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January Article

Exile’s Return is one of the most eagerly anticipated Irish releases of the new year. It is also the first time that vocalist Karan Casey and guitar virtuoso John Doyle have collaborated in the studio as a duo since their days as band mates in the genre defining band Solas.

At the core of Exile’s Return is a sense of musical simplicity which draws on the confidence the two musicians have developed over the years. For Karan Casey, that simplicity is a way of shining a bright light on the songs. Simplicity "takes a lot more depth," she says. "You have to be a lot more confident in your playing and singing to take an honest, direct, simple approach. You can’t hide anywhere. It’s a very exposed album." John Doyle echoes that sentiment. "A song is very intimate," says Doyle, "even if it’s a very traditional song. Each song has a personal meaning." On this CD, he says, “all the songs have an element of loss and yearning. At the end of the day songs are what carry stories of love, and all human emotions."

Although the songs on the album are Irish, Scottish and English, John and Karan selected Appalachian multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell to produce the recording. Tremendously gifted in his own right and a current member of Joan Baez’ touring band along side John Doyle, Dirk brought his own affinity for simplicity in production to the table. Stripped down instrumentation, featuring the distinct voices of Dirk’s banjo and bass together with John Doyle’s guitar, mandola and bouzouki and guest Mike McGoldrick’s flute and whistle, serves to highlight the words and draw the emotions of the songs to the forefront.

Recording this CD is something that John and Karan have been talking about for over seven years. Playing together in the studio created "a feeling of coming home," says Casey. "John in his guitar playing really does catch me, almost like he knows what I’m thinking." Doyle says, "Karan’s soul is in the music. We fit together, like hand in glove."

January Headphones

 Gwen Orel is owned by Celtic Music. She is its slave and it bosses her around. Gently. She founded the (sadly now defunct) Celtic Music Society of Montgomery (Alabama), where she presented Karan Casey, Altan, Jim Malcolm and others, then at the Folk Project (NJ) presented Cherish the Ladies, Tannahill Weavers, Mick Moloney and others. She writes about  roots/world/celtic music and theatre for the Village Voice, Time Out New York, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Irish Music Magazine, among others.

The only thing difficult about this assignment was limiting it to five!  Because how can I leave off Mick Moloney, Grada, Bearfoot, Karan Casey, Teada, Beoga, Cara Dillon, Green Fields of America?  But since I can’t list them all here are just a few...

1. The Company You Keep - Alison Brown
Listening to this album is like entering a musical room.  I don’t put it on shuffle— the album has its own shape, and I’d miss the way Mairtin O’Connor’s “The Road West” evolves into Alison and Garry’s “Drawing Down the Moon.”

2.  Double Play - Liz Carroll and John Doyle
The partnership of these two artists creates pure magic, with Carroll’s virtuoso playing and gorgeous original tunes (“Lament for Tommy Makem” mourns with beauty) and Doyle’s rhythmic playing and evocative singing.  A lot of it’s really upbeat and energetic but I love the peaceful ones, including the sweet original “Little Christmas.”

3. Inside Out - Missy Raines and the New Hip
Laidback, full of emotion, this album is pretty groovy.  “Basket of Singing Birds” goes down like smooth sweet tea, with bass player Raines’ voice delivering the ambivalent lyrics.  And “Stop, Drop and Wiggle,” written in honor of Raines’ cat, is full of mischief, particularly with Michael Witcher Dobro and the sounds of Ethan Ballinger’s guitar.

4.  Music from the Atlantic Fringe - The Unwanted
Catherine Jordan, Seamie O’Dowd and Rick Epping have put together a kind of Western American-Irish theme park of an album, and its energy is explosive.  The tunes are catchy and irresistible and show how that ebb and flow from one continent to another washed up some pretty great sounds.  I’m still bowled over by their live showcase in NY this past weekend!  “Out on the Western Plains” picks you up at the top of the album and you’re off, but I’m particularly fond of “Sadly Grows the Rose,” a Nashville song that sounds like an ancient ballad.

5.  Live from the Powerhouse - Mozaik
Everything Andy Irvine does is good, and the second Mozaik album, Changing Trains, is also terrific, but this album stands out as a little piece of perfection.  It’s a fusion kind of band, led by Andy Irvine, with old-timey fiddler Bruce Molsky, Irish guitarist Donal Lunny, Dutch mandolinist Rens van der Zalm and Hungarian musician Nikola Parov.  The rhythms are often Eastern European and the effect is exhilarating.  Irvine’s recorded Woody Guthrie’s “Never Tire of the Road” several times now, but this one, with the old-timey “Pony Boy” leading it off, is really rousing.  I feel like protesting something or other when Irvine sings “all of you fascists bound to lose.”  
 

Martin Simpson and Mick Moloney win Live Ireland Music Awards

Congratulations to both Mick Moloney and Martin Simpson for winning Live Ireland’s "Livie 2010" awards. To view all of the winners click here.

Kieran Q&A

Kieran Kane Q&A

Do you come from a musical family?  
On my mother’s side of the family I had uncles who were quite musical. I had one uncle who could pick up any instrument & literally within a few minutes, could play it. On my dad’s side of the family, however, not one iota of musicianship.

