FolkBlog

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated new adds to the Online Folk Festival on the FolkBlog (though I’ve been pretty good at updating the New Adds page on the website). I should probably wait until after Celtapalooza is over, since the only artists in rotation now are Celtic artists, but come next week these artists will be back in rotation, and I have time tonight, and so it shall be. I’ve started with three CDs you will hear this week.

Jed Marum: Miles From Home
Jed Marum has put together a rewarding acoustic folk album, with significant Celtic influences. The standout songs on this album are”The Locket” about Marum and his mother struggling with her Alzheimer’s Disease, “Look Ahead Tommy” about Irish immigrants settling n America and “Mama’s Lilly,” a story of an accidental death in the Civil War from shelling a West Virginia town.

Grada - Endeavour
An impressive young traditional Celtic band from Ireland, Grada has just had this CD from 2002 released in the US by Compass after the success of their 2004 CD The Landing Step. This band shows impressive musicianship on traditional tunes, as well as tunes written by the band. Singer Anne Marie O’Malley has a pleasant soprano voice and wraps her tongue around some very difficult Gaelic at breakneck speed on “Cathain,” the opening track. This is also in rotation this week.

Robin Flower & Libby McLaren: Steelhead in the Riffles
A well-played collection of Celtic/contra-type dance tunes featuring Flower on mandolin, fiddle and guitar and McLaren on piano, accordion and voice.

David Francey: The Waking Hour
How did I miss this CD when it first came out? I guess I’m one of the last folk DJs on the David Francey bandwagaon, but I’m now glad to be there. Singer/songwriter David Francey, Scottish by birth, Canadian by residence, has put together an outstanding collection of acoustic tunes ably backed by Kieran Kane, Kevin Welch and Fats Kaplin (the same crew behind the recent You Can’t Save Everybody album by Kane and Welch). All in all, this collection matches superior songwriting with superior playing.

There’s not a klunker on this CD, but since I graduated from Perry High School in Lake County in Northeastern Ohio, the two tracks written about Northeastern Ohio have particular resonance with me. “Ashtabula” is a portrait of a fading coal port on Lake Erie, and “Fourth of July” tells about being in Madison, Ohio (the next town over from Perry) on the first anniversary of 9/11 and all the patiotic display in the shadow of the cooling towers of the Perry Nuclear Power Plant.

Jackie Frost: Calliope
This is a nice collection of laid-back acoustic jazzy folk in the vein of Norah Jones, although this leans more towards the folk part of folk/jazz. Frost’s ensemble mixes in some bluegrass and Texas swing, so that’s one distinction from Jones. Frost’s voice is not as smoky nor is her style as expressive as Jones, but if you are one of the millions who’ve bought Norah Jones, and you liked the direction Jones took on her second CD towards the folky and acoustic, then this CD is right up your alley.

Chris Elliott: Satellite UFO Jet Plane or Star
If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, then you know that I am a sucker for a good collection of jangle pop. This is an excellent collection of jangle pop. The track that I keep coming back to, and I’m not sure why, is a mostly instrumental piece (”Nice”) with the following lyrics:

“Birth, school, work, death. Some paradise sure would be nice.”

I suppose it summarizes the eternal longing to break the cycle of this world with something infinite in a three-minute jangle pop groove. Or maybe I’m just reading too much into it. Anyway, I really like this collection, and if you dig The Byrds or The Kennedys, you might want to check out this CD.

Special Mention: The Hungry for Music Diamond Cuts DJ Collection
I was really happy that the nice people at Hungry for Music, a Washington, DC charity supporting music education in the DC area, sent me a two CD set of the highlights from their Diamond Cuts collection of CDs about baseball. I hope to use them sometime in the next couple weeks (along with all those great baseball songs by Chuck Brodsky and others) to celebrate the opening of the baseball season by having a Salute to Baseball week instead of a Featured Artist of the Week. I hope you will check out this fine organization and consider buying one of their baseball or holiday CDs. (The Holiday Feast: Creme de la Creme CD has become a staple of the Online Folk Festival holiday programming - I highly recommend it.)

Also added: Terence Martin: Sleeper.