• Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Mail
Contributor Login
  • 0Shopping Cart
FolkWorks
  • Home
  • Events
  • Features
  • Resources
  • About Us
  • Archives
  • Contact
  • DONATE
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
Lila_Downs_at_Grammy

Making Connections

GRACENOTES / Linda Dewar

Making Connections

By Linda Dewar

Lila_Downs_at_GrammyThe Grammy have come and gone, with some interesting results in the categories that are generally of interest to FolkWorks readers. Here’s a short summary (a link to the full list appears on FolkWorks main page):

Best Regional Mexican Music Album: Pecados y Milagros, Lila Downs

(congratulations to LA’s own Mariachi Divas, who were also nominated)

Best Americana Album: Slipstream, Bonnie Raitt

Best Bluegrass Album: Nobody Knows You, Steep Canyon Raiders

Best Folk Album: The Goat Rodeo Sessions, Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Myer, & Chris Thile

Best World Music Album: The Living Room Sessions, Part 1, Ravi Shankar

And a nice surprise in an unexpected category: Society’s Child: My Autobiography, Janis Ian

Along with those winners, here are a few familiar names of nominees: Carolina Chocolate Drops, Ry Cooder, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Don Williams, Paul McCartney… I can’t remember the last time there were so many nominees I’d actually heard of. They say that when economic times are tough we are drawn to nostalgic and familiar things. Sure seems like things have gone that way in music, and that’s just fine with me.

**********

Farewell… All of Britain has fallen for the shanty singing of Fisherman’s Friends, a group of fishermen and lifeboatmen from Port Isaac. On Monday night as they were preparing for a performance in Guildford, Surrey, a metal door somehow fell, landing on both Paul McMullen, the group’s tour manager and Trevor Grills, one of the featured singers. McMullen was killed instantly, and Grills died the following day. Fisherman’s Friends have not, as of late February when I’m writing this, made any statements as to the future of the group.

**********

Once again, the Celtic Connections festival has come and gone. This year, we decided to do things a bit differently… we skipped all of the concerts in the big venues and concentrated on the ones in smaller places. For the most part, this meant going to hear artists we weren’t very familiar with, some chosen simply on the basis of their bio in the schedule. It was a good decision. All of the venues were excellent – the theatre in the Glasgow Library, the function room in the beautiful old Art Club, the small concert hall in the Piping Centre. And we heard some outstanding music. On top of my pick list is The Halton Quartet, who are actually a combination of two duos. Their music may not be to everyone’s liking… it’s a sort of Celtic/Jazz/Classical fusion, but I loved them. Another favorite was The Hannah Fisher Trio. Now, I’ll be honest… I bought the ticket because Hannah is a graduate of the school where I assist with the traditional music bands. But old school loyalty had nothing to do with the pleasure I got from listening to this band of gifted musicians. They don’t have a CD yet, but I hear that there’s one in the works. Stay tuned.

And then there were The Dardanelles, from Newfoundland. I can’t remember ever seeing a band having so much fun playing music. And the audience was right there with them. Their sound is very traditional, the individual musicians are all brilliant, but best of all they are a band, and their photo should be in the dictionary next to the word “synergy.” So many bands today are brilliant, but made up of musicians who play in three or four top groups. The Dardanelles are musicians whose first commitment is to the group—and it shows.

********

And finally, a word about someone special. Elsewhere in FolkWorks, you’ll find a tribute to Chris Caswell. Many of you who read this will have known Chris, perhaps from Lark Camp or through his piping or harp building, or any of the other things he did better than almost anyone else. Chris was a dear friend, but I first knew him as a teacher and he remained a teacher to me long after we became friends and even into that state of suspended friendship that occurs when you haven’t seen someone in ages but you know they’re there.

The best way I can think of to honour his memory is to share something that he taught me, so in that spirit I’d like to suggest that you find a copy of a wonderful book. It’s called The Listening Book: Discovering Your Own Music, by W.A. Mathieu. It’s a book that Chris recommended, and I promise that it will have a profound effect on how you hear, write and play music.

An American now living in Scotland, Linda Dewar is a singer-songwriter and a player of various stringed and wind instruments. Besides being a solo performer, she is half of a duo with Scottish singer Douglas Craik, plays in an occasional ceilidh band, and is a founding member of the revue Simply Burns. Visit her website.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share by Mail
https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Lila_Downs_at_Grammy.jpg 400 400 Steve Shapiro https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FolkWorks-logo-large.png Steve Shapiro2013-02-28 06:56:202020-11-18 10:23:44

Making Connections

All Columns

Featured Columnists

  • Art Podell
  • Chris Wilson
  • David Bragger
  • Lindsey Terrell
  • Roland Sturm
  • Ross Altman

FolkWorks Partners

Join our E-mail Community

As a valued member of our e-mail community, you will receive updates on events, stories, performances and more in our monthly newsletter, along with the occasional special announcement to give you the latest news in folk/roots. We promise your e-mail is safe with us.  We don’t sell or share our database with any third-party vendors.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

  • LIKE US ON FACEBOOK
  • JOIN THE FOLKWORKS FACEBOOK GROUP
  • BECOME A FOLKWORKS DONOR
  • ADVERTISE WITH US
YOU TUBE INSTAGRAM TWITTER EMAIL PRIVACY POLICY

All Material Copyright © 2001-2023 FolkWorks. All rights reserved. Website by: Integritive

Scroll to top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website, analyze site traffic, and show event times in your timezone. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Accept

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy