A new generation rejigs Irish tradition
Young talent drives Celtic Crossroads
For further evidence of Ireland’s rich musical culture, look to the show set to hit Sherwood Park’s Festival Place on Sunday. It’s called Celtic Crossroads but it could just as easily be dubbed Irish Music: The Next Generation.
Lead fiddler and music director Michael McClintock conceived the music and dance revue as a means of showcasing the best of his nation’s young talent pool, back when he was a college student in Galway in 2007. After starting out under the banner Music at the Crossroads, the show has gone on to develop an international profile with multiple CD and DVD releases and concerts you may have seen on PBS television.
Lead singer and harp player Lisa Canny says the group’s current 60-show tour of North America marks her eighth trip across the Atlantic since she joined up six years ago. Between McClintock, Canny and three other players, the band juggles about 15 instruments onstage (plucked, strummed and bowed strings and percussion), with one male and two female dancers in tow, all energetic 20-somethings bent on plumbing the deep folk traditions of the Emerald Isle and something beyond.
“Since the beginning there have been elements of bluegrass, Gypsy music and jazz,” Canny explains, “but the show has really evolved to include more of that over the years.”
While the set list might be similar from night to night, no two shows are the same, given the level of jazzy improvisation that finds its way into the solos. “It’s a great example of how individual musicians are changing because we are all so exposed to other genres now and we’re picking up on those styles and incorporating them into our own music. Plus, every time a new musician comes to the show, they bring something new to the table.”
While the show offers a great apprenticeship for young artists, you have to be very good to get hired in the first place. County Mayo’s Canny started on penny whistle at five, then banjo, then harp, and took a decade of private lessons before she went to university, eventually to get her master’s in ethnomusicology. Along the way, she won the All Ireland music championships in banjo or harp eight times.
As you might guess, performing in Celtic Crossroads can be a great springboard to a later solo career. Canny is set to record her first solo album this summer. Don’t be surprised if you see some of the same performers leading Irish bands at the Edmonton Folk Fest five or 10 years from now.
Celtic Crossroads plays Festival Place Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $36, $38 and $40 from the box office, 780-4493378 or festivalplace.ab.ca.
PRIME D ON PRINE
Several of Edmonton’s finest singers and songwriters — Al Brant, Terry Morrison and Kevin Cook — are cooking up a special tribute to one of the most respected American songwriters, John Prine, set to play Festival Place next Sunday, March 30.
The idea came about when the three musical friends were busy rehearsing their parts in The Christmas Carol Project a few months back. They had a desire to collaborate in a different context and paying tribute to Prine seemed a perfect excuse.
It’s not hard to see why they thought of Prine. While his own career was compromised somewhat by a bout with cancer in the late 1990s, Prine, now 66, remains one of the most influential songwriters in folk and country music. His several appearances here over the past 15 years have left a devoted local fan base.
“Prine is one of the greatest, best-known songwriters out there,” Morrison argues. “He’s got such an insight into the human condition in his lyrics. They can be full of so much humour and really serious stuff at the same time that it just leaves you with your mouth open.”
She offers Prine’s famous piece Sam Stone as an example of the man’s genius in penning political themes.
“He’s got that ability to really hit it on the nose, and to write back-door protest songs, where he makes a point, but from a really personal place.”
Morrison was happy to acknowledge Prine’s influence on her own considerable body of work. She has been covering his tune Hello In There for years, though it hasn’t always been easy.
“It’s such an incredibly poignant song that when I used to sing it I could hardly make it to the end.”
Bassist Mike Lent, drummer Bill Hobson and violin/ mandolin ace Cam Neufeld fill out the mostly acoustic project, with Morrison, Cook and Brant trading off on lead vocals, layering their guitars and finding vocal harmonies where the songs suggest it.
Primed On Prine: The Songs Of John Prine plays Festival Place Sunday, March 30 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $28 to $32 from the box office.