Larry Bellorín hails from Monagas, Venezuela and is a legend of Llanera music. Joe Troop is from North Carolina and is a GRAMMY-nominated bluegrass and oldtime musician. Larry was forced into exile and is an asylum seeker in North Carolina. Joe, after a decade in South America, got stranded back in his stomping grounds in the pandemic. Larry works construction to make ends meet. Joe’s acclaimed “latingrass” band Che Apalache was forced into hiatus, and he shifted into action working with asylum seeking migrants.
Currently based in the Triangle of North Carolina, both men are versatile multi-instrumentalists and singer-songwriters on a mission to show that music has no borders. As a duo they perform a fusion of Venezuelan and Appalachian folk music on harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, maracas, guitar, upright bass, and whatever else they decide to throw in the van. The program they offer features a distinct blend of their musical inheritances and traditions as well as storytelling about the ways that music and social movements coalesce.
The two musicians will be performing a concert at the Zoetropolis Cinema Stillhouse in Lancaster on Sunday January 15th at 7:30 sponsored by the Susquehanna Folk Music Society. More information and tickets can be found on the official SFMS website!
Prior to the concert, SFMS Executive Director Peter Winter Lee got to chat to Joe about the duo’s origins, the process of bringing two distinct folk musical styles together, and learning from each other!
What is something you’ve learned from the other during the collaboration?
We are both learning each other’s respective folk traditions, song by song. But music aside, we are learning about each other’s worldviews. We are from completely different worlds but enjoy expanding our notions of reality and finding common ground.
What are ways you feel your respective musical folk traditions are similar?
Llanera music and Appalachian folk are like old friends, perhaps from a past life or something. Both polycultural hybrid forms born in the Americas, both string band traditions with vibrant festivals and recording industries born out of them. The rhythmic and melodic structures are distinct, but the way practitioners make music a life path is similar. The vibe is the same.
What do you want your audience to take away from a Larry and Joe concert?
An entire gamut of emotions, an array of textures and colors, a whole bunch of stories, faith in the human spirit, and hopefully healing. We feel like our shows are medicine for the human soul.
You are both really passionate about how music and social justice work together. Can you speak a little about that?
I myself have worked with different communities in the US and found my footing as an artivist by writing social justice ballads about disenfranchised friends. Right before I met Larry, I was specifically working with asylum seeking migrants on the Mexican border, where I volunteered at a shelter in 2021. The social justice component of our duo project is self-evident, though. Larry is an asylum seeker, who had to leave behind a twenty some year musical career and work construction for 6 years in North Carolina to provide for his family. His is the story of a maestro musician forced to do back-breaking labor just to survive. January 11th is his last day on that job, though, and from then on, this duo is both of our full-time jobs. Larry’s difficult story is one of millions in this country, and we hope this duo can shine a light on issues surrounding migration.
Peter Winter Lee is the Executive Director of The Susquehanna Folk Music Society and plays guitar and sings in Celtic/Americana Band Seasons with his siblings. Give him a follow on instagram if you’re so inclined.
Pittsburgh based modern folk/Americana outfit Buffalo Rose will perform this Sunday 12/18/22 at the Abbey Bar in Harrisburg at 7 pm as part of the first ever Susquehanna Folk Emerging Artist Showcase Reunion. More information and Tickets can be found HERE. Sharing the bill will be fellow EAS alums Angela Autumn and Noah G. Fowler.
Buffalo Rose has had their praises sung my luminaries across the folk scene, including celebrated songwriter Tom Paxton who said, “”How can a band be loose and tight at the same time? Listen to Buffalo Rose for the answer. I flat love them.” The group recently released their newest record entitled, “Again, Again, Again,” Prior to the show, Susquehanna Folk Executive Director Peter Winter Lee caught up with Buffalo Rose guitarist, singer, and songwriter Shane McLaughlin to discuss the new album, the band’s process, and how on earth you keep a six member band going through a pandemic.
Tell me the tale of how Buffalo Rose came about?
It was supposed to just be a one off project, but we fell in love with making music together! Originally 4 of us got together to record one of my songs “Momma Have Mercy”. By the time a year had passed we had the 6 of us and we’ve been making music ever since!
This is the record I feel that we have been working toward since we started. It reflects so many of the sides of our musical identity while still having a cohesive flow. We also produced, edited, and mixed the record together, so we learned a lot in that process.
We applied to be a part of a social justice musical compilation put together by an organization called Hope Rises. We submitted our song “Simone” which Lucy wrote, and Tom was on the judge panel and loved it! He reached out to us and we have been writing almost every week ever since!
Walk me through the arrangement process of Buffalo Rose! What’s the process with working out all of those vocal harmonies?
The instruments and vocalists meet separately to work out their parts. Usually we start with just a melody and some chords, and we go over every line until it feels right. I feel that our approach vocally is more intuitive then technical. Instrumentally it definitely has an interesting contrast, more of a who is filling the percussive role at this point, who is going to play this melody.
What was it like navigating the pandemic as a band? Any lessons learned amongst all the challenges?
It was a huge challenge of course, especially with 6 of us! We also had a member step down during the pandemic, though we were extremely fortunate to have that lead us to Margot. I would say we learned how important meeting everyone’s emotional, physical, and mental is to creating and playing music in a sustainable way. We learned to listen to each other and how to take care of each other.
Details and Tickets for the Emerging Artist Showcase Reunion Show on Sunday, 12/18 ft. Buffalo Rose, Angela Autumn, and Noah G. Fowler can be found HERE.
Peter Winter Lee is the Executive Director of The Susquehanna Folk Music Society and plays guitar and sings in Celtic/Americana Band Seasons with his siblings. Give him a follow on instagram if you’re so inclined.
Acclaimed New England based vocal group Windborne will bring their eclectic mix of traditional folk music and gorgeous harmonies to the Fort Hunter Barn in Harrisburg on Saturday, January 29th in an event sponsored by the Susquehanna Folk Music Society. The group will host a Community Sing Workshop at 4:30, followed by a full concert at 7:30. More information and official SFMS Covid Safety Policies can be found on the Susquehanna Folk Music Society website. Tickets for the Community Sing Workshop are $15 General Admission, $13 for SFMS Members, and $10 for students. Tickets for the Concert are $24 General Admission, $20 for SFMS Members, and $10 for students (ages 3-22). Tickets will be available at the door or online.
Earlier this week, Susquehanna Folk Music Society Staff Writer Mary-Grace Autumn Lee got to chat with Windborne member Jeremy Carter-Gordon ahead of their January 29th Concert.
Windborne is a New England based group that uses their voices to share traditional folk music from around the world. Although their music is primarily rooted in American Folk, the members of the band have done extensive research and traveling to include folk music from the Republic of Georgia, Corsica, Bulgaria, the Basque region, and Quebec into their repertoire. The band also incorporates storytelling into their performances as a way to enrich audience members on the history and tradition of the music they sing. The band is a quartet and is made up of the members Lauren Breunig, Jeremy Carter-Gordon, Lynn Rowan, and Will Thomas Rowan. Although all members of Windborne are passionate about educating and performing, their main goal with their music is to change hearts.
I had the honor of getting to interview band member Jeremy Carter-Gordon about Windborne’s music as well as learn what audience members can expect from their upcoming performance for Susquehanna Folk.
Not only have the members of Windborne done extensive research on folk music from around the world, but the band has also traveled performing and picking up songs from different countries. What are a few similarities and differences you have noticed in folk music from different cultures?
Windborne is specifically interested in the songs from countries and cultures that have traditions of harmony singing. While this is common in many western traditions, there are plenty of places around the world that don’t use harmony in their music. Learning about the different ways of creating sound, what intervals or timbres are considered as “sweet” or “harsh” sounding, and playing with time signatures is always interesting. As we have done more of our own arranging in the past 5 years, Windborne is able to draw on some of these wider ideas of what music can be to crowd arrangements that are interesting, unexpected, and compelling.
Windborne pulls from folk music from around the world. How do you pay respect to cultures other than your own while learning and presenting their songs?
There are so many different ways of using a human voice, and when we learn songs from a tradition we do our best to seek out singing masters from that culture to help us with the vocal production, pronunciation, and insider perspective on the way the music is conceived of. For example, Corsican music is improvised within a structure, and the different singing roles all have a different and specific relation to each other. Certainly a skill musician could listen to a recording of Corsican music, notate it, and then send those notes. It may even sound like Corsican music, but they would be missing the very core of what makes that singing special. We also make sure to share this knowledge, cultural context and attribution with our audiences, so that they could look into these traditions further.
