Sligo Live will be competing against the Smithwicks Cat Laughs festival for the June Bank Holiday crowds and the gateway to the West is nailing its folk colours firmly to the mast. The festival runs from Friday evening through to Monday and in addition to the three major gigs in the racecourse marquee there are also upwards of 50 sessions planned. The Sligo Sessions will involve top traditional musicians from all over the country and the US, including present and former members of leading groups such as Dervish, Solas, Teada and Danu.
Sligo Live has just released details of more than 40 musicians in the line-up and many others are expected to arrive for impromptu sessions over the weekend.
Those mentioned so far include Solas members Mick McAuley and Winnie Horan, who have just released a new album together; Shane Mitchell, Brian McDonagh and Michael Holmes of Dervish; Oisin McDiarmada and Damien Stenson of Teada; and Noel Ryan of Danu.
All in all, the list is like a Who’s Who of the traditional scene and also features Peter Carberry, Siobhan Peoples, Tola Custy, Paul McSherry, Liz Kane, Declan Sheridan, Bernadette MacGabhann, to name just a few.
Local players include the piper Jarlath McTiernan, who has toured with Lord of the Dance; his father Kevin, an outstanding flute-player; the accordionist Kevin O’Brien; and Gerry Harrington, the Kerry fiddler living in Sligo who recently recorded an album with legendary flute-player Peter Horan.
The marquee at Sligo Racecourse is where the main action will take place. Sligo’s home team Dervish headline the first night’s show with a bill that also features Declan O’Rourke, Ron Sexsmith and Duke Special. Saturday night’s headliners are The Proclaimers, though for many the high point of the evening will be an appearance by the re-formed Midnight’s Well featuring Thom Moore, Janie Cribbs, Gerry O’Beirne and Mairtin O’Connor. Bringing up the rear in a crammed evening of music will be Kate Rusby, The Border Collies, Seamie O’Dowd and Rick Epping, the Nocros Quartet and Colin And Nicola Gillen. Sunday Night is headlined by Sinead O’Connor and again the bill is laden with great acts including Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, Solas, Mairead and Triona Ni Dhomnaill, The Guggenheim Grotto and Peter Horan. As well as individual daily tickets there is also a weekend ticket available. The sessions continue through to Monday for those who can’t drag themselves back to the real world.
Also keeping it local, County Clare is spreading out the attractions over a longer period with a season entitled ‘The Riches of Clare’ aimed at bringing the huge wealth of traditional musicians living in the Banner County to venues in every corner of it.
This is the second year of the series and it is greatly expanded on this occasion. The season kicked off in Vaughan’s Barn in Kilfenora on May 24 but there is still a vast array of concerts to be seen throughout June and July featuring Sean Tyrell, Siobhan Peoples, Tola Custy, Alan Kelly and others. There are details of all the shows available from the Clare Arts Office.
Let’s hope it’s not a Slow Train Coming but the Kilkenny Source Festival has announced it will be laying on a special train service ‘THE BOB DYLAN TRAIN’ to bring fans to Kilkenny when the redoubtable Mr. Dylan performs there on Saturday 24 JUNE 2006
The Train will leave Heuston Station 10.30am and will arrive in Kilkenny Station and the return journey will leave Kilkenny at midnight – 1 hour after the show. Return Train Tickets are priced at €45.
Back in Dublin you’ll be able to catch Ron Sexsmith at Whelans on Saturday 3 if you didn’t make the trip to Sligo. He kicks off a month in which the venue will also have a visit from Ronan O Snodaigh who is pressing his Playdays band into service for a few shows. Ronan’s show is on Thursday 8.
Later in the month Scottish singer Karine Polwart makes her long awaited first foray onto an Irish stage in Whelan's with a show on Monday 26. Her songs are not the introspective stuff you might expect from a female singer-songwriter steeped in the folk-roots scene. Stirlingshire-born, she grew up at a time when Scottish guitar bands like Big Country and Simple Minds roamed the earth and although she had an epiphany of sorts listening to Dick Gaughan her musical vision is broader than the tradcore folk scene.
Having worked for years as a campaigner in the areas of anti-violence and children’s rights as well as a stint working in a women’s refuge the material on her current album Scribbled In Chalk contains some iron fists wrapped in velvet gloves with sex trafficking as the subject to the deceptively jaunty ‘Maybe There’s A Road’ and the lullaby simple 'Baleerie Baloo' telling the tale of a Scots missionary who died in Auschwitz as a consequence of helping Jewish children in Budapest.
Her last album won her Best Album, Best Original Song and The Horizon Award at last year BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. This time round she’s been working with the same band over a couple of years and she’s confident she can match the varied moods of the record onstage.
Having nailed down some great reviews for his Third Twin solo album Eoin Dillon and his collaborators from that album – Steven Larkin on fiddle and violin, Frank Tate on Bouzouki and Des Cahalan on Guitar are set to play a few live shows including a June 10 show in The Cobblestone in Smithfield.
He is also taking part in POBAL’s Ródseó na Gaeilge with the cream of Irish language musicians, poets and performing artists in Belfast’s Linen Hall Library which is currently running and continues into early.
Also at the Cobblestone Mike Hanrahan and Leslie Dowdall are taking up residence during June where every Tuesday night sees them perform with a different special guest.
Mike will be kept busy during June and July too as he is also touring with Ronnie Drew and Eleanor Shanley who are embarking on a tour of theatres and arts centres around the country taking in everywhere from Armagh to Kerry.
Compass Records continues its expansion into the traditional music area with the announcement that it has purchased the physical distribution rights to the Green Linnet Records catalog and its affiliated world music label, Xenophile, from Digital Music Group Inc.  In a creative arrangement with a distinctly 21st century twist, DMGI purchased the assets of Green Linnet and simultaneously closed on a deal with Compass Records for the exclusive rights to the physical sales of the Green Linnet catalogs, including the retail, website and mail order business.
Green Linnet has been mired for years in a number of disputes with its own artists and hopefully this development will see some of the label’s key signings receiving a breath of life into their catalogues.
Compass Records co-founder Garry West is excited by the opportunities that the synergy between the Green Linnet brand and Compass Record’s burgeoning roster of Celtic artists will create. “Green Linnet is the best known brand in Celtic music and over its 30 year history the label has cultivated and educated several generations of Celtic music fans," he says. We look forward to carrying that torch into the future and, with our 2 catalogs, becoming the go-to point for Celtic music CDs."