Good Music: CDs worth buying

As a small-business owner, I recommend that you support your local businesses or buy directly from the artists. For CDs in the Boise area, look to the Record Exchange or Wee Bit O’Scotland.

Although they’re not quite ‘local’, both Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores near the Boise Town Square Mall have a fair selection of decent CDs, in addition to the typical popular-music trash. At least the employees are local.
If you can’t find what you want locally, here are a few good sources.

www.greentrax.com
www.footstompin.com/music/

A bit of morality: When you burn a CD, you are cheating not just the publisher, but the artists as well.
This list is by no means exhaustive or definitive, just some recordings I like to listen to repeatedly. The list is in no particular order -- simply good chaos.

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Willie Hunter & Violet Tulloch
Leaving Lerwick Harbor
1995 Greentrax Recordings

Shetland Island fiddle giant -- a great CD, professionally recorded, but with the comfortable feeling of a home recording. Mr. Hunter recorded these tracks in January 1994, shortly before his death.

Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh & Frankie Kennedy
Ceol Aduaidh
1983 Gael-Linn, 1994 Green Linnet Records

First released as an LP, it is now on CD. Only 38 minutes long, but each track is a great example of Irish music. Fiddle and flute sound great together. Traditional music researched by superb musicians.

 

Deaf Shepherd
Synergy
1997 Greentrax Recordings

A band that deserves to be heard more often, I am a particular fan of the track “Huntin’ the Buntin”. The vocals and instrumental work are top-notch.

John Hartford
Hamilton Ironworks
2001 Rounder Records

This is a ‘controversial’ album in my house. I love it, my family doesn’t, so I listen to it mostly when no one is around. It is a musical scrapbook, something of a fiddle-autobiography by John Hartford, done in the days when he knew he didn’t have much time left. He fiddles the tunes, in his style, and sings a bit of his connection to each tune-- the fiddlers he learned them from and the situations they where played in. For fun, listen to a Scottish Country Dance version of Monymusk, then listen to the version on this CD. I have been a John Hartford fan for decades, and this is a posthumous release, so perhaps I’m sentimental about it. Too bad. I like it.
Other Hartford albums I’d recommend are The Fun of Open Discussion, with Bob Carlin on banjo (1995, Rounder Records), Wild Hog in the Red Brush (1996, Rounder Records), Me Oh My, How the Time Does Fly (1976-1987, Flying Fish Records), and Live from Mountain Stage (2000, Blue Plate Music).

Nathan Milstein
Johann Sebastian Bach, Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin
1975 Polydor International GmbH, Hamburg

First issued in a multiple LP version, a gift from my grandmother in the early 1980s, this has been re-issued on 2 CDs. Not a period performance, but for anyone interested in the violin, this is a CD to ponder. At times, you will be certain you’re hearing 2 fiddles, but it’s Mr. Milstein by himself.

Boys of the Lough
Midwinter Night’s Dream
1996 Blix Street Records

I bought this album at a Boys of the Lough concert in Boise, March 1997. They put on a great show. Aly Bain was with the group at the time, and his bow work was amazing to see. Although it appears to be a winter/holidays album, I listen to it year-round.

Speaking of Christmas albums, here are a few that are definitely hearing more than once.
A Scottish Christmas (Bonnie Rideout, Maggie Sansone, Al Petteway, 1996 Maggie’s Music) Wonderful arrangements of Christmas and fiddle tunes.
Cold Fusion: Fiddlesticks Christmas (200 Fiddlesticks, www.fiddle-sticks.com) This is a Utah band, and the title is a play on the University of Utah discovery of “Cold Fusion.” Unlike that discovery, this one actually works. A family band, I still am amazed at the maturity of the kids’ playing. ‘Good King Wenceslas’ begins in an Eastern European mood, then travels over to the British Isles.
The Bells of Dublin, The Chieftains & Friends (1991, BMG Music) Everyone has heard of the Chieftains, so I’ll just add that I like this is a decent holiday album.

Shetland Fiddle Music
Scottish Tradition 4
School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh
1993 Greentrax Recordings

This is the pure, rough stuff. Field recording of (mostly) older fiddlers, recorded live in the 1970s. It starts out with a version of Soldier’s Joy, recorded at a dance, and moves through several tunes. There are tracks where the fiddler describes what’s going on in the tune, and this will stress your accent-interpreting abilities, but what comes through is the Scandinavian influence in Shetland fiddle tunes, particularly in the various versions of ‘Flowers of Edinburgh’.

Muriel Johnstone & Keith Smith
Campbell’s Birl
2004 Scotscores, www.scotscores.com

All instrumental, fiddle and piano, these are Scottish Country Dance sets. If you’re curious about this type of music, this is a good album to start with.

The Fuzzy Mountain String Band
1995 Rounder Records

A re-issue of two LPs recorded in 1971 and 1972. Hippies playing old-time music, just puts me in mind of the era. The music has held up over the years, old-time is old-time, while so much of the ‘progressive’ string band music now sounds hopelessly dated.

Susan Kevra’s Full Swing
2001 Great Meadow Music
www.greatmeadowmusic.com

Contradance music that works well as listening music. The liner notes are superb -- a 23-page booklet containing info on the music and dance instructions.