All of you are classically trained singers and have been singing and teaching for years. How has this experience helped you with learning folk music which is traditionally passed down informally, and is taught through small gatherings or aurally?
Actually, Windborne’s background in music training is pretty widely varied, from no formal training to quite a lot. While some of us have a more classical background (Will has a masters in choral conducting!) our first training really was informal singing parties in the folk community around New England where we grew up. This helped us be comfortable with improvising harmonies, experimenting, and most importantly: listening. The ability to listen deeply is incredibly important for harmony singing, and transforms a group from just people singing different notes near each other to creating something far greater than the sum of its parts.
Not only are your performances filled with folk songs, but you also do a lot of storytelling. Why do you think it’s important to include storytelling into your performances?
This really comes back to our commitment to sharing context and history of the songs that we sing. Because so much of our music comes from a time and a place different than our own, We find it important to help our audience think about the songs closer to the way we, or the people who wrote them, hear and appreciate them. As we start to sing more songs with a message of social justice, it’s important to ask that we don’t just sing beautiful music, but that the messages the songs carry are made clear. Sometimes music can change hearts, even when minds are made up.
Windborne is known for taking old songs and connecting them to the social issues of today. What are things you look for in an old song that you think would resonate with people today?
Usually when we are looking at this songs, we are stunned by how relevant and modern they feel. We sometimes avoid songs that are speaking super specifically about a particular event that is not going to be understood or familiar to our audiences. But there is so much out there that makes it clear that modern day struggles are not new or unique, but tied to a long history of people fighting for a better world. Using old songs can be powerful because it’s often easier to see injustice with the distance of the past, and we can then tie it back to the events we see going on today. We often add new verses to songs when we find it will help draw those connections.
Before your show for Susquahanna Folk, you will be hosting a Community Sing. What can people expect from this event, and why is it important to host a community sing?
Singing in community is something I’ve been part of the human experience for probably as long as anything! It’s becoming rarer and rarer in today’s world, but it’s an important part of how we became singers, and we love gathering people to sing! As for what to expect, we will be teaching songs by ear, no experience or sight reading requires! All voices are welcome and appreciated so just bring yourself, a mask, and enthusiasm to try new things!
Windborne will be performing live on January 29th, 2022 at the Fort Hunter Barn. For more information about tickets and concert safety policies, please visit the Susquehanna Folk website.
Mary-Grace Autumn Lee is a Harrisburg area musician. You can find her on instagram @thatdulcimergirl, her youtube channel, and her official site. Mary-Grace also plays with the Celtic/Americana band Seasons.
HighTime, a fresh new trio from the heart of the Connemara region in Ireland, will bring their mix of traditional Irish and modern folk music to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of York on Sunday, February 23rd. The evening begins at 7:30 pm. The concert is sponsored by the Susquehanna Folk Music Society. More information can be found on the Susquehanna Folk Music Society website. Tickets are $25 General Admission, $21 for SFMS Members, and $10 for students (ages 3-22). Tickets will be available at the door or online.
Earlier this week, band members Séamus Ó Flatharta, (Celtic Harp, whistle, bódhran drum, Irish dancing & vocals) Ciarán Bolger, (guitar and vocals) and Conall Ó Flatharta (flute, whistle & vocals) chatted with SFMS staff writer Peter Winter about the groups origins, their 2018 debut “SUNDA,” and being ambassadors of the Irish Gaelic language.
Ciarán (Guitar/Vocals): The name “HighTime” came about in reference to a feeling within the band and between its members that it was long overdue (high time) that we started a band seeing as we had been playing together for so long.
This is a widely used saying in Ireland and throughout the world. Séamus and I are more accustomed to the Gaelic version of this saying as we come from a Gaeltacht (Irish Speaking) area in Connemara in west Galway. This expression has an equivalent in the Irish/Gaelic language (thar ama – pronounced haur – awwmah).
HighTime also implies a fun, fresh and exciting experience which is what the band aims to give their audiences at each show using music, songs in the English language as well as the Irish language, dance and story.
How did the three of you all begin playing together?
Ciarán: Séamus and I have known each other since childhood. We are next door neighbours living on the same mountain face with a small cattle field separating both houses, looking out over Ardmore bay in Connemara, County Galway. For as long as we can remember, our families have been playing music together.
In 2015, Michael and I met while performing with a touring professional Irish music and dance show, Celtic Legends. Michael hails from the Irish Music hub of Manchester, England and has been living in Ireland for many years; moving over permanently to study and graduate from the highly regarded University of Limerick where he attained an Honours BA in Traditional Irish Music & Dance.
Séamus and Michael met later in march of 2016 while performing at the Hövelhof Irish Music festival alongside Séamus’ older brother, Conall and I. This sparked a huge connection between all of us and the band, as a three piece outfit, was formed officially in late 2017. In early 2019, Michael replaced Conall as a full time member.
How did you decide on “Sunda” the title of your 2018 debut album?
Ciarán: Sunda, as an album name, came about as a play on words initially. In the Gaelic language, Sunda means Sound – the nautical term for a stretch of water between land and an island etc. There are many such sounds to be observed on the rugged west coast of Ireland where Séamus and I hail from.
However we found that it came to represent a deeper meaning within the band; the will to navigate between the tradition of Irish music and also other influences we have in music and to showcase that in our music and in the debut album.
Two of you grew up learning Irish Gaelic, do you think the traditional language of Ireland is becoming more wide spread?
Séamus (Harp, Dance, Vocals): We certainly hope so! Wherever we go, we try and fly the flag for the language, so to speak, and generate an interest among our audiences. We feel that this a great platform to get people excited about the language. It is an exceptionally beautiful language and we feel it is our duty to showcase it during our shows and to make songs in the Irish language as well as phrases relatable to audiences of all ages and nationalities.
The more utility a language has, the stronger it is and can become. We feel that music and the arts in general can be a great way to give any language utility. Music is a true mode of expression after all! We hope that by weaving Gaelic into HighTime shows people will feel the urge to learn more about the language and take initiative to find out more.
How do the three of you balance honoring tradition but also bringing your own innovations to this music?
Séamus: I don’t think this is something we do consciously, it’s more of a natural occurrence. Because our tradition and culture has been such an integral part of our upbringing, it’s almost inevitable that it should emerge in whatever style or genre we decide to explore.
As three very curious and open minded individuals, we are very interested in exploring different genres as a band. We have a somewhat unique and flexible approach to our musical and vocal arrangements. We thrive off drawing from different influences and inspirations, be they traditional or more contemporary, while allowing our interpretation of the music to materialize with as much time and space as we see fit. Similarly when it comes to our original compositions, our tradition, culture and language remain an integral part of the finished product.
What are some other musical acts (of any genre) that have been an influence on you three?
Michael (Flute, Whistles, Vocals): I am hugely influenced by great flute players such as Matt Molloy and Michael McGoldrick, Alan Doherty, Kieran Munnelly, etc. I listen to a range of different music from different world traditions too. I particularly enjoy backing up voices harmonically with the flute and am influenced a lot by vocal music. I think we all have a keen interest in singing and harmony singing which is why it is to the fore in our music. Ciarán, no doubt, has been influenced by the great Irish balladeers such as The Clancy Brothers, The Dubliners, Paul Brady and Andy Irvine (the list goes on!). Yet we all have very broad musical tastes especially in the wider folk music world.
I think the areas that we grew up in also massively influenced us. It’s clear that Séamus and Ciaran are influenced by the traditions and musicians of their native Connemara area, be it Sean Nos singing or the instrumental music of the region. Séamus would have grown up listening to the singing of Connemara Sean Nós legends such as Bríd Ní Mhaoilchiarán, Joe John Mac an Iomaire and Josie Sheain Jeaic Mac Donnacha. In a broader sense as a harpist, the likes of Michael Rooney, Laoise Kelly and Michelle Mulcahy have been massive influences.
What do you want audiences to walk away with from a High Time show?
Michael: We hope that they walk away with a sense of joy and fun at the end of a show. There is a big sense of community in any traditional music genre and we love getting the audience involved in the show whether it be singing, clapping or dancing along.
We like to exhibit many facets of the traditions of Irish music, Irish song, language and dance throughout the show and hope that we can foster an interest for these aspects in our audiences. Irish music is full of life and as a band, we are always wanting to give the audience an uplifting experience.
In a sense, we also want to bring the audience on an adventure. As with any adventure, there are always ups and downs and we bring these struggles and triumphs to light throughout the show. We love telling the stories that underpin the music and songs. This means navigating through history and culture; whether it be through sorrowful haunting sean nós songs as well as lively blasts of traditional tunes with Irish dancing. Most of all though we want our audiences to walk away feeling energized (and wanting to come back and see another show)!
