheads. He has co written and performed live with his fellow countryman Tony McLoughlin and some of Nashville's finest such as David Olney, Nanci Griffith & Irene Kelley.

In the past Ben was selected to play an official showcase at Folk Alliance in Memphis TN and has toured as double bill with Tommy Womack (Nashville) in the U.S & UK and also with legendary American folk singer/songwriter Eric Andersen in the UK & NL. While in Nashville he was invited to play the famous Bluebird Cafe on a number of occasions, most recently Sept 2018. Ben continued to stay in touch with his fans during Covid lockdown by playing fifty online streamed gigs on Facebook live every Friday night for one year.

Over the last ten years Ben has enjoyed successful tours in Ireland, UK, Europe & U.S.A, receiving rave reviews and attracting a growing loyal fan base. He has graced big festivals such as Jamming@Hippie Jacks (USA), Musiktan festival in Bilbao, (ESP). Haarlem Jazz & Huntenpop (NL), Robin Hood folk festival (UK), Kilkenny Rhythm & Roots, Cork Jazz & Electric Picnic.

Anna Grindle

www.annagrindle.net

Single

Track 1. People - Anna Grindle with Zenon Joel Otim (A Grindle & Z J Otim) Track 2. Hold On -- Anna Grindle (A Grindle)

‘People’ is the first single from The Turning, the forthcoming, and first studio album from Belfast-based Anna Grindle.

People is a call to be mindful of how we relate and connect to people in our lives, our world and ultimately, ourselves.

In a sense the song cuts across time, while the lyrics reflect an arc of shaping beliefs, justice, and notions of personal and

collective agency, the song’s core message remains as relevant today as when first written.

Musicians: Anna Grindle (Guitar & vocals) + Zenon Joel Otim aka ‘Otim’ (Vocals) + Maurice Dickson (Percussion)

Lyrics and music by Anna Grindle + Additional lyrics by Zenon Joel Otim

Production and recording by Maurice Dickson + Mixed by Maurice Dickson at Warren Studios, Lisburn

Mastered by Cormac O’Kane + Artwork by Mark Case

Label: Anna Grindle Music - Cat. No: AG Music 002 People (IERQW2000003) - Hold On (IERQW2000009) - Release Date: Available Now - Genre: Folk Ambient Mellow

About People:

“I wrote People in my late 20s”, says Anna. “It’s an expression, at a time of decision-making, of putting action to things that had a formative impact on me.” The only song to be reprised from Anna’s first self-released album Journey (2004). People was re-recorded in 2019 to include the addition of a new verse and a long-standing collaboration with Zenon Joel Otim, a Ugandan rapper, who wrote additional lyrics for the song in 2006.

“I got to know Zenon early in the time I lived in Uganda, although I am sure I heard him perform before I met him properly. There was a great group of mutual friends around, I can remember the Pure Souls arriving at a New Year’s Eve party and giving an impromptu performance. I had given Zenon a copy of my first album Journey, and several weeks later he called round, I played a couple of the tracks, and then with some notes he’d jotted on paper he was just rapping along to a couple of the tracks, including People, breathing new lyrics into the song”.

“When someone really listens and connects to something you created and feels led to build their own creativity into it, that is such a gift. A few weeks later we spent the afternoon with a friend, Mukisa Douglas, who at that time had a recording studio in Kampala. The ‘lost recordings’ from that afternoon are on a file somewhere, but it was, in essence, a commitment to something, someday”.

About Anna Grindle:

Anna comes from Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is an educator, coffee-drinker, cyclist and traveller. Anna began in music as a woodwind player, spending summers busking in Belfast as part of a saxophone quartet. Anna has written songs intermittently over the years, mainly for guitar and more recently keyboard. Anna’s first album Journey (2004) was in service to a cause, being self-released in support of fundraising before several years of voluntary work in Uganda. A prolific journal writer, life observed and reflected is intrinsic to Anna, and is core to all her song-writing. Recent years have brought what Anna has described as a ‘flurry of song-writing’, and Anna’s forthcoming album, The Turning, is the result. Begun as a purely creative endeavour, friends in the music world persuaded Anna that it deserved to be heard widely. It is consequently her first ‘properly available’ (physically and digitally) body of work.

About Zenon Joel Otim:

Zenon comes from Uganda, East Africa. In 2003, a group of friends Julius, Zenon, Simon and Trophimus were determined to present the gospel of Christ through a style of music commonly known as ‘Holy Hip Hop’. The four came together and formed the rap group Pure Souls.

They recorded two albums, Doxology (2004) and Cross Reference (2006) and performed throughout Uganda, and in Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania. Although the members of Pure Souls are now based in different countries, they remain great friends, and at times hint over social media about regrouping

for a future project. Zenon Joel Otim is married to Suzan and together they have five children. Zenon and Suzan manage a charity called Home Sweet Home Uganda based in Jinja, Uganda.

Sarah McQuaid

www.sarahmcquaid.com

The St Buryan Sessions

YouTube The Making Of The St Buryan Sessions https://youtu.be/PHTw4llO4q8

Touring 2022

https://sarahmcquaid.com/tour

Release Date: Available Now Label: Shovel And A Spade Records

Genre: Folk/World/Acoustic/Singer-Songwriter Cat. No: SAASCD002 UPC: 5060853700767

Born out of the pandemic, The St Buryan Sessions is the sixth solo album by award-winning multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Sarah McQuaid, and is her most powerful and emotive offering yet.

