John is one of the first musicians I met when I started exploring the idea of moving back to New England from Nashville. I think it was in 2005, just after spending a wonderful week in upstate NY accompanying world-renowned fiddler Craig Duncan, a long-time colleague who was being inducted into the Northeast Fiddler’s Hall of Fame. I stepped into a Portsmouth Irish Pub, Quigley’s (Tony Giblin was the proprietor) and landed in my very first Irish music session. John was gracious and welcoming and it’s been a delight to work with him on this collection of well chosen, delicately and movingly performed songs. Boston’s pre-eminent Irish fiddler Laurel Martin, multi-instrumentalist Mark Roberts, Chris ‘Junior’ Stevens are among the fine players gracing the project.