Peter Winter lives in Harrisburg where he writes, teaches music, plays in the Celtic group Seasons, DJs, runs half of the record label His & Hers Records and serves on the board of the SFMS. He is on instagram
Roots music legend Tim O’Brien will perform with Jan Frabricius at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of York on Sunday, October 27th. The evening begins at 7:00 pm with opener Kevin Neidig. The concert is sponsored by the Susquehanna Folk Music Society. More information can be found on the Susquehanna Folk Music Society website. Tickets are $27 General Admission, $23 for SFMS Members, and $10 for students (ages 3-22). Tickets will be available at the door or online.
Earlier this week, Tim chatted with SFMS staff writer Peter Winter via email about playing in a duo, the state of Bluegrass today, and continuing to challenge yourself as an artist.
Some of your first records were duo records with your sister, and now you and Jan perform in a duo. What is special to you about this particular musical configuration?
In the case of Jan and me, we live together and when I write a song or learn a song, she’s often right there with me, maybe a room away, but she’s familiar with it from my first iteration. That familiarity is sorta what family harmony is. We travel together of course and will sing new and old songs in the car as we go along.
How did you and Jan first start performing as a duo?
We started in January 2015 when we launched a new record label called “Short Order Sessions” – single song releases started coming out once a month. Jan had contributed her vocals to several songs on the Pompadour record too, so we performed those together, and we added others as we went along. She had also started in 2013 working in the home office with me, doing advance work, tour managing, etc, so she was already part of the show in that way!
How does being the only instrument on stage change your approach to playing?
Jan plays some mandolin on stage now, so sometimes there are two instruments on the duo show. I still try to play at consistent tempo, but I can change arrangements on the fly. It’s counter intuitive in that my parts in this situation get a little more sparse. With a band, I play a certain role that compliments whatever else is going on, but as the only player onstage, I kinda try to suggest things more than actually play them. If I play a tune on the fiddle, I want to play melody as clearly as possible. In some cases, I might play just two notes at a time on the mandolin, and try to play only the notes from the chord that I’m not already singing. It’s smaller but it can sound bigger.
With such a wide repertoire, how do you go about coming up with a setlist for a show like this?
We mostly focus on recent releases, but part of the process is bringing more of my own back catalog songs songs into the stage repertoire. So we’re working up our own duo versions of those as we go. At home we play a lot of old time and Irish tunes and some of that has come forward on stage now as well. There are occasional wild cards. I should get a teleprompter really, or an ipad with a foot operated scrolling device, because I don’t remember every lyric. Instead of that, I have a couple moleskin notebooks with lyrics of songs I SHOULD know, and songs I WANT to know. I have them in my fiddle case in case I get a request and need to review.
You are wide respected on not just one instrument, but many! How do you continue to challenge yourself as a musician?
Maybe the greatest challenge is making a clear presentation, playing so that folks can understand the songs harmony, rhythm, and words. I learned watching my heros – Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, David Grisman for instance – that as they got older, their playing became more concise. My hands and voice aren’t as agile as they used to be, and I can’t play as hard as I used to (that’s a really good thing it turns out), so I try to do the most important thing, which is to get the song across. The tone I put forward is more important to me nowadays. There’s a lot of things to pay attention to, and it’s taken this long to get around to some of them!
How do you think Bluegrass has changed since when you started playing?
The music has broadened in so many ways. It’s not just the branches of the tree but just as notable it’s the roots that keep growing. I love that people are learning more about the African influence. Folks used to see and hear a banjo and say, that’s old, it’s southern, but now they’re realizing the banjo is a tangible part of the American melting pot. We learned with the folk revival that the old ballads and fiddle tunes come from England, Scotland, and Ireland, as well as the rest of Europe, but now we know and acknowledge more of the African contributions. There’s so much history in music, every era expresses what’s going on at the time, but the history of slavery and African American culture has been pushed under the rug. Ken Burns’s “Country Music” series gave long overdue attention to that missing part of the story.
The music changes as society changes, it changes as technology changes. Youtube alone has already revolutionized how people learn the music, as well as enabled the fan to get deeper in the core of it. I got online before dinner last night and watched J.D. Crowe and the New South circa 1975 with Ricky and Tony and Flux, and then followed with Don Reno and Red Smiley doing a show for Kroger in about 1965. If you want, you can find the most obscure recordings on Youtube (not video, just audio). For instance, you can hear the earliest version of “Man of Constant Sorrow to get an idea of where it started. Multi track recording was a game changer in the late 60’s, groups had more options in the process, and a new clarity of sound emerged. With digital recording came another change in the process, new tricks to make you sound better. The young kids now hear the effects of that, and assume everyone sings in perfect tune, so they learn how to do that without the processing. It can seem difficult to update the lyrical content of songs withing bluegrass, but it happens without anyone really thinking about it anyway. Think about traditional music before there were trains. When trains became the new technology for transportation, they quickly found their way into older songs, and inspired new lyrics to go with older melodies. Del McCoury probably sings songs his great father sang, but Del owned an Indian motorcyle as a young man, and to him it was normal and fun to sing about what he knew from those days in “Vincent Black Lightning”. As it changes, the old stuff remains too though, as in anybody who sings about a horse race in “Molly and Tenbrooks”, while somebody puts up the performance on Facebook live.
Peter Winter lives in Harrisburg where he writes, teaches music, plays in the Celtic group Seasons, DJs, runs half of the record label His & Hers Records and serves on the board of the SFMS. He is on instagram
Married Musical duo Zoë Conway & John McIntyre, touted by the BBC as “simply one of the best folk duos on the planet,” will bring their innovative combination of Irish fiddle and guitar to the Fort Hunter Centennial Barn in Harrisburg on Monday, March 18th at 7:30 pm. The concert is sponsored by the Susquehanna Folk Music Society. More information can be found on the Susquehanna Folk Music Society website. Tickets are $24 General Admission, $20 for SFMS Members, and $10 for students (ages 3-22). Tickets will be available at the door or online.
Earlier this week, Zoë Conway chatted with SFMS staff writer Peter Winter via email about the origins of her ongoing musical collaboration with her husband John McIntyre, her personal musical journey, and her unique position as a celebrated musician with a foot in both classical and traditional folk music.
You took the road less traveled, learning both classical and traditional Irish music. How did that come about? I know you were eight at the time, was that something you wanted to learn or were your parents and teachers advocates for both styles?
Ah! My parents don’t play any music but they love it, and brought all five of us children to traditional music lessons, sessions and competitions. By the time I was born, my older siblings were excellent traditional musicians, so I was totally surrounded by it from day one. When I was around 9, I saw a young girl performing an incredibly difficult virtuoso piece on an American Chat show – Introduction and Tarantella by Sarasate – and I said “That’s what I want to do!” My father then found me a classical violin teacher and I went to her for some years and continued my studies into my twenties in Dublin. At the time, traditional music teachers wouldn’t allow you to learn classical and vice versa, so I had to continue living separately in two worlds with this hidden life for a long time.
I am so fascinated by your dual musical background, because I think so many people still think these two styles are at odds with each other. What are some distinct elements from both trad and classical that have made you the musician you are today?
You know, a lot of the time they are at odds with each other. But for some reason, perhaps if you start both early enough, they complement each other, a bit like learning two languages at once – things just click into place. In the trad world, you must learn by ear and memory, and remember an incredible amount of tunes which is so beneficial for musicality. In classical, you learn so much as it is so disciplined. You learn your whole instrument, technique, tone, tuning, speed, accuracy, control and to relish practice. Put the two together and it’s a winning combination!
How did you and your husband John begin working together musically?
We have a very long story, actually living across the road from each other as children before both moving away, then meeting once in secondary school, but when we finally got together we were both professional musicians. John was at the time touring worldwide with his Indie band, The Revs, and I was touring with Riverdance and Rodrigo y Gabriella, so we didn’t have any time to actually play together! When we got married, we slowed down a bit and wanted to spend more time together, so we started to play, and it was just so easy and fun! We haven’t looked back since! Of course, as it now turns out, John was the perfect fit for me as he also studied classical guitar, and grew up playing traditional music sessions in South West Donegal, alongside his rock and roll!
You two keep it eclectic in your performance! Why is it important to you guys to not limit yourselves to just one genre?
Really, our first love is traditional Irish music. That’s what we listen to in the car and at home. However, quality music from every genre is amazing, and it inspires us. These other genres have really influenced our interpretation and composition of traditional Irish music, and they challenge us as musicians. I also find that these pieces from other genres, say Tiger Rag which is a swing jazz piece, acts like a sorbet in a meal – they give light and shade to a whole performance, and actually help shine a light on the traditional elements in a way.