The album had its genesis in the spring of 2020, when Sarah’s gigs and tours were cancelled due to COVID-19. Thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign, she was able to finance a live solo recording (sans audience) in the lovely medieval church of St Buryan, not far from her home in rural West Cornwall.

Sensitively captured by her longtime sound engineer and manager, Martin Stansbury, with the aid of ambient microphones placed throughout the church, the sound of Sarah’s voice and music soars through the stunning acoustic space as she moves between acoustic guitar, piano, electric guitar and floor tom drum, performing songs that span her 24-year career – from “Charlie’s Gone Home”, originally recorded on her 1997 debut album When Two Lovers Meet, to electric guitar based pieces from her most recent studio album If We Dig Any Deeper It Could Get Dangerous — plus a pair of previously unrecorded covers.

The album opens, as do many of her live shows, with the a cappella “Sweetness and Pain”, an ode to the weakness of personal will when confronted by tempting albeit hurtful circumstance, which sets the tone for the album as Sarah’s voice reverberates around the empty sanctuary. In a rare concession to the solo format, the rocky “If We Dig Any Deeper It Could Get Dangerous” features the live looping by Martin that many fans are familiar with from her concerts over the years. On “The Silence Above Us”, a hauntingly appropriate metaphor for these times of doubt and fear, Sarah makes use of the beautiful grand piano that resides in the church, while her vintage floor tom drum comes into play on “One Sparrow Down”, a percussive, upbeat homily on the folly of attacking an imagined enemy.

She also tackles some new (for her) material: the classic jazz standard “Autumn Leaves”, on which she demonstrates the full dynamic range of her lush, distinctive voice, and a cover of “Rabbit Hills”, written by her dear friend (and past producer), the late Michael Chapman. This second piece was commissioned by Michael’s wife as a gift for his 80th birthday and sees Sarah once again at the piano, her compelling, heartfelt delivery revealing her immersion in the rich imagery of Chapman’s evocative lyrics.

Conceived as a concert set and including such fan favourites as “In Derby Cathedral”, “The Sun Goes On Rising” and “Yellowstone”, the album is a journey not only through a wide range of instrumentation and styles, but also through the spectrum of emotions that Sarah evokes in her performance and invokes in the listener. This is never more evident than on the album closer “Last Song”, a poignant tribute to her late mother that expresses deep sadness mingled with joy in the way the spirits of our loved ones travel with us – and proves the depths of feeling to which a songwriter can move an audience.

The recording was filmed by Cornish filmmaker and director Mawgan Lewis of Purple Knif with the aid of Eden Sessions veteran camera operator John Crooks, and the album release will be accompanied by a full concert video. In the meantime, Sarah has been releasing a series of videos of individual songs to her YouTube channel, where Lewis’ short documentary “The Making Of The St Buryan Sessions”, featuring interviews and song snippets, can also be viewed.

The St Buryan Sessions will be released Friday, October 15 on CD and limited-edition double LP. Selected tracks: Track 10: Autumn Leaves (6:36) Track 14: Rabbit Hills (4:10) Track 13: The Tug Of The Moon (4:30) Track 15: Last Song (6:13)

Full biog available at https://sarahmcquaid.com/about High-resolution images available for download from https://sarahmcquaid.com/media-kit

Catalogue -- Available on request to accredited media world wide

The St Buryan Sessions

If We Dig Any Deeper It Could Get Dangerous

Walking Into White

The Plum Tree & The Rose

I Won’t Go Home ‘Til Morning

When Two Lovers Meet

Crow Coyote Buffalo (As the duo Mama - Zoë Pollock & Sarah McQuaid)

Chris Flegg

www.chrisflegg.com

New Album - Twenty's Plenty

"This album is a collection of twenty of my compositions for solo acoustic guitar, some of which have been previously released on various albums and here given a

fresh interpretation, and some of which are presented for the first time. All tracks were recorded in standard tuning using a Martin OMC-41 Richie Sambora Signature Model guitar."

Chris Flegg - Twenty's Plenty

Track Listing: 1. Market Street Rag (2:36) 2. Gazing At The Stars All Night (4:22) 3.Her Favourite Flower (2:11)

4. Chasing Cuckoos (2:58) 5.The Day That We Planted The Apple Tree (2:49) 6. Special July Delivery (3:16)

7. Just An Idea Away (2:16) 8. Mary’s Tune (3:02) 9. All You Need Is Time (3:02)

10. Don’t Leave Until The Party’s Over (1:56) 11. Now That The Day Is Done (2:10) 12. Waiting for Michael (3:01)

13. Beach Holiday 2020 (2:35) 14. I’m Going Home (3:07) 15. Slow Train (4:03) 16.Waltzing In The Rain (3:09)

17. Old Soldiers (2:16) 18. Cat House (2:05) 19. Not One Of Buddy’s Habits (2:58) 20. Twenty’s Plenty (1:51)

All tracks are solo guitar pieces written and performed by Chris Flegg ℗ ©

Catalogue number FLEGGCD011 Release Date -- Available Now

Recorded by Chris Flegg at Mellowtone Studios, St Albans.

