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Celtic Connections preview
It can only mean one thing... the return of Celtic Connections. Here are 10 of the highlights
THE 2019 edition of Celtic Connections starts on Thursday and once again it offers an intriguing clash of musical genres – in its own words, trad, folk, roots, indie and Americana, and more. Without a doubt, everyone will have his or her must-see list of concerts over the 18 days of festivities. Here are ours.
BRAVE IN CONCERT Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Saturday, January 19, 2pm and 5.30pm
IT’S been nearly seven years since Pixar-Disney scored a box-office hit ($540million worldwide) with the medieval Scotland-set Brave. The stirring score, by Scots composer Patrick Doyle, is here recreated with musicians who graced the original soundtrack, as well as young singers and traditional instrumentalists, all backed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra as the Oscar-winning film is screened live. (On Thursday, January 24, 7.30pm, at the City Halls, there is a celebration of Doyle’s film scores, plus two new pieces by him.)
ROAMING ROOTS REVUE: ABBEY ROAD 50th Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Sunday, January 20, 7.30pm
MANY critics gave a cool reception to the songs on The Beatles’ Abbey Road upon its 1969 release, but times and opinions change and the album is now seen as a classic, a reminder of the group’s peerless musical gifts. The latest
Roaming Roots revue, featuring Roddy Hart and the Lonesome Fire as house band, plus the Sun King Orchestra, highlights the songs, including George Harrison’s Something and Here Comes the Sun, with an array of special guests including KT Tunstall, The Staves and the duo You Tell Me. RONNIE SPECTOR & THE RONETTES
Old Fruitmarket Wednesday, January 23, 8pm
“THERE were girl group hits before The Ronettes, but Ronnie Spector was the first woman in rock to provoke anything like the hysteria that Elvis had caused, which was soon to engulf The Beatles.” So runs an assessment in 2003 by a Canadian critic, quoted on Spector’s website. Their distinctive, era-defining hits included Walking in the Rain, Do I Love You, Baby I Love You, I Can Hear Music and the joyous Be My Baby. This is a rare chance to see them in concert.
AN TREAS SUAILE (THE THIRD WAVE): JULIE FOWLIS AND DUNCAN CHISHOLM Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Thursday, January 24, 8pm
THE sinking of the Admiralty yacht Iolaire early on New Year’s Day 1919, with the loss of 201 lives, had a traumatic and lasting impact on Lewis. This event, commissioned by An Lanntair and 14-18 Now, sees Fowlis and fiddler Chisholm creating a “deeply reflective multimedia commemoration, honouring both those who died and survived that night. Drawing on historical records, original letters, personal testimonies and newspaper
archives, it combines original music and song with poetry, spoken word and visual imagery, touching on issues from collective trauma to survivor guilt.” Other events marking the loss of the Iolaire are The Tragedy of the Iolaire: Malcolm Macdonald and Alyth McCormack (Waterstones, January 22, 5.30pm) and Sal/Saltwater: Iain Morrison with Dalziel + Scullion (Mitchell Theatre, same day, 8pm).
RACHEL SERMANNI AND JARLATH HENDERSON City Halls Friday, January 25, 7.30pm
SERMANNI, the self-described “folk-noir balladeer” whose 2015 collection Tied to the Moon was described in these pages as “a flawless follow-up to what was an excellent debut”, teams up with Jarlath Henderson, whose own 2016 album Hearts Broken, Heads Turned earned much justified praise and who, in 2003, was the youngest winner of the BBC Young Folk Award. They are two of Scottish music’s most intriguing contemporary artists and will be supported by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and special guests.
GRACE & DANGER: A CELEBRATION OF JOHN MARTYN Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Sunday, January 27, 7.30pm
IN November 2008 the Daily Telegraph put John Martyn’s 1980 classic Grace & Danger in a select group of “painful,
intense, atmospheric” studio albums, so “emotionally demanding to make that [they] could rarely, if ever, be recreated in live performance”. Martyn had just performed the album – a “long journey into misery... divorce... lawsuit...” – at a gig in London. He died in January 2009 but his music lives on. This concert has a stellar list of musicians, including Paul Weller, Eric Bibb, Eddi Reader and Ross (Blue Rose Code) Wilson and Martyn’s friend and frequent collaborator, the legendary double-bass player Danny Thompson, playing the songs from this landmark in Martyn’s career.
RHIANNON GIDDENS WITH THE CELTIC BLUES ORCHESTRA Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Monday, January 28, 7.30pm
FOLK revivalist Giddens’ most recent album Freedom Highway interspersed, to powerful effect, stories based on the slave trade with more recent pieces reflecting on the long and bloody
struggle for civil rights in America. “A vital album for an anxious era,” said Mojo magazine of its modern-day relevance. Giddens, a co-founder of the Grammy-winning string band Carolina Chocolate Drops, has performed for former US president Barack Obama. Two years ago, she won the Radio 2 Folk Award for Singer of the Year and the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Bluegrass and Banjo.
GRAHAM NASH: AN INTIMATE EVENING OF SONGS AND STORIES Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
Tuesday, January 29, 7.30pm
NASH made his name in the 1960s with The Hollies before graduating to Crosby, Stills and Nash (a group sometimes augmented by Neil Young, for CSN&Y). A two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, he recently released Over the Years, a comprehensive collection of his best-known songs (Marrakesh Express, Our House, Teach Your Children, Wind on the Water), as well as unreleased demos and mixes. This show will look
back at his storied career and its innumerable highlights.
LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Wednesday, January 30, 7.30pm,
A WELCOME return of the gifted, acerbic and candid singer-songwriter. He describes his absorbing new Netflix special Surviving
Twin as “a posthumous collaboration, in which I’m gonna combine and connect some of my songs with the writing of my late father, the esteemed Life magazine columnist Loudon Wainwright junior”. They had a complicated relationship. The show sees Loudon exploring, with his customary insight and subtlety, issues as diverse as birth, loss, parenthood and mortality. He is supported here by the Irish singer-songwriter Karan Casey.
JOHN GRANT
King’s Theatre
THOSE who saw Grant’s appearance at Celtic Connections in 2016 will remember a hugely enjoyable concert in which he and his band played some of his greatest songs, among them GMF, possibly his finest hour, and which ended with Grant giving an elated thumbs-up to the audience as it rose as one to applaud him. He is now back with a new album, the well-received Love is Strange. With remarkable frankness Grant has mined his own life, including his sexuality, for his albums; he has said of the new album that it is “more of an amalgamation of who I am” and that it captured “the absurdity and beauty of life”.
Celtic Connections, Jan 17-Feb 3, www.celticconnections.com