In 2018 you released the record “Allt” with Julie Fowlis and Eamon Doorley. They have also been guests of our concert series a couple of times! When did your paths first cross and how did the idea for the project come about?
Well, you already know how amazing they are! As people and as musicians! I have known Éamon from a young teenager, and met Julie a few times at events and more recently when we were both filming for a TV show. I was frantically finishing a commission for orchestra, so running away into corners to get a few more bits done, and I think Julie was delighted to meet someone very similar to her!! We both have a lot on with family and music! She suggested that we could collaborate on a project and so we spent a while emailing, coming up with ideas. John speaks Irish in our house, and Julie and Éamon speak Irish and Scots Gaelic, so we came up with the idea of taking Gaelic poetry and composing new music and settings for it. We then spent over a year gathering ideas and rehearsing, and finally recorded and released the album. We are very proud of it, but were absolutely overwhelmed with everyone’s response!
You have collaborated with so many different artists and been a part of so many different projects! What is one that always comes to mind as being special?
Oh gosh, everything I do is such a pleasure. Last night for example, we performed at the University of Limerick Concert Hall with singer Iarla O Lionard of The Gloaming, and Australian-Irish genius guitarist, Steve Cooney. What an honour! But the main one for me was being invited to perform at a night for Leonard Cohen at The Point in Dublin some years ago, as the only Irish musician there! I had been recording the week before with an American producer on a track with Bono and Andrea Corr, and the producer asked me to come and play at this special event at the Point. I got to perform that night with so many legends – Beth Orton, Jarvis Cocker, Lou Reed, Nick Cave…it was amazing!
Earlier this week, celebrated clawhammer banjo player Brad Kolodner chatted with SFMS staff writer Peter Winter about the origins of the group, their new album “Duckpin” and his journey to the banjo.
I’m sure this could be a very lengthy story, but how did Charm City Junction come about? How did you guys all meet, begin playing music with each other, and decide to become a band?
Well we’d actually all known about each other for quite a number of years, occupying different corners of the traditional folk music communities here in Baltimore. We’re all connected to the Baltimore area. I grew up playing old-time music (because my father is a musician) and our accordion player Sean has a father who plays the Irish button accordion (he’s quite renowned in that world), and we grew up together in Baltimore sort of crossing paths, sort of missing each other in the night. It’s funny how it works in these different traditional music communities, they sort of occupy some of the same spaces, but don’t always intermingle together. So we were always aware of each other. Patrick grew up in this area playing bluegrass fiddle…Eventually we decided to just get together for some jams, just kind of as friends.
We kind of had this meeting at this local old-time music jam here in Baltimore that I run with my father, called the Baltimore Old-Time Jam. I had met Patrick there (he just showed up one night), we got to chatting, [and] said it would be fun to get together to play some tunes. Patrick was going to some of the local Irish sessions, and he was playing with Sean playing some Irish music, and so we got together at Patrick’s house, back in I think it was probably the fall of 2013?
We decided to just get together for some tunes and see if we could find common ground between our various styles: old-time, Irish, bluegrass. Being a clawhammer banjo player, I play old-time, but I liked bluegrass, enjoyed Irish and didn’t have a chance to play it much, so I sort of jumped at the opportunity. We’re all sort of in the same age range, and we all enjoyed hanging out with each other, so it really sort of formed on friendship initially, and then evolved from there.
As the three of us started playing together just casually, I called up my friend Alex who was living in Northern Virginia at the time (a great bass player), who I’d known for a couple years through old-time music festivals. [I] called him up and said, “You know we’ve got these three musicians up here in Baltimore, we’re getting together to play, and I think the only thing we are missing is bass. You should come on up and have some tunes with us.” So Alex came up for a handful of jams. There was a great musical spark right off the bat, we really enjoyed playing together, enjoyed each other’s company, and quickly realized we had something really unusual and unique between our different styles of music, our various backgrounds. There was a lot of common ground. We grew up playing slightly different types of music, [but] these styles all kind of have a common thread, as it was those Irish and Scottish fiddle tunes that were brought over many years ago, that sort of morphed into old-time tunes with the banjo from Africa and different influences there, and then old-time music kind of morphing into bluegrass. There’s definitely a commonality between those different genres. We pretty quickly recognized that our repertoires are really not as different as we thought they might be! And so we just started to get together more regularly, and work up some arrangements, started to play concerts, record albums. Now we’ve toured all over the country and the rest is history!
Yeah! That’s awesome. One of the things that jumps out at me about Charm City Junction that I think is so interesting is that as you said, with these old-time, bluegrass, and Celtic traditions, there is this common thread, and one kind of led to the other. However, I think musicians and especially performance ensembles still tend to stay in one tradition, and there’s not that much crossover. So what’s interesting about you guys is that you are jumping around. You’re an ensemble that plays Celtic, and old-time and some bluegrass as well. Was it an intentional concept of “let’s be a band that genre hops?” It seems like it was more of a natural progression.
Yeah, I would draw that back to the collaborative nature of this group, in terms of how we build our repertoire and put together our sets. We each have sort of a wealth of knowledge and a big repertoire in each of our own respective home base genres, so when we get together to work on tunes, we kind of go around the circle and just kind of pitch in a tune. I’ll throw out an old time tune that I think could work really well in this context, Sean will then throw out an Irish tune or two to play as a medley, and then Patrick might have a Bluegrass classic that he might want to throw into the mix, and then we teach it to each other. Alex also plays a mix of music; old-time, and he grew up playing a lot of jazz and soul. There’re different types of funky and groovy things that he’s able to come up with. Really, I think it is a product of just sort of our collaborative process.
Over the years we’ve definitely started to play more original tunes that one of us will write and then we’ll all sort of collaborate, and work on too. On our latest album I think there are probably five or six original songs, whereas on the first record there weren’t any. It was all traditional material and kind of hopped around from genre to genre. But we’re really trying to carve out a sound of our own, drawing from those different traditions. We don’t want to just come off as academic, in a concert where we’re saying “Ok, here’s an Irish tune, here’s a bluegrass tune!” It’s funny because we’ll play concerts and people will come to us afterwards and they’ll pinpoint specific songs and think that they are Irish tunes because we played it a certain way, but it’s actually an old-time tune! We’re fans of the different genres and not necessarily making it seem like “Here’s the Irish portion of the concert! And here’s the bluegrass portion of the concert!”
Yeah! That’s really really cool. I want to talk about your personal musical journey. Your father Ken is a very renowned hammered dulcimer player (I play hammered dulcimer as well, so mucho respect). I know you come from this musical background and you play other instruments, but how did you find your way to the banjo?
Well I grew up around the music, so there was a lot of hammered dulcimer and fiddle, and it was always something my father did with his friends. I never really thought it was something that I would do, my parents didn’t press music on me or force me to play banjo or anything. I came to it on my own when I was 17, and I was taking an intro to banjo workshop up in Maine at a music camp that my father was teaching at and I was along for the week. Mostly it was to just hang there play with some of the other kids at the camp, I had no intention of picking up a new instrument, but I took an intro to banjo (old time clawhammer banjo) class, and I really loved the sound of the clawhammer banjo and liked the way it felt in my hands. My instructor was a great clawhammer player whose playing really moved me.
I came back home in the summer (I guess this was 2007) and asked my parents if they could find a banjo somewhere for me to keep learning on. I just really started to fall in love with old-time music, and it really was from that day forward where I really started to go to old-time music festivals where there are just folks of all ages. Particularly peers of mine who are really into the music, have a really sort of exciting youthful energetic approach to the music. Once I started to find friends who were really into old-time as well, that really grabbed me.
I’ve been very fortunate to have my father as a great resource for learning the music in those early years and I certainly, really appreciate having the music around the house so regularly when I was a kid, because when I picked up the banjo it felt really natural and…even though I wasn’t aware of it all those years, listening to the music [back then] it was starting to seep into my bones. When I finally picked up the banjo I took a real liking to the music, and it just sort of took off from there.
Was there ever a point when you were finding your way on this instrument where even you met the banjo through clawhammer, you were asking, “Do I want to learn clawhammer, or do I want to learn 3 finger bluegrass style?”