Mastered by Wes Maebe and production by sound-discs.co.uk

About Chris Flegg:

Chris Flegg is a guitarist, singer and composer based in St Albans, UK who has produced eleven albums in a range of styles from folk to jazz. Chris has six albums of original songs to date, the latest being The Road To The Rainbow's End.

As a jazz performer, his most recent jazz recording is Her Favourite Flower, an album recorded with bassist John Rees-Jones. Previous jazz recordings include Moving On, an album of original pieces for jazz quartet, in which John Rees-Jones also features on bass.

Chris mainly performs locally in St Albans, either solo with his repertoire of original songs, with sax and bass in a jazz context or solo as a singer guitarist playing a mix of covers from the 60's to 80's. He also performs as Mellow Guitar, with solo guitar instrumental arrangements of covers and original material.

Originally from Eastleigh in Hampshire, Chris moved to London to study at Imperial College and later settled in Hertfordshire. His musical background is that he is self-taught, in the early days learning from watching the many great players he met while resident at the Troubadour Folk Club and notably Diz Disley who inspired him to gain an appreciation of jazz. In a musical journey spanning 50 years, he has worked in everything from pop and folk bands to jazz bands, trios and duos.

His recorded work has received airplay worldwide, including both jazz and folk programs on mainstream BBC channels. As incidental music, Radio 4 recently used his track A Hill So High as a backdrop to their program, Open Country in an episode titled One Tree Hill.

The Origins Of The Album:

Chris Flegg’s eleventh album "Twenty’s Plenty” was conceived in the UK lockdown of 2020 when gigs were being cancelled and most opportunities for performing just vanished. The idea was to turn a bad situation into a creative opportunity, to put together an album of new recordings of solo guitar pieces based on Chris’ back catalogue and include some which were newly written. The result is an album of twenty compositions covering influences from contemporary folk to rag time and jazz. Tunes previously only available in multi-instrumental recordings are here arranged for solo guitar, and previously recorded solo pieces are given fresh interpretation and variations.

The Technical Bits:

All tracks were recorded using the same acoustic guitar, a Martin OMC-41 Richie Sambora, one of a limited edition of less than 200 and signed by both Richie Sambora and C F Martin IV himself. For simplicity, the recording setup was to use just the output of the onboard Fishman preamp in contrast to previous albums where the guitar was close miked.

The Tunes: Chris uses standard guitar tuning throughout and, while pitching some tunes in E and A (tracks 2, 5, 7, 8, 11) to let open strings ring through phrases, he also favours E♭ and F in tracks for tunes where chord work is more important

(tracks 1, 6, 9, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18), a fondness for these “♭” keys coming from years of working with brass players. Placing the album in a single genre is not easy; you might hear the country/ rag time influences of the finger picking style of players like Chet Atkins or Stefan Grossman in tracks 1, 4, 7, and 10 or perhaps the jazz influence of Django Reinhardt or Joe Pass in the chord work of tracks 3, 6, 9, 14, and 20 but Chris likes to think these compositions stand apart and generate a style and feel of their own. You could find the album under “easy listening”, great for background or incidental music, but each track is also worthy of close listening and guitarists especially will appreciate the easy sounding rendition of some tricky chord work such as in the title track, Twenty’s Plenty, where the main theme has a different chord for every melody note.

Video: Chris Flegg's song French Row (Celebrating French Row whilst busking in St Albans)

Catalogue: via www.chrisflegg.com

FLEGGCD011 Twenty's Plenty 2020

FLEGGCD 010 The Road To The Rainbow’s End 2016

FLEGGCD 009 Gazing At The Stars All Night 2013

FLEGGCD 008 Time Precious Time 2011

FLEGGCD 006 My Green Guitar 2010

FLEGGCD 007 Her Favourite Flower 2009

FLEGGCD 005 The Sound Of Life 2008

FLEGGCD 004 Through The Window 2006

FLEGGCD 003 My Sweet Lady 2005

FLEGGCD 002 Solo 2004

MTCFFCD 001 Moving On 2000

Ben Reel

https://benreel.com

The Nashville Calling

Track Listing: 1. All In Good Time (4.07) 2. Tough People (4.31) 3. Safe And Sound (4.50) 4. Like A Breeze (3.55)

5. Round The Next Bend (4.14) 6. Imagination (3.07) 7. Up There In The Sky (3.17) 8. Fine Wine (4.40)

9. New Jerusalem (3.34) 10. Broken (3.31) 11. Borrowed Time (3.34)

Musicians: Ben Reel - vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica Will Kimbrough - electric guitars, keys, melotrone, mandolin, backing vocals , dobro, percussion

Tommy Womack - additional electric guitar, backing vocals Evan Hutchings - drums & percussion Garry W Tallent bass Julieanne Reel backing vocals

Recorded @ Skinny Elephant Studio, Nashville. Mixed by: Dylan Alldredge @ Skinny Eelephant Studio, Nashville. Mastered by: Jim DeMain, Yes Mastering Studio, Nashville

‘The Nashville Calling` is the title of the ninth studio album by Irish artist Ben Reel. Produced by Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack and featuring Garry W Tallent on bass from the legendary E Street Band. The album contains eleven new tracks all written by Ben Reel.

It was recorded at Skinny Elephant Studios in Nashville. This album was done and dusted in just three days with all live takes. Following Ben's critically acclaimed experimental slow burner `Land of Escape’ from 2018, this new record has a more Americana, rootsy rock, live band feel.

