Celtic Singers

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Celtic music in a all its many guises carries enormous sway all over the world. The sad nature of Irish history is such that emigration has been a major factor for Irish life over the last two centuries with the result that there barely seems to be a nation on the planet that doesn't have a cluster of its population with Irish blood.
The success of the shows Riverdance and Lord Of The Dance during the 1990s triggered an amazing upsurge in the popularity of all types of Irish culture. People in the unlikeliest far-flung outposts started looking into their history and discovering Irish ancestry. Celtic theme bars sprang up everywhere from Bradford to Beijing and after so many years of being ignored and even ridiculed as a musical backwater, Ireland was suddenly elevated to a position of international cultural eminence.

There are now outstanding Irish musicians living all over the world. especially in America - where Irish immigrants effectively kept traditional music alive when it was dying on its feet at home - but you also get a lot of aberrations masquerading in the name of Celtic music. So for the real Irish musical soul you have to go to... Ireland. Tourism and an economic boom fuelled by the Celtic tiger have brought prosperity and radically changed the face of Ireland - but not its soul. The music the real music found in the remoter areas of the country is as rich and proud and passionate and sad and beautiful and inspiring and joyful and heartfelt as it ever was.

The here are many great instrumental traditions throughout Ireland - from the legendary old fiddle players of Sligo to the travelling uilleann pipers, Galway ceili bands and the magical traditional music embedded in the Gaeltacht Irish speaking areas of Connemara, Waterford and Donegal. Such is the treasure chest of instrumental virtuosity, in fact, that the wonderful singing tradition of Ireland is often overlooked. Unlike their ancestors. who often never left their villages, let alone their county or country, the singers of today are exposed to and influenced by other cultures. Television and radio have seen to that and the spread of travel to and from Ireland has accelerated it. Yet the best of the modern generation of singers understand and draw on the spirit of those old singers to whom music was an instinctive and integral part of their social being and whose songs reflected the joy, sorrow, hardship and sense of fun that has always been such a telling part of the fabric of Irish rural life.


They certainly don't come much better than Dolores Keane, whose upbringing by her aunts Sarah and Rita Keane - both legendary traditional singers in the small farming community of Caherlistrane, Co. Galway invested in her a deep, empathy with the music and the history that had shaped it. There are many who believe that Dolores Keane is the greatest singer ever to come out of Ireland, a view that gains much weight when you hear her tackle Galway Bay, a populist song done to death down the years but given such earthy depth by Dolores it surely counts as the definitive version. Sinead O'Connor, too- who talks of the characters who populate her songs as 'ghosts' is one of the greats. Such attention is focused on her media persona and the various controversial events surrounding her life that her uniquely intense way of getting under the skin of a song is usually overlooked.

Maura O'Connell is another with a fantastic pedigree-establishing her reputation as a feisty young singer with one of the finest Irish bands of them all. De Dannan, before heading off to Nashville to conquer new fields, geographically and musically. But while you can take the singer out of Ireland and Wall Around Your Heart' is a beautiful song by the fine American singer songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter - you clearly can't take Ireland out of the singer. And nor would you want to. Not when it produces majestic performances by the likes of the Gaelic singers Maighread Ni Dhomnaill (whose brother and sister were founding members of the great Bothy Band) and Aoife Ni Fherraigh from Donegal, whose 'Seacht Suailci is effectively a hymn. The thrilling accordion player Sharon Shannon-who originally made her name as a member of The Waterboys has taken Irish traditional music into previously uncharted  territories, but 'Queen Of The West- from her very first solo album in the early '90s shows her at her best playing pure Irish music, Shannon's band also provided an early showcase for the highly inventive singer/fiddle player/folklorist Maire Breatnach, who was also one of the early members of the cast of Riverdance and a member of Donal Lunny's supergroup Coolfin. Aine Ui Cheallaigh also starred in Riverdance and has worked with the great Galway box player Mairtin O'Connor. 

Donegal singer and fiddle player Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh is now rightly regarded as one of the supreme figures in modern Irish music as the focal point of the band Altan, but the track included here catches her fresh style at an embryonic stage before she and her late husband, the flute player Frankie Kennedy, launched Altan together. At the extreme we get the harpist and singer Mary O'Hara performing Morning Has Broken' when she was making a comeback having previously given up music to become a nun following the sudden death of her young husband. American Eva Cassidy performs one of the songs that made her a posthumous star. 'Fields Of Gold', originally written by Sting, but which has now embarked on a new life as part of the furniture of Irish folk music. Niamh Kavanagh - who appeared in The Commitments and sang at the Grammys performs the song that won her the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest while Newfoundland singer Pamela Morgan shows what she can do without Figgy Duff, the pioneering Canadian Celtic band she fronted for 19 years.

