FRIDAY MUSIC: Niamh Crowley, by JD

Niamh Crowley is an Irish violinist and was a child prodigy, appearing on television at the age of five (see final video below.)

She began her musical training at the age of four and attended the Royal Irish Academy of Music for eleven years. She continued her studies in Violin and Piano at the Royal College of Music, London.Niamh works regularly with the National Symphony Orchestra, RTE Concert Orchestra, and the National Sinfonia. She is an experienced recitalist and has performed concertos with many orchestras including Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with the RTE,Concert Orchestra and Saint-Saens Violin Concerto in the National Concert Hall, Dublin.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~samusic/about.htm

Not a Theme Night - Muinera (Niamh Crowley and gang)

Not a Theme Night - Fiddle Faddle (Niamh Crowley)

Not A Theme Night - Glór Shligigh (Niamh Crowley)

Song for Guy (Niamh Crowley and Kieran Quinn)

Niamh Crowley performs 'Csárdás', a piece she also performed on The Late Late Toy Show as a child.

FRIDAY MUSIC: The Neville Brothers, by JD

The Neville Brothers were an American R&B/soul/funk group, formed in 1976 in New Orleans, Louisiana. They were four brothers; Art (1937–2019), Charles (1938–2018), Aaron (b. 1941), and Cyril (b. 1948).

The group formally disbanded in 2012 but reunited in 2015 for a farewell concert in New Orleans. Charles Neville died of pancreatic cancer on April 26, 2018, at the age of 79. Art Neville died on July 22, 2019, at the age of 81. A cause of death was not provided.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neville_Brothers

The Neville Brothers - Bird On A Wire

Neville Brothers - Yellow Moon

Healing Chant

LINDA RONSTADT - 'Don't Know Much' (feat. Aaron Neville) 1989

The Neville Brothers - Don't Take Away My Heaven (Live at Farm Aid 1994)

FRIDAY MUSIC: Lindisfarne

Trying to unravel the origin of Tyneside folk/rock band Lindisfarne and their link to founder member and principal song writer Alan Hull is enough to give anybody a headache so I will not even try. Instead I will just let you work it out for yourselves from these various links if you are so inclined:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011vbk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hull
https://www.lindisfarne.co.uk/

Sadly Alan Hull died in November 1995 at the age of 50. To those who knew him his early death was not exactly a surprise given his rather unhealthy lifestyle. He drank too much, he smoked too much and consumed too much greasy and fatty foods. The drink and the greasy food all featured in the lyrics of his songs usually in a humorous way. And his love of Newcastle United makes this week an appropriate time to celebrate his and Lindisfarne's music after the 'Toon' won their first domestic trophy for seventy years. At last, let's hope it is not another seventy years for the next one!!

Lindisfarne - Run For Home (Top Of The Pops 1978) (Remastered)

Lindisfarne Meet Me On The Corner

Lindisfarne"Lady Eleanor" 2003

Lindisfarne - Fog On The Tyne (NRK Tenmag 1972)

Coming home Newcastle (with lyrics)

FRIDAY MUSIC: Maria Muldaur, by JD

Maria Muldaur (born Maria Grazia Rosa Domenica D'Amato September 12, 1942) is an American folk and blues singer who was part of the American folk music revival in the early 1960s. She recorded the 1973 hit song “Midnight at the Oasis” and has recorded albums in the folk, blues, early jazz, gospel, country and R&B traditions.

https://mariamuldaur.com/bio

Midnight at the Oasis

Don't you feel my leg

Live in concert....

FRIDAY MUSIC: Trixie Whitley, by JD

Trixie Whitley (born June 24, 1987) is a Belgian American multi-instrumentalist. As the daughter of singer-songwriter Chris Whitley, she began her musical career playing with her father, and recording on several of his albums. Whitley has released three solo EPs, is a member of Black Dub (fronted by Daniel Lanois), and was the vocalist on their self titled debut album.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trixie_Whitley

https://trixiewhitley.com/bio

Black Dub - I'd Rather Go Blind (Bing Lounge)

Trixie Whitley - I can't stand the rain / Pieces @ Gent Jazz 2010

Trixie Whitley - Breathe You My Dreams (Bing Lounge)