Since his debut album `This Is the Movie’ back in 1999, Ben has reinvented himself from album to album, influenced by different styles of music over the years.

As one critic said,” He’s not afraid to throw in some folk, soul, reggae vibes, which in turn call to mind John Hiatt at his best". Another describes him as “somewhere in the middle ground between rock and jazz or a sound that is sometimes reminiscent of Dylan and the Band”.

In a solo career which now spans over twenty years, Ben has received worldwide critical acclaim with numerous high profile TV/Radio appearances like BBC, RTE and Dutch NPO Radio. Supporting Jools Holland, Alabama 3 & The Cranberries and he has collaborated musically with such names as Hal Ketchum & The Blockheads. He has co written and performed live with his fellow countryman Tony McLoughlin and some of Nashville's finest such as David Olney & Irene Kelley.

In the past Ben was selected to play an official showcase at Folk Alliance in Memphis TN and has toured as double bill with Tommy Womack (Nashville) in the U.S & UK and also with legendary American folk singer/songwriter Eric Andersen in the UK & NL. While in Nashville he was invited to play the famous Bluebird cafe on a number of occasions, most recently Sept 2018.

About Ben Reel:

Ben Reel is a native of Silverbridge, South Armagh. Soon after high school at the age of 17 he started his musical career in 1989 performing & songwriting with local band “Trim The Velvet”’ before going solo in the late nineties.

Against the backdrop of the troubles in Northern Ireland, music became Ben’s way out. He first picked up the guitar when he was fifteen years old, inspired by the realness of the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison & Neil Young whose music struck a chord that resonated deep into Reel's psyche. This is still reflected in Ben's heart on the sleeve approach to performing and writing.

Today Ben Reel performs occasionally as solo or duo with his wife Julieanne or with his Dutch band `The Haarlem Boys’ but mainly he performs with his fantastic Irish band `Ben Reel Band’. He divides his time between touring Europe and the USA and producing music for himself and other musicians.

Ben Reel Band: Irish band

Ben Reel: vocals acoustic guitar, harmonica.

Michael Black: drums.

Ronnie O’Flynn: bass.

Micky McCarney: Guitar

Gerry Black Jnr: Guitar

Julieanne Black: backing vocals and percussion,

The Legends of Tomorrow

'Don’t Go to Nashville’ EP

Track Listing: 1. Don’t Go to Nashville (4.23. C Harper/IMRO)

2. When it’s Gone (4.10 C Harper/IMRO) 3. Liberation (2.56 C Harper/IMRO)

4. People on the Highway (4.55 Bert Jansch) 5. Greta Thunberg at the End of Time (3.20 C Harper/IMRO)

Author/music creator Colin Harper has wheeled out the ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ as a periodic moniker for recordings gathering many musical friends together since 1995. This EP comprises two new songs, two from 2007/08 and one from 2000 – the oldies hitherto digitally unreleased. All are newly mastered by occasional ‘Legend’ Cormac O’Kane at RedBox Belfast and showcase five of Northern Ireland’s finest pop, rock, Celtic soul and bluegrass vocalists: Mickey Rafferty (The Minnows), Ciaran Gribbin (Leya/INXS/solo artist), Paul Casey (solo artist), Janet Henry (solo artist) and

Lyndsay Crothers (Wookalily).

The title track was inspired by the current obsession among songwriters, particularly in Belfast, with the idea of ‘Nashville’ and with the scourge of ‘co-writing’ – a Nashville practice that, in Harper’s view, is more about chasing a market with formulas than it is about genuine artistic expression or innovation.

Harper: ‘Nashville has become a bore. People go there to co-write with people they haven’t met before or worse, people from the place they’ve just come from! Stay at home and let your music-making imagination run free, unshackled by the rigid templates and conventions of a place on someone else’s continent.’

‘Don’t Go to Nashville’ is free of formula – it starts with a bass solo, it namechecks Ralph McTell, it changes tempo, it brings together renowned jazz pianist Scott Flanigan (cunningly disguised as Flatts Conigan) with punk legend Petesy Burns (The Outcasts) on drums, it has a false ending, it has an eight-bar drum fill and it ends with a joyous instrumental coda. None of this would pass a ‘Nashville co-writing’ exam, and it’s all the better for it.

Two of the other songs – ‘When it’s Gone’ (written 2007) and ‘Greta Thunberg at the End of Time’ (written 2019) – reflect environmental issues:

Harper: ‘I don’t want to preach about it. Others can do that better. These songs are observations and, to a great extent, self-reflective pieces of writing. I’m responding to a slow-motion tragedy and asking myself what I can do about these things as much as anyone else.’

‘People on the Highway’ is a Legends recording of a Bert Jansch song, reflecting Harper’s interests as an author, his first of six books to date being Dazzling Stranger (2000), a biography of the British folk guitar icon. Notably, it features Irish trad wizard Martin Hayes on violin.

Harper: ‘This one was originally released on a 2CD Jansch tribute album I curated for Peter Muir’s Market Square label in 2000. It was the first of several projects with the label – including my two physical-release albums Sunset Cavaliers (2016) and Titanium Flag (2017). This EP was due to be the last (as a download-only release), as Peter is, like many other small label operators, facing the inevitable: that the music market is so heavily contracting via streaming, digital taxes, the collapse of physical distribution that viable business is impossible. Simply, people no longer see music as a transactional commodity. Which, in a way, brings me back to part of the ‘Don’t Go to Nashville’ message – if you want to make music, do it for the artistry. And do something else for income. I believe the ‘music industry’ as we’ve known it will come to be seen as an essentially 20^th Century phenomenon.’

