Seasonal Music

Today I got to listen to Celtic music. It was grand. Curiously, Celtic music is - like Christmas music - a seasonal offering that's hard to find on the airwaves at any other time.

It made me wonder what it would be like to live in a world in which all music is seasonal. 

"What's that music we listen to in July, around Independence Day, with the guys who miss their mama or girlfriend and just want to drink to forget?"

"Plus they love their country. Don't forget the patriotism."

"Yeah, that."

"You are talking about country music."

"Yeah. It would be great to hear that now."

"Don't be a fool. That's still 8 months off."

Love songs, of course, would be played in the weeks' leading up to Valentine's Day. Folk music would be played around Labor Day, the music of the working man. 

Rock and roll - the music of release and anarchy - would be the music to kick off summer around Memorial Day. 

I'll leave it to the reader to decide when we should play Sinatra and the jazz singers (leading up to that most grown up of seasons, tax season?), jazz instrumentalists (November when the leaves fall like Oscar Peterson's fingers on the keyboard?), reggae (August at the peak of summer vacations?) or classical music (March, when Bach was born?)

I did say that it made me wonder. I didn't say that the idea was wonderful. 

The Late Great Micheal O Dhomhnaill

When I was fresh out of college, living north of Bellingham, WA, with my new Canadian bride, I hosted a radio show. Among the performers featured on "Celtic Folk for Celtic Folk and Other Folk" was the Bothy Band. Micheal O'Dhomhnaill, who was instrumental to its success, went on to found Relativity and Nightnoise. Last year, O'Dhomhnaill died at the early age of 54.

Here are two songs. The first is a delightful performance of Fionnghula by John McGlynn, a song I first heard performed by the Bothy Band and then again by O Dohomhnaill's last band, Nightnoise. (I would have taught it to my children if only I could have ever learned the words.) The last is performed and sung by Micheal O'Dhomhnaill with the Bothy Band, an example of his great voice and guitar playing.





I still think that Celtic music is played too rarely. It's not just that it includes the poignant and playful, but I suspect that Hendrix was inspired in part by bag pipes. Blame it on my Scottish heritage by way of Boston and then Nova Scotia, but I think that the music has a universal appeal. Enjoy.