Trixie Whitley - Closer [Official Music Video]

Trixie Whitley - Strong Blood (Joey Lacroix Edit)

FRIDAY MUSIC: For King & Country, by JD

For King & Country, stylised as for KING & COUNTRY and formerly known as Joel & Luke as well as Austoville, is a Christian pop duo composed of Australian brothers Joel and Luke Smallbone. The brothers were born in Australia and, with their family, emigrated to the United States as children, settling in the Nashville area.

https://www.forkingandcountry.com/

for King & Country "No Turning Back" (Official Live Room Session)

for KING & COUNTRY with Carín León – “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” | CMA Country Christmas 2024

for KING + COUNTRY - burn the ships (Official Music Video)

for KING + COUNTRY - Ceasefire - Music Video

for KING + COUNTRY - pioneers (Official Music Video)

FRIDAY MUSIC: Eddi Reader, by JD

 In the Hogmanay posts there has usually been a song or two from Eddi Reader. She deserves a post of her own.

Eddi Reader grew up in Glasgow and Irvine, Scotland and it was in those towns that she learned to use music as a vehicle for communicating with others through busking and performing at the local folk clubs. In the early 1980s, Eddi travelled around Europe with circus and performance artists before moving to London where she quickly became a sought after session vocalist. She famously harmonized with Annie Lennox touring with the Eurythmics, after her time with successful punk outfit Gang of Four. It was the short-lived but warmly remembered Fairground Attraction that really brought her into the limelight and to the attention of a much wider audience.

https://eddireader.co.uk/

Eddi Reader - Dragonflies

Eddi Reader - Patience of Angels (Live on Later) HQ

Eddi Reader - Wild Mountain Side - East Lothian Homecoming

Eddi Reader - La Vie En Rose (Jools Annual Hootenanny 2020)

Eddi Reader - In a Big Country (Live HQ)

FRY-DAY MUSIC! A dragon for St Valentine's Day

JD is experiencing technical problems, so today we repost an event from 2013: the dragon that attacked Chelyabinsk, Russia on St Valentine's Day 2013. See, they do exist!

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"A.D. 793. This year came dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across the firmament."

- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

 

In mythology, there are dragons or wyrms, but also two-legged or legless, poisonous or fiery wyverns, or lindworms. I have seen long ago but cannot now find on the Internet an engraving, possibly sixteenth century, of one of the latter, destroying whole villages with its fiery breath. I wondered then how someone could dare invent something on that scale, so disprovable.

 

And then on St Valentine's Day 2013 (or 15th February, depending on the time zone you were in at the time), one visited Chelyabinsk.

 

This time the evidence was direct and undeniable, not merely reconstructed with an artist's imagination. According to James Higham, Russians commonly drive with dashcams because of the risk of fake, compensation-seeking "accidents" like this. And so at last we got the proof, for the world to see.

 

Down it flew, a long, fiery shape with a snake-like body and no legs, its deafening roar sufficient to blow in windows and doors and knock down walls, the flames of its breath bright enough to cast shadows. Had it not landed in an ice-covered lake, but hit solid ground, the destruction would have been enormous, as it had been a century ago in Tunguska.

 

Here be dragons.

 

Images taken from this video compilation, and this.

As for the dragon music, here is a compilation...

FRIDAY MUSIC: Dan Hicks, by JD

Dan Hicks, 1941-2016

As he admits, Dan Hicks was in the right place at the right time when, after moving from Arkansas to California as a child, then cutting his musical teeth in the US’ burgeoning folk clubs, he landed in 1966 San Francisco, where the counterculture was coalescing into the city’s psychedelic revolution. As drummer with The Charlatans, he played the acid-coated residency at Virginia City’s Red Dog Saloon credited with kickstarting 1967’s short-lived summer of love, but soon struck out to lead the old-time hothouse jazz of his Hot Licks.

http://www.danhicks.net/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Hicks_(singer)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2pfYcswtVB6ncdkd5PP0H2N/psychedelic-frontiersmen-how-dan-hicks-and-the-charlatans-licked-west-coast-rock-into-shape

Dan Hicks Remembered: 1941 - 2016

Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks-Canned Music

Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks-Payday

Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks on Flip Wilson