YouTube Don’t Go to Nashville

Tommy Sands

www.tommysands.com

New Album

Fair Play To You All

Track Listing 1. Answer Not Blowing In the Wind 2. Clanrye Side 3. Ballyholland 4. Refugees

5. What's Going On In Jerusalem 6. American Dreams 7. Who Killed JFK

8. Caoineadh Mhacha (With Padraigin Ni' Uallachain) 9. Ode To Europe 10. Paddy And The Judge

11. Every County On The Island 12. Gathering Of The Clans (With Field Marshall Montgomery Pipe Band)

Spring Records SCD1066 & BC 019213106324

A new album release from Tommy Sands is always a special event but “Fair Play To You All” on Spring Records is perhaps one of his most special offerings of all.

One glance at the cover or a single listen to the music will immediately delight of course but there is so much behind the cover and between the lines that you will find yourself slowly feasting on the contents for a long time to come. The title itself is an oft used throwaway line in Ireland but in the pen-hand of Tommy Sands it becomes much more profound and an overture to the album itself.

" Tommy Sands is one of the most productive and prolific performers in the history of Irish music and indeed one of the truly great songwriters in global music.

His songs have become part of a long and venerable tradition that now reaches all over the world. He continues to be a veritable powerhouse of creativity in world music and writes new songs that touch the nerve of all those concerned with social justice and enduring peace between people of all creeds and ethnicities.

He is a true humanist gifted with a unique ability to reach across ethnic divides particularly in his homeland, a territory that has been racked by divisions for literally hundreds of years.

This remarkable recording with the extraordinary musician Steve Cooney is sure to be an enduring contribution to Irish and world music. "

Professor Michael (Mick) Moloney, New York University.

TOMMY SANDS BIOGRAPHY

Tommy Sands, Co Down's singer, songwriter and social activist has achieved something akin to legendary status in his own lifetime. From the pioneering days with the highly influential Sands Family, bringing Irish Music from New York's Carnegie Hall to Moscow's Olympic Stadium, he has developed into one of the most powerful songwriters and enchanting solo performers in Ireland today.

His song writing, which draws the admiration of Nobel Poet Laureate Seamus Heaney and father of folk music Pete Seeger, prompts respected US magazine "Sing Out" to regard him as "the most powerful songwriter in Ireland, if not the rest of the world".

His songs, like There were Roses, and Daughters and Sons, which have been recorded by Joan Baez, Kathy Matthea, Dolores Keane, Sean Keane, Frank Patterson, Dick Gaughan, The Dubliners and many others have been translated into many languages and are currently included in the English language syllabus in German secondary schools.

Although constantly performing on stages all around the world he prides in taking his music down from the lights and into the darker corners of society. One of his current projects, teaching underprivileged prisoners in Reno, Nevada to write their own song with which to defend themselves in court is currently creating a wide spread stir in the world of community art in the United States. Back home in Northern Ireland he has just completed a CD written with Protestant and Catholic schoolchildren about their own areas, in towns and villages around Northern Ireland.During the Good Friday Agreement Talks, his impromptu performance with a group of children and Lambeg drummers was described by Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Seamus Mallon as "a defining moment in the Peace Process".

Mary McAleese, who was cast in a romantic role with Tommy in a local play just before she became President of the Irish Republic has kept up the friendship and periodically calls upon him for advice on cultural events. "It would take a mean bastard to dislike him", according to Eamon McCann in Hot Press, Sands has a way with words to charm and disarm and coax a chorus out of the tightest jawed audience.

In May 2002 Tommy Sands received an honorary doctorate of Letters from The University of Nevada for his outstanding work as musician and ambassador for peace and understanding and, May 18th was pronounced "Tommy Sands Day in Reno".

In December 2002 although the Northern Ireland Assembly had been stood down, Sands managed to persuade the Members to return for a special Christmas musical party together.

As one political after another joined him on stage for a song, Loyalist leader David Ervine was heard to remark, "Tommy Sands is the only man, without a private army, who can intimidate me." The concert which was recorded for the Sands weekly radio programme, later received a special award at the "World Festival of TV and Radio" in New York.

The song "Music of Healing" co-written with Pete Seeger in 1994 has inspired and given title to an annual seminar to create a "Higher Quality of Disagreement" between opposing Political and Religious leaders of Northern Ireland continues at Rostrevor’s Fiddlers Green Festival to this day.

In 2009 his performance at Pete Seeger’s 90^th birthday in Madison Square Garden was among the best in a steller line up which included Bruce Springsteen and Joan Baez In 2019 he wrote the music and performed in the verbatim play “Blood Red Lines” featuring victims and those bereaved in the “Troubles”.

His much-awaited new CD “Fair Play To You” has finally arrived and is now available world wide.