I wasn’t actually too familiar with the different styles of banjo, I think I sort of, like many folks, thought of the instrument as “the banjo!” I didn’t really recognize that there are really many different approaches. I certainly acknowledged that clawhammer did sound a bit different than maybe what I was used to hearing on the banjo, of course the bluegrass style being by far the most popular style culturally. But I think there’s a whole resurgence of interest in claw hammer these days, and there’s just tons of folks interested in learning, and it’s becoming much more well known, the clawhammer style. In any case, I think I just liked the fact that clawhammer and that old-time style, just really lends itself more to the groove, rather than taking sort of wild improvisatory solos. There’s just a really nice steady groove to clawhammer that really hooked me, [it] just has this really nice flow. I also just like that clawhammer is kind of like a band with one hand. This strumming rhythmic sound, but you can also play melody, there’s also the drum head that you can tap so it’s kind of percussive. It just has this really versatile sound. I don’t think I was consciously sitting there one day trying to decide, “well do I want to play bluegrass music or old-time music?” I think as musicians it was something that I liked, and I just pursued that. I didn’t think too much more deeply than that.
You guys are doing some festivals with them this year, so I was wondering, how did this come about? How did you guys start working together?
Yeah! I think at its core the music that we play is dance music, and over the years the dance component of traditional music sort of becomes divorced from the actual styles in which they’ve grown and evolved together; so on stage you frequently see bands playing, and then there’s folks out in the crowd, whereas I think this music sort of goes hand in hand with different styles of traditional dance. It was a really natural fit. Here in the Baltimore area there’s this dance ensemble called Footworks (they’ve been around for forty years, I think this is their 40th anniversary this year) and I think they saw us playing at a concert in North Carolina. I think we were down at IBMA the big Bluegrass music conference, probably back in 2015 or something like that. They saw us play there, and they immediately fell in love with what we were doing; blending these different styles of music as they also blend together different types of traditional progressive dance. Whether it’s things like Irish step dance or clogging, or flatfooting, they also mix in modern dance, [and] traditional Hungarian dance. Dance styles from all over the world. They were really attracted to us, how we had (through a similar philosophy) tried to sort of blur the lines between these genres while still acknowledging the roots of the music. And so it was a really natural pairing when we got together with them, back in…I guess it was a couple years ago now, we put together a big show at a local theater here in the Baltimore area called the Gordon center (we’re actually working on another show hopefully for 2020 there). In any case, we got together with them, building a repertoire based on our material and they arranged dances to our music, and we put together a whole program. We didn’t do much last year, we played one down at the Strathmore in DC, but this year we got a few shows on the books. We’re playing a couple of festivals Delaware, Valley Bluegrass Festival, then we’re taking it on the road to Old Songs festival in New York, them we’ve got another show at the Strathmore this summer.
That’s a really fun show for us. It kind of ties together even more of the roots of this music. It’s really fun to be a part of that creative, collaborative process as a band with another group. They’re an incredible group of dancers and at the helm is their founder. Her name is Eileen Carson Schatz. She’s just super passionate about the music and the dance, and loves our group. We have a lot of mutual respect for one another, occupying similar styles of music here in this region. We’re sort of covering the music side and they’ve got the dance. It’s just a really fun partnership!
That is really neat. So, you have two shows on Bluegrass Country Radio. You have “The Brad Kolodner Show,” and “Old-Time Jam.” You also had a show in college, too right?
So I studied radio and television in college. I have a minor in documentary, film, and then did a lot of TV broadcasting and radio broadcasting. That’s what I thought I was going to do when I finished college! I went to college in New York, then [when] I moved back home to the Baltimore area, I just started to pursue a career in music. I was teaching lessons, and playing concerts with my dad, and then Charm City Junction. I’ve been doing it for the past 6 years and plan to do it for the rest of my life. But in college, I always really enjoyed that other side of my career, this broadcasting side.
I did a folk radio show for a couple years, and really enjoyed just sharing some of my favorite music with folks on the radio. I really like that medium for storytelling, and for just sharing new music. I’m very fascinated by what’s on the cutting edge of the acoustic music world, whether it’s old-time, bluegrass, or Americana music. I really like to dig through some of the new releases that are out there. There’s so much great music that’s coming out these days that’s really tying together many different styles of music and so many great innovators in Americana and the acoustic music scene.
After college, I learned about a station in the DC area called Bluegrass Country, and when I found out about that station, I just immediately got in touch with them and said, “If you’re looking for a new young DJ sign me up, I’d love to do a show!” They gave me a two-hour time slot on a weekend, and I drove down there every week and did a radio show, basically just progressive bluegrass/Americana, and some old-time as well. Over the years I’ve just stuck with it and when I get off this phone call I’m actually going to start building my show for Friday! I now record the show from my house in Baltimore. I do two programs now: “The Old-Time Jam,” which focuses on contemporary old-time music. It’s not a show that focuses on the old school old-time, but the players who are out there today, keeping the music alive, taking new directions. My other show, “The Brad Kolodner Show” is on Wednesdays, and that program is kind of a mix of styles, kind of my favorite music, mostly Americana and progressive bluegrass. I bring in bands every couple weeks. As they pass through the area, I bring them into the studio and get to chat with them. It’s probably my favorite part of the show. It’s fun! I’m also on a station out in Tennessee, I got my old-time show broadcasting on Radio Bristol, so that show is syndicated a couple places. Really, it’s a ton of fun, to be able to have access to all the new roots music recordings that are coming out these days, it keeps me inspired.
It’s a great opportunity as musicians to just be fans, and just love on the music and share it.
Yeah absolutely.
You already touched on this, but I wanted to talk about your sophomore album “Duckpin,” which came out in 2018, and debuted #6 on the Billboard bluegrass chart, which is really cool. You guys went three years between records, as the self-titled debut came out in 2015. What were some of the big ways you guys evolved in those three years between records?
Well as I mentioned on the first album, we were still pretty fresh as a band. We had only been together for maybe a year or so when we finally got into the studio and recorded that album. So we were really just drawing from our various traditions. I can look back on that first record and kind of pin point who brought which song to the band. As you go down the album, you can sort of sense that there is one musician who is sort of taking the lead; clearly it is their style and we’re sort of morphing our playing to fit that. I think our first record still stands, I’m really happy with how it sounds when I listen back today, but there’s definitely more…I think it’s just more geared towards sort of featuring specific styles and specific players.
Over the years, we’ve played together more (we probably played 100 shows between that first album and our second record), and we just spent much more time together. We were becoming more diverse and versatile musicians and so when we were building up our repertoire for our second album, it’s less clear what styles of music each specific song comes from. Certainly, with more original music, we’re sort of developing a sound that’s really our sound, as opposed to like an Irish music sound or an old-time music sound or a bluegrass kind of sound. There are certain tracks that certainly have that feel (there are certain tracks that have similar to an Irish feel), but I think it’s a little bit less clear, which I think is really fun for us, because it just sounds like us. That’s the biggest difference between those two albums.
There’re some technical differences between them as well: we sing a little bit more on the new album, but we also recorded this new album down in Nashville, as opposed to our first album which was recorded here locally, on this local label called Patuxent. The new one we actually released ourselves, and [it] definitely gained a bit more traction, landing on the Billboard bluegrass chart for a couple weeks. We’re really happy with how it turned out…Since releasing it in the summer, we’ve actually only probably played maybe seven or eight shows since then. So it’s still really fresh to us! We’ll be playing a lot of that new material on our promotional circuit.
Alright, this is my last question! Thank you so much it’s been a blast. Reading over your bio a word that keeps coming up is “ambassador,” how you’re an ambassador for old-time music, and clawhammer. You also hear the band described as torchbearers, for a lot for roots music. What about this music, be it fiddle music or old-time, makes you want to be this ambassador? What makes you want to share it with others?
Well I guess part of it is just knowing how much fun we have playing this music, and how we want other people to have access to the same kind of enjoyment that we get out of the music. It’s just satisfying for me to play a concert and have a fun time, and it’s just as fun to organize a concert, or organize a local square dance or a jam and I think it’s just as much fun for me to look out in the audience and see all those folks having a fun time, either playing along in a jam or dancing at a square dance, or clapping along at a concert. That gives me just as much satisfaction: that it will be sort of carried on for years to come.
Also selfishly, I enjoy living in a town where there are lots of opportunities to experience music. When I moved back to Baltimore, I made it my mission to help grow the scene here now; so other folks can enjoy this music, but so I have more opportunities to enjoy this music myself and with the idea that other folks might be interested in that as well. We’re starting this big old-time music festival here in March, with this venue called the Creative Alliance, which is really tying together a handful of events that I’ve been a part of for the past couple years. That’s been a really fun new endeavor and I think it’s going to go really well.
In regard to being torch bearers, there’s a responsibility with tradition (especially with an aural tradition) that is passed down generation to generation…It’s just a social style of music. It’s really meant to be shared, and at its core it’s a style where you just get together with your friends to play socially. We just happen to do it onstage, and get payed for it. But I think we’re mostly engaged in this musical world because of the social component. I think without that we don’t feel as inspired, so I think as torchbearers I think it’s mostly just about bring able to share this music so that people down the road get into playing. You don’t need to be an expert, or an advance player to start strumming along on a few chords, or playing a couple tunes on the fiddle!