What you’d be doing if you weren’t making music?  
I have no idea exactly; I’d like to imagine I’d be painting, but I don’t think I could make a living at it. I’ve never really had a job except for delivering newspapers as a kid. There is nothing else I could do – maybe I could be a hobo and live in a box.

Five CDs you’d want with you on a desert island?  
Duke Ellington – Blues in Orbit
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Django Reinhardt – any of the Hot Club records
Best Of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
Essential Collection: Muddy Waters

Musical hero you’d most like to meet?  
I met him. Bo Diddley – I met him in Australia when Kane Welch Kaplin were playing the East Coast Blues Festival. I heard he was in a tent right down the way from us & I took my little frame drum with me & I stood outside his door hoping he would notice me. I sat outside his door and listened to him talking very intelligently to two people about why the US should have not been in the Iraq War. Finally he saw me & didn’t wave me in, but I inched in anyway—sort of like a little kid going to see Santa Claus for the first time—and asked “Mr. Diddley” if he would sign my drum. He was very arthritic & jammed the magic marker between his fingers & very deliberately signed his name “Bo Diddley” and underlined it. As soon as I got back to the tent, I sat down & just wept. He played that night, and I’d never seen him play, but I didn’t go. I had something in my head as a little kid, this image of him then and what he did, and keeping that in tact is very important it was to me. Seeing him so sick then (he died soon after), I didn’t want to see him like that on a stage.

What is your hidden talent?
Should I say this? Getting people to come along with my ideas but having it seem as though they thought it up. You just move around the conversation until they say what you want them to say & then pipe up with “Great Idea!”

What sound do you love?
My grandson, Eli, calling me “Grampie”.

What sound do you hate?
Dogs barking at night. I live in East Nashville...and it’s not the strays.

What fictional character do you most identify with?  
Howard in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

What piece of music/art/writing do you wish you had created?
Never Come Morning by Nelson Algren
Otto Dix’s “The Dancer Anita Berber”

Last good book you read?
The Years With Laura Diaz by Carlos Fuente

Two people, living or dead, that you’d want sitting next to you at a dinner party
Preferably it would be strangers, because I seem to get along with them best.

Favorite comfort food?  
Moules frites or mussels with fries. It’s good for the restaurant or the backyard.

Who or what is your role model?  
I have two - Charlie Birkin and John Van Valkenburg. I met Charlie in New York in my family’s cabin when I about 5 and he became a surrogate dad. He and his wife owned the diner down the hill from the cabin and my brothers all worked there during the summers. He and his wife worked around the clock, literally, from Memorial Day to Labor Day so they could have the rest of the year to just live. John I met when I was 15 and he was 25 when I was playing bluegrass music. He would take me all over upstate NY to pick up this radio station out of West Virginia, WWVA, and he’d recite and sing Carter Family & Johnny Cash lyrics. He didn’t go to college (he drove a school bus for a living) but he somehow cobbled a life together that allowed him to go off and take photos of birds in the wilderness. He lives in a very small house that he rents, and he lives with this self-created family of injured crows. He sits around and plays his banjo to the crows—they roam free in the house. Through both of these guys what I learned is that you can do whatever you want to do, it doesn’t really matter. You just have to be willing to accept the shortcomings & perks, but you can do it. And it has served me well when I got started in music and people said “You don’t know what you are doing, you’re not very good...” It’s a business of rejection this music thing. You show someone the very best of what you have at the moment & often times have it dismissed like it’s nothing. Artists are the people who are least likely to have the capability to deal with rejection, but somehow get the most, and in the end it causes you to be the most resilient.

What trait do you most value in your friends?
Honesty.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Sitting at the lake house in upstate NY with my family here.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?   
I was told actually that I say “no brainer” often. And I do say “thanks kiddo” a lot according to Steph.

What is your most treasured possession?
I don’t really care much about possessions – but I’d have to say my cabin on the lake. It’s where I find the most peace. The only drawback is it’s so far away from my family, which is why I go back & forth so much.

Which talent would you most like to have?
Ventriloquism.  

What is your Motto?   
Live free or die...haha, I don’t have a motto. But I guess it would have to be “do what makes you happy”.

December Headphones

About John:

John Gallent plays Viola, speaks French, and holds music degrees from both LSU (go Tigers!) and Belmont University. John is Compass Records’ associate publicist and also our resident class clown (don’t let his fancy Viola photo fool you.)

Kieran Kane – Somewhere Beyond the Roses
Kieran’s brilliance is in how rich and dark he makes one chord sound. Because of my dad, I’m a big fan of 50s rock and roll, and to hear those same musical concepts (two chords, deep grooves, minimal key changes) brought to an Americana album was a revelation.

Colin Hay – American Sunshine
This album is where I went down the Colin Hay rabbit hole. I wasn’t aware of his solo career before joining the Compass staff and after seeing him perform “You Came Into My Store” live, I’m never coming back.

Dale Ann Bradley – Don’t Turn Your Back
Dale Ann is a 70s rocker with a set of bluegrass goddess pipes – no matter the genre, everything sounds good with her voice wrapped around it. This album is sunshine for your iPod.

Bearfoot – Doors and Windows
This isn’t Pawpaw singing on the front porch anymore, this is young, fresh, bluegrass pop.

Alison Brown – The Company You Keep
I appreciate her melodic virtuosity and technical giftedness. Listening to Alison play is like beautiful math music, it’s intelligent design for the banjo.