YOU TUBE See below video of American Dreams, track 6 on the album

Trio Dhoore

www.triodhoore.com

New Album

August

The group Trio Dhoore features three brothers from Flanders in Belgium

Ward Dhoore – Acoustic Guitar & Mandolin + Hartwin Dhoore – Diatonic Accordion

Koen Dhoore – Electro Acoustic Hurdy Gurdy

New CD "August" for Nov 1st

Track Listing: 1. August (4.05 Trio Dhoore) 2. Heuvelland (5.02 Trio Dhoore) 3. Haven (4.20 Trio Dhoore)

4. Poldervuur (4.18 Trio Dhoore) 5. Innsbruck (3.27 Trio Dhoore) 6. Rednak (3.24 Trio Dhoore)

7. S.Trad (2.59 Trio Dhoore) 8. Noord (4.29 Trio Dhoore) 9. Speelhuis (3.26 Trio Dhoore)

Label: Trad Records (Cat No TRAD004 Bar Code 7442923097034) Recorded, mixed & mastered by Jeroen Geerinck @ Studio Trad

Produced by Jeroen Geerinck @ Studio Trad Layout by Ward Dhoore @ Studio Trad Artwork by Lander Cardon

Their new album “August” consists of nine instrumental chapters inspired by the story of a Flemish fisherman called August who survived over thirty three dangerous journeys between Flanders and Iceland in the 18th century in order to feed his family back home.A man who never gave up and in doing so became an inspiration to many.

August is a purified collection of self-written tunes by the Dhoore-brothers; the result of making music together for almost ten years. Diatonic accordion, hurdy gurdy, guitar, and electronic effects complement each other seamlessly in the musical soundscape that this album is set.

About Trio Dhoore

Trio Dhoore are a young and talented band of musical brothers from Flanders in Belgium; they formed their trio in 2010. Their extensive repertoire of traditional Flemish tunes is punctuated by song and many of their own compositions.

This mix all goes to provide their audiences -- Classical, World, Folk -- with a soundscape where traditional and contemporary music, melancholy melodies and intuitive interplay merge to unique effect. The brothers Dhoore, Koen, Hartwin & Ward present their instrumental music in a very dynamic way - writing and playing many of their own compositions - whilst at the same time they breathe life and energy into traditional Flemish music with a skill that belies their ages.

Through the years the brothers have created their own musical identity that has attracted many listeners from far beyond the Flemish borders. Highlights such as Festival Dranouter (Belgium), Rudolstadt (Germany), Shetland FMF (Scotland), Sidmouth Folk Week (England), Féte de la Vielle (France),

Körro FMF (Sweden) and Kaustinen FMF (Finland) are only a few examples of their many successful festival appearances. The brothers have just been nominated for the European Folk Music Award ‘Eiserner Eversteiner’ (the final takes place in December 2019).

Catalogue:

August 2019

Momentum 2016

Parachute 2015

Modus Operandi 2013

YOU TUBE Promo for Trio Dhoore's new CD August

Niall Mc Guigan

www.niallmcguigan.com

New Album

Spiritual Anarchy

Tracks: 1. Simple Message (4.17) 2. Don't Let The Music Die (3.35)

3. Spiritual Anarchy (4.00) 4. It Hurts But It Heals (5.42) 5. Butterfly (4.19)

6. I See (3.27) 7. Talisman (4.37) 8. Saoirse (4.02) 9. Whom Are You? (5.16)

10. Mother Father (3.37)

All Songs by Niall McGuigan Publisher IMRO (except track 10 Copyright Control)

Produced by Ben Reel & Niall Mc Guigan

Bar Code 5060362462668

Musicians: Niall is joined on the album by Paul Mc Cabe (Bass), Clare Foley (Backing vocals), Rafal Szydlowski (Violin), Paul Mc Elroy (Guitar) & Karl Cosgrove (Drums)

Following the successful release of Niall's debut album "Awareness" (2017), and his live album Niall Mc Guigan & Friends live at St. Ann's Church Dublin with the SUSO Gospel Choir (2019) Niall releases his new studio album "Spiritual Anarchy" for August 2019. Recorded with Ben Reel at Drumill Lane Studio's in South Armagh Ireland, the album is a continuation on the theme of his first album, describing the process of self-inquiry, awareness, and self-discovery.

The title "Spiritual Anarchy" describes the resulting breakdown of our psychological belief systems, mental concepts, religious, social and political dogma when we begin to deeply question and see through our illusions, aligning constantly with truth and integrity. The musical style is a return to Niall's rock roots, in keeping with the eclectic world music feel of his first album mixing Mongolian throat singing, folk, and alternative rock.

About Niall McGuigan

Niall Mc Guigan is a musician and practicing music therapist from Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan, Ireland. Specializing in medical ethnomusicology, Niall has researched the topic of music & healing within shamanic & neo-shamanic traditions and also the development of therapeutic presence as a music therapist.

As a musician he has performed in a variety of bands ranging from metal, grunge, rock, traditional Irish music, funk & reggae and also at festivals such as Electric Picnic, Glastonbury, Earth Garden & The Bubble festival (Malta).

Niall is currently touring Ireland & Europe with his experiential concert "Discovering stillness through music & self-enquiry". This is an experiential music concert which offers participants the opportunity to recognize our natural state, a state of "being" through music, dialogue, and group voice work.

The interactive nature of the concert and introspective focus unlocks our ability to observe and question the psychological mind using awareness and the natural curiosity of self-discovery. Music is an incredible tool which helps us to access a deeper connection with the heart as it is through the heart that we deepen our sense of "being". Through this connection, self-inquiry can begin to uncover our true nature, the heart of reality and an ever-present stillness within.