Eileen Ivers, a pre-eminent exponent of the Irish fiddle will perform on Friday, January 18th at 7:30 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of York (925 S. George St., York, PA 17403) in a concert sponsored by the Susquehanna Folk Music Society. More information can be found on the Susquehanna Folk Music Society website HERE. Tickets are $30 General Admission, $26 for SFMS Members, and $10 for students (ages 3-22). Tickets will be available at the door or online HERE.
Earlier this week, Eileen chatted with SFMS staff writer Peter Winter about her roots, upcoming projects, and following your compass.
Your parents were from Ireland and you grew up with this heritage, but it was at age eight when you finally started playing music and learning this instrument. Was it your parents’ idea or your idea to start actually learning this music and this instrument?
It was actually my decision! It was funny Peter, cause my cousin was playing the piano accordion, and there was a little something of that going on so my mom thought, “Oh maybe the piano,” which I kind of rebelled against. And then she thought, “Maybe it’s some Irish dancing,” so I did try Irish dance for all of about two weeks, and I just didn’t like it! But I just kept asking for the violin! There was something that definitely drew me to the instrument at a very young age. There was even an aunt in the family who recalled that when I was 3 years old, she said it was funny I’d go around the little Bronx apartment playing, I guess, “air violin” with a pink plastic guitar and a wooden spoon.
That’s awesome!
So maybe there’s something there!
Did you begin learning in a more traditional violin style, or were your lessons fiddle lessons?
Yeah, they were very much traditional Irish Fiddle lessons. Our teacher back then was Martin Mulvihill, and he taught a lot of kids around the tri city area, and around New York. He taught the button accordion, the piano accordion, flutes, whistles, it was amazing. He was from Kerry, and he just had a wonderful way about him. So it was very much in the oral tradition, and really kind of just learning by ear, and learning from him.
That’s awesome. You’re really known for bringing together a lot of musical styles, united under this banner of Irish music. Whether it’s band members from different musical styles or utilizing African beats. You grew up in this Bronx neighborhood, in this cultural diversity, do you think growing up in the Bronx led you to want to embrace this musical diversity and bring different styles and cultures together?
I think it may have played a part for sure Peter. I don’t think it was the sole reason. But I think just through the years being so immersed in traditional Irish music (and I think it’s so important to sort of ground yourself; in whatever tradition that is) and I competed through the years till the All Ireland Over 18 Senior Championship and, thankfully, I won it when I just turned 18 that summer. To me then, it was kind of like, “that was a nice part of my life,” but there was something about just the violin as an instrument that kept drawing me to learn more, cause obviously there’s so much music that can be played on the violin.
And just being in any kind of urban city, being so fortunate to hear (which I did) the great Stephane Grappelli, or these amazing musicians who would kind of come through town and to just absorb all styles. I was just a fan of music in general. It was an extension that kind of came out of that.
And just a little tie into my dad, God rest him, he used to listen a lot to bluegrass music in our house growing up, and I think that was always in the back of my head so later on in life I really loved just the parallels. Of course Irish music is hundreds and hundreds of years old, but nearly the last four centuries people have been coming to this country from Ireland, and the music certainly has had such an amazing journey, and is a big part of Americana Music, so that really drew me Peter; just to get a little bit more of a wider range out of the recorded music that I was doing and also performing…It’s a fascinating journey! It certainly keeps changing musically in the show a little bit, but it’s still all connected, so I find it very interesting.
For the past 20 years, you have been such a torchbearer for traditional Irish music, and being so connected to Irish fiddle playing, but you are also such an innovator. I don’t know how many other people are out there sending their fiddles through wah pedals, and you were certainly one of the first people to do that. How do you balance these two idea of innovation and tradition, and how do those two concepts relate to each other for you?
Ah that’s a great question! And thank you! It’s funny, it’s something that I’ve grown to learn that’s just part of me. I think, like any artist, you have to be true to yourself if it’s in you to create music in that way, and even I had a moment for sure even in my 20s, where I was saying, “gosh this doesn’t feel right, you know, don’t go there, don’t go there.” But how can you stifle creativity? Or just the want to keep learning and keep exploring and innovate and really, truly, hopefully push the limits? The violin is an incredible instrument and can do so much and can make so many incredible sounds, from rhythm to lead, to everything; especially in emotions as well. So it just was something I said “Look, this is in my heart, I just have to do this!”
But at the same time, it wasn’t a very haphazard thing at all. It was really (and still is) a journey of discovering what can be done, but also again the connections; because I think especially being very, very, privileged to be performing this music (and to be asked to perform in many different places) it’s a huge responsibility that I feel (and I bring to the band and they certainly feel the same way) to present the music in a very thoughtful way. Not just throwing stuff here or there, but to really lay it before an audience or in records, the thesis of it all. This is the tradition; and if you want just purely traditional music, there’s amazing places you can go to find just maybe that, and we love to certainly ground the night in that (and I feel my music is very much grounded in that) but again to show how it’s all connected. How it comes from this very beautiful, pure place, but, whether it be to extend it into some Cajun voicings, or some back beats of bluegrass within an arrangement, or certainly (like you said Peter) maybe loop or bring in an improvised violin solo, we get there in ways that are certainly connected.
I like to ground my playing, my thoughts, and an evening in a concert where the audience comes along for the ride. They’re understanding, “Ok this is cool.” We’re going in these directions and hopefully at the end of it they feel a sense of maybe even learning historically about some stuff, and just kind of going into a really fun musical journey.
So your last record, “Beyond the Bog Road,” in 2016 goes along with what we’ve been talking about. This record explores the connection between Irish music and how it connected and led into other forms of North American Music. I was wondering if you could speak a little about this record, and also what lead you to record it.
Thanks Peter. Yeah, it was a labor of love for many years honestly, because with my background it was an obvious one at the time. I just really got into the history of the music. I was documenting a lot of our family history. We have a little house in Ireland that we built on my father’s land a good many years ago now. It’s something, we used to go over to Ireland every summer as a family (my dad used to work for the airlines) so that was like a huge part of the extension of our life. So [I was] kind of documenting a lot of the history, videoing an awful lot, filming, as well as then researching this. It was a good many years of really getting into it in a really deep way.
The famine really impacted where my family is from in Ireland, and I learned so much about like incredible famine walks that were going on, [and] the relationship Ireland had with America even way before that, so it was a good kind of time to really delve into that. I learned so much, and that really fueled the live show as well. I’ve seen audience members really respond to that because so many know that, “Celtic music sounds familiar,” but then when they realize why, it starts to make a lot of sense. It’s cool, we do a lot of tunes still from that particular record in the program, as well as some stuff from a new record that we are just about finishing up now. It’s great, it’s exciting!
Oh Nice! Anything you can tell us about that new record?
Oh I’m so excited Peter! Yeah, it’s going to be called “Scatter The Light.” Again, I always find I kind of have to just follow the heart, it goes back to that again! After “Beyond the Bog Road” was so heavy intellectually and ethnomusicologically with what I was doing, I started just writing some lyrics. I was getting into a lot of just composing, and realizing that they [the pieces] were connected with very powerful themes of positivity and faith. I don’t know, I was just getting into a place where I started to see that it was certainly connected. Even the tunes were a very happy kind of angle on things!
I still just love the art of making a CD. I love that it has to have a message (for me anyway). I like it to be unified. I think at the end of the process you start to whittle down the tracks and really say “Ok does this make a complete thought?” A complete gift, at the end of it. We have artwork, we’re just basically halfway through mixing, so it’s really exciting. It’s coming out very soon. It’s nice and we’ll be playing some tunes from that as well, ‘cause you can’t not do it. You have to keep moving forward!
In addition to more traditional concerts, you and your band do educational programs at schools, and other venues. Why is that something that you make time for, and why do you think that’s important to add an educational aspect to what you do?
Great question, and thanks for asking! I’m very passionate about that and I feel it is even somewhat of a responsibility as a traditional musician. It’s a pure gift to be taught this tradition, and to be a part of the continuum of this wonderful living tradition. I think that’s a great term too; the living tradition. You’re a part of it, it comes and goes and changes, our ancestors have been playing this music and the stories that come through the music. To try and impart that to students of music, whatever age they are, I think is a wonderful thing. Certainly when I teach, I love to do that in [the] very pure way that I was taught the music. And then of course the wonderful deep history behind it. When the band and I go in sometimes to even teach some master classes or just outreach programs, it’s just great to fuel these school age kids with thoughts that learning an instrument is great. It’s a great thing to have in life, it’s just a great thing for your mind as your mind develops, and roots music especially and acoustic instruments can be very cool and very accessible. That’s a big point I try to get across in a very underpinning kind of way. Just to get that out there, that it is something.