At the outwardly commercial end. one of Ireland's biggest names Mary Duff and who regularly performs with Daniel O'Donnell sings one of her best known recordings 'Silver & Gold, Loretta Sullivan does the Carpenters, Rose Marie bravely tackles one of Ireland's most celebrated pub singalongs and Ryan & Rachel
O'Donnell, fresh from their 300,000 units selling 'Celtic Chillout Album' do their Titanic impression. Irrepressible, the lot of 'em.
COLIN IRWIN, September 2003


Celtic music has captivated the ears and hearts of people around the world over the past decades. It offers a vast wealth of tunes for dancing and listening, and songs for work and play, reflecting both joy and sorrow. Traditional Celtic instruments emulate the most human expressions - fiddle, flutes and harp give voice, and the bodhrán is at the heart.
Musically speaking, the modern Celtic world stretches from Ireland, Scotland and Wales, to Brittany (France), Galicia and Asturias (Spain), and across the Atlantic to Canada and parts of the United States (a result of massive French, Scottish and Irish immigration to the Americas). It essentially parallels the lands of the six Celtic languages: Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Manx (no longer spoken as a 'first language' in the Isle of Man), Welsh, Cornish and Breton.
More than 2000 years ago, Celtic-language speaking people lived throughout large parts of continental Europe. Celtic cultures survive to this day in those parts of Europe that the Romans were unable to or uninterested in conquering. The term 'Celt' comes from the ancient keltoi, which was used by the Greeks to refer to 'barbaric' tribes from these regions. If only they had listened more closely to the music!
The modern Celtic music revival was triggered, in large part, by the folk movements that grew around the world in the 1960s. While Celtic music was alive and well in some places (such as the pubs of Ireland, or the fest-noz celebrations of Brittany), it had to be recreated in others. In Wales, many of the Celtic traditions were lost during the Nonconformist movement in the eighteenth century, and musicians have had to reconstruct traditional works. By contrast, in Galicia and Asturias in Spain, Celtic languages have not been spoken for centuries, but the traditional music has Celtic roots. Over the past four decades, the movement has exploded literally in all directions, as groups like Kila, Shooglenifty and Capercaillie seamlessly incorporate jazz, rock, R&B, electronica and elements of world music with traditional Celtic sounds. Celtic music has reached new levels of popularity in virtually every corner of the globe (indeed, there are now more than 400 Celtic music festivals worldwide). This collection includes both traditional and contemporary music from all of these regions, as swirling fiddles, flutes and pipes meet the melodic trills of the harp, while guitars and mandolins are underpinned by the heartbeat rhythm of the bodhrán. It is a Rough Guide to the very best musicians creating Celtic music today.

DERVISH - With a combination of virtuosic instrumentation, touching vocals and energetic arrangements, Dervish has deservedly become one of the most popular Irish folk ensembles. This Sligo-based line-up has a mesmerizing effect on audiences around the globe, who seem captivated not just by Dervish's timeless music, but by singer Cathy Jordan's remarkable stage presence and stories about each song. 'Jig Songs' is a set of three classic jigs, with the humorous and lilting lyrics associated with infant dandling songs. The legendary blind harper and troubadour Turlough O'Carolan wrote the third jig. Although the author of the lyrics is unknown, the name of the tune is said to honour the young boy who would open the gate when O'Carolan was visiting his sweetheart, Bridget Cruise!

KILA-Dublin-based Kila are a large and playful musical outfit based around the three brothers Ó Snodaidh: Rossa, Rónán and Colm. They mix funky beats and artful percussion, classic psychedelic rock sounds and singer Rónán's guttural Gaelic rap vocals with the fiddles and uillean pipes of traditional Irish music. The result is music of epic scope and maximum danceability. The band has earned legions of rabid 'Dead-head-style fans around the world - over the last few years they have played in twenty-five countries on four continents (including four WOMAD festivals), and have seen their albums achieve gold and platinum sales status in Ireland.

MERCEDES PEÓN - Mercedes Peón hails from Galicia, where she is part of a generation of feisty young women who are driving Spanish Celtic music in exciting new directions. Her vocal prowess is impressive and expressive: on one song she gently croons a lullaby, while on the next her raptor-like shriek pierces the air and stands your hair on end. Although she blends electronics into her mix, her love for the deep traditions of Galician vocal music is evident in the careful way she captures the sound, spirit and essence of the great female vocalists who have come before.

CAPERCAILLIE-Over the past two decades, Capercaillie has woven an intricate blend of traditional Scottish melodies on fiddles, whistles, pipes, accordion and bouzouki, and popular music with touches of African, Latin and Arabic rhythms. Add the exquisite vocals of Karen Matheson and, boom, it is a sound that has captivated audiences worldwide. In recent years the band seems to be popping up everywhere. There was the soundtrack to Rob Roy, the collaboration with Equatorial Guinea's 'Hijas Del Sol' ('Daughters Of The Sun'), and even the first Gaelic single to hit the Top 40 in the UK. Matheson began singing by listening to her grandmother, a singer from the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides. That is where she learned the puirt-a-beuls (Celtic mouth music) and 'waulking songs' (music sung traditionally to the beating of wool cloth into felt). Her vocal range is simply remarkable- as is her list of loyal fans, who include 007 himself, Sean Connery.

