High energy Celtic/World music including reels and jigs that will set your feet tapping and slow airs that will bring tears to your eyes with a little exotic spice thrown in the mix.

14 MP3 Songs
WORLD: Celtic, CLASSICAL: New Age



Details:
Tom Morley - fiddle, guitar
Andra Bohnet - Irish flute, whistle, fife, alto flute, Celtic harp, melodica
Ben Harper - guitar, bass guitar
David Hughes - percussion, harmonium

In the summer of 2004, while working on our Winter's Day CD, we came up with the idea to use previously recorded concerts to make an official live 'bootleg" CD. We had enough material to use, but just to be certain, we scheduled a concert for Sept. 21. Hurricane Ivan hit the coast on Sept. 16. Could we have a concert five days later? After much discussion, we went on as planned. And it was astounding. The band and the audience were charged with electricity - even though much of the Gulf Coast was still without! The concert was a celebration and it became the basis for most of this CD. Jonathan Clark, who narrowly escaped losing his Pensacola home and studio to Ivan, mixed the concert and did great post-production work. Mobile radio personality and photographer Catt Sirten helped create the CD package and added his wonderful photos. Our little bootleg CD became much more than the sum of its parts!

Music is an ephemeral art form. It's created second-by-second, and in a live performance, it's here and gone in the blink of an eighth note. We are so glad that the notes from these performances were saved, and we hope you have as much fun listening to this music as we did performing it.

1.Little Beggarman/Drowsy Maggie/Cooley's Reel This particular version of the Little Beggarman reel comes from Bards of a Feather (a fine group that performed in the Nashville area in the early 90s), and Drowsy Maggie and Cooley's Reel are two great standard session tunes.

2.The Turning of the Season - We performed this beautiful tune written by multi-instrumentalist Robin Bullock on our Sept. 21st concert since it was, indeed, the turning of the season. The melody seemed more poignant, however, with the memory of Hurricane Ivan fresh in our minds.

3.Bugga Fee Hoosa/Girls Have You Seen George?/Toss the Feathers/The Fairy Dance - We got this set from the Baltimore Consort and Andra learned the flute cadenza from flutist Chris Norman. It was the first set the band ever performed live (Tom and Andra included it on the Banish Misfortune CD) and we still love to play it!

4.Genevieve's Waltz - Tom studied with renowned Irish fiddler Manus McGuire at Boston's Gaelic Roots workshop and also visited him and his wife Genevieve at their home in Co. Clare. This pretty waltz, which Manus wrote for his wife, comes from his first solo album, Saffron and Blue. He has also been a member of several of the most well respected groups in Irish traditional music, including Buttons & Bows, Moving Cloud, and the Brock-McGuire Band.

5.Quebec Reels: Reel de Chicoutimi/Reel St. Jean/Reel Éboulement/Dionne Reel - Andra learned this set of three Quebecois reels from Chris Norman at the Boxwood Flute Festival in Nova Scotia. Tom ends the set with the Canadian Dionne Reel that he first heard performed by the Celtic Fiddle Festival group. David adds some exciting percussion fills throughout.

6.Roan Inish Set: Theme from Roan Inish/The Mist Covered Mountain/The Butterfly/The Musical Priest/Over the Moor to Maggie/The Bucks of Oranmore - We were inspired to create this set after seeing the beautiful 1993 film The Secret of Roan Inish and hearing the incredible score by Mason Daring that incorporates a lot of traditional Irish tunes. If you haven't seen this movie yet, do yourself a favor and rent it tonight!

7.Wild Geese/Empty Pockets - This set features Andra, first on flute in a beautiful traditional air and then on Bb fife. Empty Pockets, a quickstep that appears in the 1863 Bruce & Emmett Drummer's and Fifer's Guide, is the signature tune of flutist/fifer Skip Healy (the maker of Andra's flute and fifes). Tom plays the guitar and Ben joins in with funky bass guitar licks.

8.American Set: Soldier's Joy/St. Anne's Reel/The Redhaired Boy/The Kitchen Girl - This spirited medley of four great fiddle tunes is from the old-time tradition, although one might hear any of them played at a session on occasion since they all have Scotch/Irish roots and are grand fun to play.

9.Brigid O'Malley - A traditional slow air that is a lovely duet for Tom's soulful fiddle and Andra's Celtic harp.

10.Lord of the Rings Set: Concerning Hobbits/In Dreams /Bilbo's Birthday Party - You know we must all be big J.R.R. Tolkien fans when the band is called Mithril. Howard Shore's fabulous film score for Fellowship of the Ring inspired this set. We love it when the audience joins in to help us celebrate Bilbo's 'eleventy-first' birthday!

11.Danse de Mardi Gras - Mardi Gras is a huge event on the Gulf Coast and what better way to celebrate than with a traditional Cajun tune. Tom actually had a Cajun band performing along the Gulf Coast a few years back, and Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, whom he first heard perform this tune, were a big influence on him at the time. Andra gets to play the melodica and finally put to use the keyboard skills acquired while studying for her piano proficiency exam back in college!

12.Merrily Kiss the Quaker's Wife/A Fig for a Kiss/The Choice Wife - The titles of these three tunes (a jig and two slipjigs) suggest a story of some kind, but better yet, these traditional tunes are a blast to play!

13.Kashmir/Bacchanale/Tam Lin - In keeping with our tradition of doing something totally unexpected for a Celtic band, we give you our unique and somewhat twisted spin on Led Zeppelin's classic rock tune Kashmir, paying homage to our classical roots with a bit of Camille Saint-Säens Bacchanale from Samson & Delilah. In a 'Eureka' moment during a symphony rehearsal, Tom had the idea to add the traditional reel Tam Lin (The Howling Wind) that fits amazingly well into the mix! The churning guitar is provided courtesy of Ben, thanks to the many rock/punk bands he's played with.

14.Blarney Pilgrim/John Ryan's Polka - This is our traditional encore set. So many people recognize the tunes (a jig & polka) since they were featured in the film Titanic. We are so thrilled to be able to include this version from our 2004 concert with the Mobile Symphony. What fun to perform with a 60 piece backup band!!!!