I went through school, I was a math major in college, and I certainly knew math and music; it’s a beautiful part of the brain (I’m actually helping my son, he’s nine and a half and he’s learning the violin in school so I get to see it firsthand!). Music is a powerful thing, and you’re fans and you know, and the folk society certainly knows, it’s a big deal. Thank you for mentioning that because I think it’s so important and it is kind of a part of what we do and I just relish the chance to do it every time I can, I just wish there was more time in the day to do more!
You have done so many projects. Not just your own albums, but collaborations with other artists and movie soundtracks. As you look back on your career, are there any collaborations or projects that really stand out to you as special?
Oh Wow! A flood comes in mind as you ask that question, which is a great question. Just a flood of thoughts. It’s so funny. I’m thinking about [how] somebody asked me to present a speech to some graduates, and I’m kind of contemplating a lot of that, and what can you bring to that event. You know, I think improvising is such a powerful tool that we have as musicians, and God knows in life in general [laughs]. I think as you’re asking that question, I went to something that was an interesting one. Bill Whelan, who was the composer of River Dance (he wrote pretty much that show) he wrote the music for this incredible film called “Some Mother’s Son.” It was about the hunger strike around 1980 in Ireland. It was a very powerful time of political turmoil of course, Bobby Sands, and all those amazing men whose story was told through this film.
Long story short, Helen Mirren was one of the incredible actors in the film, and I was asked to play on the soundtrack, but when I recorded the outro part of the film, it was in Dublin, and I saw the film on the monitor, it was solo violin over this score, it was just a very ambiguous chord structure, I think the key of C from what I recall (I think) and Bill Whelan just said into my headphones “Eileen just kind of travel and see.” and that’s sort of all the advice he gave me. And I remember the movie, I won’t give anything away, but it was incredible, and Hellen Mirren played a mother (if you ever have time Peter definitely check it out it’s incredible) and her acting was amazing and I kind of knew the story, and I was basically reacting to her acting, completely as it was happening, and not knowing what the outcome was going to be. I was literally following her and the story as I was playing, and it was such a powerful moment for me that I did nothing but emote and play through my instrument. I wasn’t thinking about technically anything, sometimes the nastier the sound on the violin I could create to try and feel angst; that was where I went to. It was a really wonderfully freeing experience of trying to emote through an incredible actress and an incredible story. And that was probably one of the moments that I, if you want to say collaboratory, I just felt humbled to be a player in this amazing scenario. And I just was exhausted after. Oh my God, I was very emotional, and I think the guys in the booth were too [laughs]! I just heard them in the cans “Thanks Eileen.” It was a cool moment.
That’s great. Thank you so much for your time! I have one more question. This is kind of a broad one. I think it’s been a really interesting time from when traditional Irish music was in the 90s, to where we are in 2019. Does anything jump out at you as to how Traditional Irish music has changed over the past 20 or so years or to how the perception of trad Irish music has changed?
Yeah, great question again! Loaded question. Probably we could talk for an hour about it! To try and kind of whittle it down, let’s see. And even you say 20 years, and I think you’re being very kind Peter, because I’ve been playing this for so, so long and performing out of my college days in the late 80s, and really kind of digging in, and being on…the precipice of so many new ideas, and thankfully some records that were kind of groundbreaking in the tradition, and I say [that] humbly because at the time it just felt like the right thing to do.
Just following that compass.
Right, exactly. To be told by the next generation of players who are really out there right now doing it as well, that certain records and certain things have shaped them as players and even performers, I mean that again is incredibly humbling. So I think what the body of work that we’ve been doing (“we” meaning me and the people who have come up with me) and of course [we] always build on those before us. I always have to say that right? It is so important that that timeline is maintained. There’s just so much there, and it has changed.
I think just a couple quick ways in my mind would be the elevation of the technical prowess in the players is just incredible. And yet there’s emotion, thank God. There’s still emotion in their playing. And a lot of them are very thoughtful, they do know that this is a continuum and it’s not about being self centered but it’s truly an art and we’re part of a much bigger picture you know? I think that’s really wonderful. And just the arrangements and the chord structures are getting much more full of dimension and thought and I love that! You know the Michael Coleman days of the 1920s when he’s playing the tune and there’s certain chord changes that were obvious but the piano player would just be hanging on a G chord [laughs]!
He would have no idea what was happening!
Those days are really gone and a hundred years from that even, there’s a lot more to it. Also I love to say the performance of it. Because I think when you’re asked to perform, it is a performance; you don’t put your head down, you’re not in a circle. Part of Irish music is being social, being in a corner of a house or a pub and just enjoying each other and the music. You’re not performing in that situation. I think that when you’re asked to perform, you have to perform! You have to put thought into it, you have to put arrangements, you want to chat with the audience, and I think bring them along for the ride of what it is! Instrumental music, it’s good to have some background on some things as well! I think that’s really important, and I think a lot of the musicians and bands are really, really taking note of that. I think that’s really important and fantastic, to bring it up to that higher bar.
Well Eileen this has been an absolute blast! Thanks for taking time out of your schedule to talk with me!
Absolutely my friend! It was a joy! Thanks for great questions! It was fun!
The Bumper Jacksons, a hot and sweet six-piece band that paints America’s story from New Orleans brothels to Appalachian hollers, comes to Harrisburg on Sunday, October 23, 2016, for a 7:30 p.m. Susquehanna Folk Music Society concert in the Abbey Bar at the Appalachian Brewing Company, 50 N. Cameron Street, Harrisburg.
The Bumper Jacksons are playfully creative with their originals and re-imagined roots music with both power and tenderness. This is a sit-down concert in a listening-room environment.
Members of the Bumper Jacksons include Jess Eliot Myhre on clarinet, vocals, and washboard, Chris Ousley on guitar and vocals, Alex Lacquement on bass, Don Samuels on drums and suitcase percussion, Dave Hadley on pedal steel guitar and Joe Brotherton on trumpet.
FOLKMAMA: The Bumper Jacksons have such a great, fun, jazzy sound. I’d like to hear a little bit about how the band came to be.
JESS: Chris, the guitar player and I started the group almost exactly five years ago. We grew to become the sextet that we are today pretty organically and slowly over time. We’ve asked lots of musicians to sit in with us over the years, either at music festivals or at house parties around the DC/Baltimore area. Slowly over time the people that we really clicked with, both musically and personally, we’ve invited to become actual band mates.
There was never a grand vision at the beginning that we would be this roosty band with bass and drums and horns and pedal steel. They happened to be the people that we enjoyed playing with that added new textures and fun sounds and nuances to the songs that Chris and I were writing.
FOLKMAMA: It’s unusual to find a pedal steel guitar player in a jazz band. I imagine that this has really allowed you to broaden your sound.
JESS: One can find pedal steel guitar players that play in jazzier ways, but no, usually people would think of the pedal steel guitar to be in country music or Hawaiian music…or of course Western Swing music would be the most apt influence for us. Often these big Western Swing bands did a lot of the same repertoire as the early jazz bands.
FOLKMAMA: So where did the name of the band come from?
JESS: We’re actually named after a dog named Bumper. A lot of dogs do this–where the sound of certain instruments will get them to chorus with you, basically howl along. And Bumper was very drawn to my clarinet. And would just howl right a long and run right up and sit next to me. We named the group after Bumper and Jacksons was the name of the people who owned him.
FOLKMAMA: You are a fabulous singer and a great improv jazz clarinet player. How did you get your start?
JESS: I grew up singing in church and I didn’t really get serious about music until after I was already out of college and I moved to New Orleans. That was in 2010 and I really fell in love with the music that I was hearing and I had a couple of great informal teachers down there that would let me sit in with their band and gave me listening homework. So I really started diving into traditional forms of music.
I learned to play clarinet in the middle school band in the Florida public school system. Then I put it down for a long time. I owned a little plastic clarinet that was still at my folk’s house in Florida and so I after I graduated from college I called my mom up and asked her to ship it to me so that I could learn the New Orleans sound on it.
FOLKMAMA: What singers do you like to listen to? Who are you most inspired by?
JESS: I really like a lot of female vocalists from the early jazz era. Ella Fitzgerald in particular is one of my favorites. Then also Lena Horn and Billy Holiday to a certain extent. Recently I’ve been getting into classic country female vocalists like Patsy Kline.
FOLKMAMA: Tell me where you get your repertoire from.
