music 'round the house

One of the most important elements of our home life is music. Whether it be traditional Celtic or Mountain music, contemporary folk and Americana, rock, pop and theatrical songs from our youth or songs we've written ourselves. We listen to it, make it and participate in it regularly.

We have no TV in our home and making music in the living room is a frequent activity. Sometimes we're rehearsing for a gig, learning some new songs to add to the repertoire or working on a new piece that we're writing. But, sometimes it is for no particular "reason" at all other than the joy of it!

Lately we've been adding back a few Spring songs, now that we're nearing the end of Winter, and we've tucked away the holiday, Christmas, and Mid-winter songs for another year. There is room for "Red Winged-Blackbird" by David Francey, "The Circle", a song Michael wrote, and brushing up on a few Celtic songs for St Patrick's Day. Too bad there was no one to photograph the little jig I was attempting while Michael played the Bodhran!

Here's to songs of Spring and making music with friends and loved ones!

Gearing up for the Harvest Festival

Well, I've been neglecting this blog shamelessly due to incredibly busy times. I'll be updating lots of planting, harvesting, music making, birthday celebrating in the next few days. But, for now an it's all about the New Entry Sustainable Farming Projects' 8th Annual Harvest Festival. Michael and I have been asked to do all the music for the day, so we've asked our good friends Gail and Allen Wiegner to join us for an afternoon of old-timey live music.

The festival is all to support a great cause, training and supporting new farmers in their endeavors to bring sustainable farming back to their own countries. Jennifer Hashley, the Director of the NESFP is an awesome and inspiring soul as well as the supplier of our delicious farm fresh eggs, assorted organic produce and most of the meat we eat. She and her husband Pete are the Pete and Jen's Backyard Birds .

So, if you happen to be around the Boston area next Sunday, particularly near Dracut. We hope you'll come on by for some delicious food, games, a farmer's market and some old-time music by yours truly. For all the details, go here.

Time in the studio (recording that is)

A belated post about a little project Michael and I recently completed. We put the finishing touches on our new Demo called "the Circle", which you can download for free from my music site. It's a song inspired by our visit to the Carter Family Fold, the home-place of a lot of good, old-timey music. It was originally the home-stead and little store that A.P. Carter ran after he left singing with the original Carter Family. And has become, with the care and management of his daughter Jeanette and then his grandson Dale Jett and granddaughter, Rita Forrester, a wonderful locale for old-time fiddlin' buck-dancing, clogging, flat-footin', good music! Here's the link.

We really enjoyed writing this song. From the original notes sketched out on the car ride home to the fine tuning of lyrics, melody and harmony over the span of time since then. When we finally came to record it, we were very pleased to have the help of our talented friends Gail and Allen Wiegner on vocals and bass and Jackie Damsky on fiddle. We're pleased with the recording and hope you'll enjoy it too!