It’s been a privilege and a delight to be making music during the past year with the illustrious NH fiddler Ellen Carlson. She’s an expert country player, well-versed in old-timey, New England and Celtic styles, and a fine bluegrass-er. Her band High Range has wide renown, and her teaching skills legendary. Lately, she, drummer Robbie Kneeland, bassist Brendan Dowd and I …
With Ken Perlman @ Summit School Winter Folk Fest
Melodic clawhammer banjo wizard Ken Perlman and I were happy to be a part of Montpelier Vermont’s Summit School Winter Folk Fest, along with Dirk Powell, Riley Baugus, the amazing Swedish fiddler Anna Lindblad (with RyanDricky), Katie Trautz and others. Tony DeMarco showed up for the after-concert jam, which threw a number of styles into a yummy musical melting pot. Collin McCaffrey, …
Tony Giblin’s CD Launch – A Promise Kept
Last night at Rory O’Connor’s Pub in Georgetown, a good number of musical friends gathered to help Tony Giblin launch A Promise Kept. Tony kindly let me play bouzouki and guitar on this one:
Summer re-cap: Natalie McMaster, Joan Osborne, Joe Deleault and more…
Finally getting around to a chronicle of some of this summer’s activities, one of which was my adventure into the musical world of Manchester NH’s composer/songwriter/pianist extraordinaire Joe Deleault. NH Screenwriter/director Ernest Thompson (‘On Golden Pond’, etc.) is just finishing a new film (headed for Sundance Film Festival) called Heavenly Angle, for which Joe has composed most of the music. …
The Nashville Years: singers and players
A lot of interesting artists and musicians recorded at my studio in Nashville during its twenty years of operation, giving me ample opportunities to make a lot of mistakes and to learn how to avoid them. Some of their names are well-known, others’ should be. Here are some of the names I remember off the top of my head. I …
Pilgrims from London
The new year got off to a great musical start when a group of lads from London called ‘Pilgrims’ made their first trip to Portsmouth to record the first half of their debut CD. The three excellent guitarist/vocalists/songwriters Harry, James and Luca were joined by ‘Mersey Beat’ specialist Dave from Liverpool on drums and yours truly on bass to produce …
Mudhook: ‘First Home’ CD
Just in time for the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival, Dave Hallowell, Peter Hale, Mike Jenneau and Alan Eaton, collectively known as Mudhook, have completed the special ‘collector’s edition’ of their new CD, here at Mill Pond Music. With charming, mostly traditional material, ringing guitars and bouzoukis, sweet fiddles, haunting low whistle and vocals sometimes rowdy, sometimes plaintive, this project exactly …
Brendan Taaffe
Brendan’s exquisite, delicate guitar playing, sweet vocals can be heard on the four tracks he recorded here. Follow this link to his website and click ‘listen’ on his his website. The two B & K 4011 mics, with ruler-flat response, did a nice job of capturing the brilliant sound of his small-bodied guitar. The solid workhorse Neumann U87 (with a …