JESS: The majority of songs that one hears at a Bumper Jacksons show are either written by Chris or me. Most of it is original material. We mostly write separately although we have been experimenting over the last few months with being more collaborative.
FOLKMAMA: What should audiences expect when they come to one of your shows?
JESS: I would say in general that our shows are pretty high energy, “dancey” kinds of events, with some moments of intimate tenderness. We both like to really move people bodily, but also emotionally.
The Abbey Bar is located upstairs at the Appalachian Brewing Company, 50 N. Cameron Street, Harrisburg. The Concert begins at 7:30 PM. Tickets are $24 General Admission, $20 FOR SFMS Members, and $10 for students. Tickets are available at the door as well as through Brown Paper Tickets online or toll-free (800) 838-3006. For more information, visit the Susquehanna Folk Music Society website .
When the Quebe Sisters from Texas take a stage, and the triple-threat fiddle champions start playing and singing in multi-part close harmony, audiences are usually transfixed, then blown away. It’s because the group plays their own unique blend of Western swing, hot jazz and Texas fiddle tunes with extreme authority, energy and talent. And whether the Quebes are decked out in denims and boots or fashionably dressed to the nines, the three sisters, all in their 20s, look as good as they sound!
The Quebe Sisters will perform on Sunday, May 1st at 7:30 PM at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of York, 925 S. George Street in York. The concert is sponsored by the Susquehanna Folk Music Society. The Quebe Sisters will be joined on stage by Simon Stipp on guitar and Daniel Parr on bass.
Concert tickets are $25 General Admission, $22 for SFMS members and $10 for students ages 3-22. Advance tickets are available online HERE, or toll-free (800) 838-3006.
For more information, visit the Susquehanna Folk Music Society website.
The interview below with Hulda Quebe was conducted by Brandon Merritt and originally published on February 18, 2016.
BRANDON: Tell us a little about the start of the Quebe Sisters, and what brought you to where you are today.
HULDA: – You know, my sisters and I first heard fiddling at a contest. And we had never heard fiddling before. And it was just like a whole new world opened up to us. My mom had always really like the violin as an instrument. So, we had kind of taken some classical lessons, and we actually quit for the summer. We weren’t that serious into it, and when we heard fiddling, it was just kind of a light bulb going on. And then I thought, “Well that looks really fun, you know, we could try that”. I remember our mom called and asked about taking some lessons with these teachers. We just started taking lessons and it was just kind of something that happened, where we started taking lessons and fiddling and I guess you could tell that we progressed pretty quickly. We started competing in contests, and that’s kind of how we got started playing music.
After we had been playing awhile individually in these contests, we all took lessons together. So, we would all kind of sit in the same room, and we also all played at the same level since we had all started together. And so it was just kind of a natural progression I think for us to work up tunes together. We were listening to a lot of different styles of music at that point, other than just fiddling, Texas-style fiddling, and things like that. So, when our teacher said, “Do you all want to work up a tune together?” it was just kind of a natural progression and just went from there.
BRANDON: What (or who) has had some of the greatest influence on your music?
HULDA: Well, definitely the Texas-style fiddle players were the first people who influenced us. Benny Thomasson, and I would say Terry Morris. Other fiddle players that you might be more familiar with, Johnny Gimble, who passed away, and we’ve got the guys who were session players, they really influenced out playing. Then we started playing country and western swing. The jazz fiddle players, we listened to a lot of that. And we also listened to a lot of western music growing up. Then we went through the other styles of music. We listened to jazz, and we listened to a lot of bluegrass too. I remember the first bluegrass band that I ever heard, that I really sat down and listened to steady was a group called Hot Rize, and they’re still going today, they’re actually awesome.
I remember vocally we had been listening to the Mills Brothers before we started singing. So, the Mills Brothers I think are to this day my favorite vocal group as far as just perfection wise. We also listened to the McGuire Sisters a lot, and we listened to the Andrews Sisters some. The biggest vocalists that I can think of that really influenced our singing were Merle Haggard, Connie Smith, and Ella Fitzgerald, all the classical singers that you can think of, we listened to everybody.
BRANDON We can see that you’ve had a lot of different influences on your music, yet you have a very unique style. How do you bring all of that together and make your sound?
HULDA: A lot of it, when we were a lot younger, our teacher was kind of crafting our arrangements and things, and we were all kind of listening to music and learning, and we would be like “Oh, we listened to…” and we would work up some tunes from that, or listen to that and see what we could learn from it. For us I think, as you can see, we listened to a lot of different types of music, and of course then we also delved into swing music and jazz. I could list all the artists from the swing era and even a few today that influence us.
Picking songs, picking arrangements – we look at our set list, we look at whether you need a slower one or a faster one, what have you been listening to, does the song hit you. We just listen to a lot of different types of things and then just kind of go, well, how does everyone feel about this song? Do you love it? And then wait for everyone else. “Have you heard this?” And most the time, we all have. That’s kind of how we go about picking our material. And also we’ll find a song that will fit our band and the vision that we have for the music, and how we want to grow to the next step.
We’re also working on original stuff. But, we haven’t put that into the set just yet, but hopefully it will be coming up real soon, so we’re really excited about that. [Editor’s note-this interview was a few months ago. I believe this has changed since then.]
BRANDON: You’ve put out three albums, the latest being Every Which-A-Way. What are some of your favorite things about putting that album together?
HULDA: I think that one of the things I really love about that album is that the vision we had going in was to record it as naturally as possible. The three of us got in one room, we got three mics, we set it up, and we recorded all of our parts live, vocals and our fiddles. That was our goal, to create something that was very natural, and that would also stand out compared to other records, and still have the same precision and quality. That’s something I’m really, I guess you could say, proud of about that album. It’s the way that we recorded it. A lot of the song selections were tunes that a lot of people had requested. A lot of our favorite arrangements and tunes we wanted to get down and record them.
BRANDON: Music is ever-changing, and all musicians and bands want to see a progression as time goes on. What are some the changes that you have seen as a group over the years?
HULDA: That’s a good question, it’s a hard question to answer. I think for us some of it is performance wise, growing our audience, getting your name out there, and going and traveling and seeing people enjoy your music, that they like it and what you’re doing and what you put your life into. You know, that’s come to fruition and people like it and enjoy it. You can actually be a professional full-time touring band and make a living off of it, and it’s really rewarding.
For us I think musically since we started out not really intending to be a band, there were a lot of things. I remember one day it was kind of like a blink and we were playing the Grand Ole Opry, and it was just very surreal. I never really considered myself, “Well, I’m a professional fiddle player at age thirteen”, because one I wasn’t, but two I was looking at music and learning and growing. When we were younger we got to do some really cool stuff – play for the President, play for Asleep At The Wheel. I remember Ricky Skaggs brought us out to the Grand Ole Opry in 2003. And there were a lot of things that happened like that. We feel really blessed that they happened. It was really crazy to think I never even dreamed…I never even really considered that this would be a dream of mine. When I played the Opry, I didn’t even know that I could dream to do that! It’s really been fun for us growing and becoming better musicians. It’s something that’s not always obvious to an audience, but there’s nights when you can tell the band just got tighter, or that was a way better show, or you had a breakthrough musically where you figured something out and had little victories.
For us vocally, we took some vocal lessons. I remember learning new information because your voice is so different than playing another instrument. It changed our lives, I remember that was a huge moment for us.
BRANDON: As the band pours itself into creating and playing music, what is it that you want listeners to take away from it, be it at a live show or a recording that they hear?
HULDA: One, I want them to take away from it that it’s good music. I truly believe that whatever you do, do it to the best of your ability. And if you’re playing music it’s just like any other art, you really want your art and your craft to be excellent. That’s one.
But I think the biggest thing for me is that people go away with it having an emotional response. They feel the sad songs, and the happy songs really truly bring them joy. And when we play live, I think one of my things is the reaction. Just last night I looked out at the audience and this lady, you I could just tell that there was a huge smile on her face and she was just grinning from ear to ear, she was having so much fun. And I thought, “That’s what makes everything we do worth while”. If you can bring someone else joy and bring a smile to their face, that’s the whole point of putting on a performance I think, to make people feel things that they wouldn’t otherwise. Having someone come up to you at the end of the show and say, “I’ve had a terrible week, I almost didn’t come tonight, but I’m so glad I did because you made me forget just how bad my week was and I just enjoyed myself so much”, that’s why we do what we do.
This interview was published on the blog “Merritt’s Mandolin Minute”. Brandon started this blog out of a love for bluegrass music, and a desire to preserve and pass it on to others. This interview was used with permission. You can view its original publication HERE.
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