John Doyle and the modern Irish soundtrack
In time for St. Patrick’s Day, enjoy the amazing Irish guitarist, singer, and songwriter John Doyle.
All posts tagged: John Doyle
Traditional base, new directions with Solas
A dive into why Solas is my favorite Irish band, even if they are on indefinite hiatus.
Two unexpected books for these times
It wasn’t until I was well into the second of two books I’ve devoured in the past few weeks that the timeliness of these very different works dawned on me. Nothing in either the biography or novel – both released in 2016 – would have suggested that they were important books for our time, much less that there would be common threads. And as a bonus, both are terrific reads. Timothy Egan has produced a page-turning biography that captures the incredible saga of Thomas Francis Meagher (pronounced Mar), one of the most famous Irish Americans of all time. Egan – one of my favorite writers (see the “Writers I Enjoy” list on the side of my blog page) – has previously written highly readable and well-researched histories on the Dust Bowl (The Worst Hard Time) and the founding of the U.S. Forest Service (The Big Burn). In The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero, Egan bring Francis Meagher’s time and story to life. Meagher was born to comfort in Ireland, but …
Acoustic Music Old and New
Airline travel has its occasional benefits. Earlier this week I had a trip to Boston booked on Jet Blue Airlines. When I sat down in the seat, I glanced at the arm rest and thought, “Hot dog – Jet Blue is the airline with free XM radio!” I whipped out my ear buds and settled in for 90 minutes of the XM station Bluegrass Junction. I love to listen to my own iPod playlist, but it also great fun to settle in to an airline seat or a rental car to catch XM radio’s bluegrass station. Every time that happens I always end up hearing some great new music, and my Boston trip was no exception. On one leg of the trip, the station was featuring one of its staples: a program entitled Track By Track where the DJ plays a full album by a featured artist who provides commentary along the way. This week’s show featured the new Compass Records album Somewhere South of Crazy by the Southern songbird Dale Ann Bradley. Now I’ve …
Double Play with Liz Carroll and John Doyle: CD review
John Doyle is — to my ear — about the best rhythm player in roots music today. Ever since first hearing him as the original guitarist with the Irish super-band Solas, I’ve been taken with the mixture of power and musicianship in his playing. In recent years, Doyle has been playing in a duo with Fiddler Liz Carroll, and they just released a new CD in March on Compass Records. As promised last week, I’m highlighting several new releases from Compass in the hopes of encouraging others to take a look at this label’s varied offerings from a talented group of artists. Double Play is the second release from the Carroll/Doyle duo. The CD begins with a medley of two Carroll tunes, The Chandelier and Anne Lacey’s. Liz Carroll is not content to simply play traditional tunes, but she’s quite a composer of new Irish music. The interplay between the major key of The Chandelier and the minor tones of Anne Lacey’s makes for a great pairing. Doyle’s singing is strong on tunes such as …
More to Come... 