Catalogue:

Awareness (May 2017)

YOU TUBE See below video of the current Single from the album. Track 3. Spiritual Anarchy

Eamon Friel

Colum Friel, Eamon's son issued this message via Facebook about his late father Eamon on the 21st June, Father's Day 2020

Eamon Friel RIP June 2019

Colum Friel

June 21 at 9:50 AM

On this date last year at this exact time 9:50am I lost my father after a brief but swift illness.

It’s incredible to think that exactly 12 hours before he died he was about to go live on air on BBC Radio Ulster to do what would turn out to be his final Songbook radio programme at 10pm.

The sepsis he had which we knew nothing about at this stage was moving through him very rapidly - he just about got through his radio show as he became weaker and weaker.

7 hours later he ended up in resuscitation in Altnagelvin - they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. But we knew it wasn’t good when 3 doctors asked us to sit down.

The devastating news was given to us, that he was going to die and that he hadn’t very long left - in a state of disbelief we asked what was causing this? The word Sepsis was mentioned for the first time.

We went and sat by his side, held his hand and cried uncontrollably - while we watched his heart rate slowly drop as we waited for him to peacefully pass away. I then began to play his music from YouTube to try and comfort him and us, then his heart rate began to rise again. He could hear us. They say the hearing in the human body is the last thing to stop working.

I played a few of his songs, but I then stopped because it seemed like that was only prolonging his agony and ours - we had to let him go - the last thing he heard before he passed away was his own track - “Waltz of the years.”

Father Paddy O’Kane gave a great eulogy at his funeral mass. Then at the end of the mass Father Paddy asked the congregation to do something I’d never seen before -

“Whenever I do the funeral of somebody who has entertained us and brought such joy into our lives, just as at the end of a performance whenever they appear on stage, I invite you to show you’re appreciation to what Eamon meant to you and all that he has done to brighten up you’re life by making a round of applause to Eamon for all he has done for us.”

My oul boy got a round of applause at his funeral, at a moment of such profound sadness - I also felt really proud.

5 year’s ago Mark Patterson interviewed my Da and he asked him, “Eamon how would you like to be remembered? How would you like to be thought of after you’re time?”

My Da replied - “For me the most important thing I do Mark is the songs, and I would like a few of them to be sung 50-100 years from now, I’d like some people sitting around a fireside to sing a song and say, who wrote that? Eamon Friel, aw I’ve heard of him, I would like that.”

Pat Tynan my fathers publicist emails me on a regular basis with people looking to buy my Da’s albums.

So I decided to get a new website set up in his memory so we can keep my Da’s musical legacy going so that people can listen to or purchase his music easily.

I hope this may mean people might just remember some of his songs in 50-100 years time.

I think he would be really happy about this.

www.eamonfrielrecords.com

Eamon Friel

https://www.eamonfrielrecords.com/

New Album

Atlantic Light

(Original PR issued prior to Eamon's passing)

I meet an old friend who still sings the old songs.

Me and my beloved, we go walking in the wind and the rain. The ocean light overpowers me.

First love, that summer in London. I am a child again singing hymns in the old church.

It's the same old tune. What good is love held in reserve. I'm walking on the street of song.

Leaving in the twilight, returning in the dawn.

There still are dark satanic mills. Let me go home if I can -- Eamon Friel

Track Listing: 1. The Old Songs 2. Wind And Rain 3. Atlantic Light 4. Takeaway

5. Benediction 6. Under The Sun 7. Unspoken Love 8. Street Of Song

9. Between The Day & Night 10. The Hammer 11. Cnoc An Chénaí

All songs written and composed by Eamon Friel (Copyright Control)

Thran Records THR CD 1013 BC689232112202 -- Available Now

Musicians: Eddie O'Donnell (guitar) Marie Clarke (accordion) Eilidh Patterson (backing vocals)

Philo Sandeen (guitar) Rory Donaghy (whistle) Liam Bradley (drums and percussion)

Ciaran O'Donnell (bass) Frank Robinson Jr. (saxophone) Tracey McRory (fiddle)

Paul Cutliffe (uilleann pipes, whistles)

About Eamon Friel: Broadcaster, Singer/Songwriter

Eamon Friel is the son of a Mayo mother and Derry father. He writes about his life, experiences and his observations of the ever changing world that he sees around him.

Friel’s writing is mystical painting pictures with his word play which could be compared with that of the landscape artist; each word carefully chosen and lovingly placed upon the page.

Mountains and hills become people in a place where animals talk and the soul and being are more important than time itself. The landscape of Ireland its churches, rivers and towns entwined with the effect it has had on a troubled people; it’s all there in the songs.

Born in London’s Stockwell with childhood summers spent in Ireland, the family left Stockwell and returned to his father’s troubled hometown of Derry, Londonderry, Stroke City call it what you will. It was the youthful experience of cultural change and upheaval that left a lasting impression on the mind of a young man that would later emerge in songs penned in W.B Yeats like mystical imagery from a place in time and a time in place.

If proof of his ability as a songwriter were ever needed we need look no further than recent song covers by Sean Donnelly, The Fureys, Johnny Coppin, Pete & Jan, Bill Jones, Sean Tyrrell and the Japanese band Brahman.

Eamon broadcast’s on BBC Radio Ulster via his much lauded and very popular programme ‘Songbook’ where he celebrates some of the world’s best songs past and present, taking in the popular, the influential and even the esoteric. The show is a labour of love with each song hand picked, fully researched and weaved into a running order that is a piece of broadcasting excellence.

Friel is one of the few artists around that can say he was actually paid by radio to write topical, comic and satirical songs to order. He was at one time commissioned to write songs for BBC Radio Ulster’s “Talkback” the lunch time inter-active news programme. A task he often had to carry out at the drop of a hat to meet the changing political and social demands of the day.

Eamon Friel’s Album Catalogue - Thran Records

www.eamonfrielrecords.com

Atlantic Light (2019) THRCD 1013

In My Time (2016) THRCD 1011

Smarter (2009) Thran THRCD 1006

Here Is The River (2006) Thran THRCD 1004

Waltz of The Years (2003) Thran THRCD 1003

Word of Spring (2000) Thran Records THRCD 1001

Stepping Stones (1993) Spring Records SCD 1028

Logrhythms (1985) Spring Records

Simon Mayor

https://simonmayor.com

The Book

Of Death And A Banana Skin

The first anthology of poems and anecdotes by Simon Mayor, illustrated by Hilary James

Augmented Reality animations, readings, music and other media

Some pages within 'Of Death And A Banana Skin' feature Augmented Reality.

Many of the pages in this book can be brought to life by scanning them with a tablet computer or smartphone.

This will access animations, readings, music and other media. See demo

YouTube 'Of Death And A Banana Skin' (A Film About The Book) + YouTube 'The Stick' (Music, 'The Middlesmoor Waltz' )

A familiar name in the rarified atmosphere of planet mandolin, maestro Mayor swaps plectrum for pen in this first anthology of words. In verse and prose, and with wit, warmth, poignancy and intelligence, Mayor offers down-to-earth observations of his native and adopted haunts, laced with preposterous accounts of the haps and mishaps of his musical profession. The sticks and stones of the Yorkshire Dales, the delights of Reading, the quirks of Hay-on-Wye, the castles of Cleethorpes (sandy ones), noisy nights and country kissing all covered with perspicacity and humour!

“It was Hilary James who first persuaded me to read a poem during a concert. I chose The Stick, and people seemed to like it. For years we had performed together on stage, she singing (mostly), me playing (mostly), but we both did both. This was usually as a duo, but also with our mandolin quartet The Mandolinquents and in other occasional configurations. Perhaps I’ll be more specific about my poems and her means of persuasion. She got me in an armlock, twisted it violently up my back before threatening to push it that extra inch to tear the tendons, thus preventing me from playing the mandolin ever again. SAS training is so rigorous it becomes instinctive. The thought of not playing the mandolin was unthinkable, but after thinking about it, I thought it best to succumb, and just a few years later we published Of Death And A Banana Skin.”

Please explore this website to read and hear some of the poems, see some double page spreads, and watch animated renderings of Hilary James’ digital artwork. Here’s a taste of some anecdotes from Of Death And A Banana Skin Read journalist Molly Flatt’s interview with Simon Mayor & Hilary James in The Bookseller.

New Album & Single Releases

SIGER (Ward & Hartwin Dhoore)

About SIGER (Ward & Hartwin Dhoore)

John Devlin

Next In Line

YouTube I’m Not The One

The Legends of Tomorrow

“Better Weather” (Single edit) - Featuring the voice of Katie Spencer

‘Better Weather’ (single edit)

ink caption

The Legends of Tomorrow

The Weather at World’s End: 1997–2022

YouTube The Legends of Tomorrow “Better Weather” Katie Spencer (Vocals)

YouTube The Legends of Tomorrow - ALL WE NEED IS LOVE (2023 promo) Janet Henry (vocals)

Simon Mayor

Carolan

Fantasias On Themes By Turlough O’Carolan

Simon Mayor Writes:

Fil Campbell and Tom McFarland

Shoreline

Track Listing

Musicians

About Fil Campbell and Tom McFarland

James Keelaghan

Tracklisting

The Players

About James Keelaghan

About Second Hand

And Did Those Feet

Peter Baron

Session Musicians Taking Part

About Peter Baron

About 'Another Life' by Peter Baron

About the Songs

Anna Grindle

The Turning

Biography

Simon Mayor & Hilary James

When Summer Comes Again

YouTube Sumer Is Icumen In https://youtu.be/bQLaLdRIF10 Tour Dates 20 22: https://mayorandjames.com/tour-dates/

And Did Those Feet

Track 1 What It All Was Worth – Featuring Ina Williams

Track 2. What It All Was Worth - Instrumental version

Richard Ellin – What It All Was Worth

About And Did Those Feet:

About Ina Williams:

About Harvey Summers:

Ben Reel

Ben Reel Band Live @ JJ Smyth's Dublin

Foreword by Ben Reel

More About Ben Reel

Anna Grindle

About People:

About Anna Grindle:

About Zenon Joel Otim:

Sarah McQuaid

The St Buryan Sessions

Chris Flegg

Ben Reel

The Nashville Calling

About Ben Reel:

The Legends of Tomorrow

'Don’t Go to Nashville’ EP

Tommy Sands

Fair Play To You All

Trio Dhoore

August

Niall Mc Guigan

Spiritual Anarchy

Eamon Friel

Eamon Friel

Atlantic Light

Simon Mayor

Of Death And A Banana Skin