NATALIE MacMASTER-Celtic's musical roots extend on both sides of the Atlantic. On Cape Breton Island (Nova Scotia, Canada), half of the population is of Scottish ancestry, and one of that province's greatest stars is Natalie MacMaster, who has been wowing audiences with her incendiary fiddle playing and step dancing since she was a child. Natalie first picked up the instrument at the age of 9, and began performing publicly when she was a teenager. Since then, her tours have taken her from Alaska to Antarctica. Her skills are always in demand, and she has performed with international talents as diverse as The Chieftains, Alison Krauss, Paul Simon, Carlos Santana and Luciano Pavarotti.

SKOLVAN - The title of this song, 'Bal Plinn Du Vertige' ('The Vertigo Plinn Ball'), refers to the imagined wooziness of dancing a spirited plinn high on the ramparts of a central Breton chateau. One can only imagine why! In this tune we hear the original Skolvan line-up of Youenn Le Bihan (a brilliant player of all kinds of pipes), Gilles le Bigot (guitarist and sometimes member of Kornog), Fañch Landreau and Yann-Fañch Perroches. The album Swing And Tears was awarded the critics' choice for Album of the Year by both Trad magazine in France and the UK's fRoots in 1994.

OLD BLIND DOGS - Contrary to what this band's name suggests (elderly, optically challenged musicians), the Old Blind Dogs are in fact a dynamic group of young Scots at the heart of the modern Celtic revival. Their trademark sound is centred around the gritty fiddling of founding member Jonny Hardy and Jim Malcolm's moving vocals. In 2004, Malcolm was named Songwriter of the Year at the 2004 Scots Traditional Music Awards. The line- up also includes Rory Campbell (small pipes), Aaron Jones (bouzouki, guitar, bass) and Fraser Stone (percussion). The group is rooted in Aberdeenshire on Scotland's northeast coast, a region rich in folk songs and fiddle traditions. 'Monymusk Lads' is a traditional night-visiting song.

KORNOG-Kornog has been creating exemplary Breton Celtic music since 1980. Two things set this band apart from the pack: the band was created by ex-Battlefield Band singer and bouzouki player Jamie McMenemy, who brings his uniquely Scottish influence; and the group has always focused in large part on mid-tempo tunes and ballads not intended for dancing, in contrast to most Breton music, whether it is played by smaller ensembles like Skolvan or huge fest-noz bombarde, binou, large-pipe and drum bands. That said, the lively plinn (a traditional dance from Brittany) here is in fact a dance tune. Kornog is the Breton word for 'west', and this piece comes from the anagrammatically titled album Korong, named for the river that runs through Brittany.

LLAN DE CUBEL-Launched in 1984, Llan de Cubel is one of the leading exponents of traditional Asturian folk music (a Celtic region neighbouring Galicia in northern Spain). The band's songs are predominantly acoustic, with bagpipes, fiddle, wooden flute, Asturian drums, accordion, acoustic guitar and bouzouki. The group has carried out extensive research into the ancient folk music of Asturia, through both field research and archival work. These form the basis of their repertoire, which includes alboraes (dawn) tunes), marches, religious music, vaqueiraes (mountain songs) and villancicos (carols).

CELTIC FIDDLE FESTIVAL -The liner notes to Celtic Fiddle Festival's ground- breaking album Rendezvous begin: 'A Scotsman, an Irishman, and a Frenchman walked into a bar...' There isn't a punchline about the trio's sexual exploits. That trip to a pub, in fact, led to a brilliant collaboration between three talented fiddlers: Kevin Burke (Ireland), the late Johnny Cunningham (Scotland) and Christian LeMaître (France, also of the group Kornog). Celtic Fiddle Festival seamlessly bring together the regional folk repertoires of three lands, and unite them with magnificent precision to create a pan-Celtic, border-defying tour de force. 'Laridé/Gavotte' is a fast-paced Breton dance from Pontivy.

BOHOLA-Bohola is a wonderful Irish traditional group from Chicago. Led by accordionist Jimmy Keane, the band displays a particular talent for creating challenging and unlikely sets that stray outside of the common 'all- jigs' or 'all-reels' mould. A typical Bohola set may start with an air or slow reel followed by a ballad, then morph into a hornpipe and finish with a jig. This short song is pure nostalgia for the simple life of 'old' Ireland, a place that knew nothing of today's digital infrastructures and new money. It's worth seeing a Bohola show for Keene's acerbic wit and the band's between- song banter alone!

TEADA - Téada (the word means 'strings' in Irish Gaelic) is a young band of musicians who have quickly established themselves as leaders in the traditional Irish session scene. Bandleader Oisín Mac Diamarda learned his fiddling in County Clare and in Sligo, integrating the best of both traditions into his deft and lyrical style of playing. He also holds an honours degree in Music Education. The group has received multiple nominations and awards from Irish Music Magazine and keeps a busy touring schedule

NIAMH PARSONS-When Ireland's Niamh Parsons sings, her captivating voice demands immediate and rapt attention. As a balladeer, she is in very select company, enjoying frequent comparisons with June Tabor and Dolores Keane. This traditional-style song, written by Joseph Campbell (1879-1944), is a more recent addition to the Irish ballad repertoire. Although she is spectacular when her voice is given sparse accompaniment, one should also explore Parsons' work with her band The Loose Connections. Her duet version of Tom Waits' 'The Briar And The Rose', featuring Fran McPhail, is simply not to be missed.

FFYNNON-Ffynnon is one of the leading exponents of Welsh Celtic music. Drawing upon research into Welsh music as far back as the seventeenth century, this haunting trio fuses ancient with modern in their stark arrangements (accordion, keyboard, guitar, bodhrán) and a touch of jazz. 'The musical tradition in Wales is extremely robust,' they explain. 'After all, this is the "Land of Song" and that's a label which developed during the religious period, when the Welsh realized that they could beat the English at major singing competitions in London, and in the mid-1870s there were 40,000 singers (mostly choral) competing at the Llanelli National Eisteddfod [National Arts Competition]!"

ALAN STIVELL- Alan Stivell was born Alan Cochevelou in 1944, in Gourin, Brittany. His interest in Celtic music was sparked when his father. reconstructed an ancient Celtic harp in 1953. As a teenager, he began learning the Breton language, and also several traditional instruments from the region, including the bombarde (a double-reeded wind instrument) and the Breton bagpipes. By the mid-1960s, he began experimenting with modern music. His recordings became mega-hits: for example, a live recording at the Olympia in Paris in 1972 with Breton compatriots Dan Ar Braz and Gabriel Yacoub sold 1.5 million copies. As the folk revival began to fade in the late 1970s, Stivell moved more towards electronic music. 'Cease Fire' is from his album Brian Boru, which was dedicated to the legendary Irish chieftain who defeated the Vikings.

THE POOZIES -The Poozies are an ever-evolving pan-Celtic outfit originally formed by two electro-harpists, Patsy Seddon and Mary McMaster (aka Sileas), along with vocalist Sally Barker. For a short while, the group also boasted the voice of folk megastar Kate Rusby. The current line-up includes Seddon and McMaster with accordion player Karen Tweed and fiddler Eilidh Shaw, all of whom are busy with various solo and side-projects. The Poozies: are known for glorious vocal harmonies, a widely varied repertoire (which includes music from across Europe) and a free-spirited approach to arranging. FLOOK-Flook burst on to the scene in 1999 with a stellar debut album called Rubai, featuring an unlikely pair of lead instruments: two flutes. The award- winning Anglo-Irish quartet (from Manchester, England) is known for spontaneous and energetic live sets in which band members shift effortlessly between guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, accordion and bodhrán, and audiences always end up on their feet. In particular, band founder Sally Allen is renowned for her jaw-dropping stamina and agility in concert.

SHOOGLENIFTY- Scotland's visionary Shooglenifty has created a genre of a electronica-inspired acoustic music that stands alone. The self-proclaimed 'acid-crofters' are musical alchemists who take as much influence from electronica and progressive rock as they do from traditional Celtic music. What a heady blend it is: hypnotizing rhythmic underpinnings, brilliantly subtle thematic segues, and stellar playing by all. There's nothing like a Shooglenifty show to turn even the most inveterate wallflower into a sweaty, grinning, whirling dervish on the dancefloor. The track 'Glenuig Hall' comes from the band's fourth studio album, The Arms Dealer's Daughter.
Philly Markowitz is a broadcaster whose world-music programme Roots and Wings has been heard across Canada on CBC Radio since 1992 (http://cbc.ca/rootsandwings). She is also a print journalist, concert promoter, event emcee, DJ and songwriter. Philly lives beside the Saugeen River in Grey County, Ontario, with her husband and their two free-range kids.
Dan Rosenberg has crisscrossed the globe in search of regional folk music traditions. To date, he has been to more than forty countries, and has lugged back an eclectic collection of recordings and musical instruments to Toronto, Canada, where he works as a journalist for fRoots, the Rough Guides, Outpost and Afropop Worldwide Radio.

The Rough Guide To Celtic Music