Killdeer String Band

Sailing Into Walpole's Marsh

Snaklab

The Basso

Femspring - Flodens Dod - Schankheden

The Brexit

Ruby Rakes perform fiddle tune Salt Creek at the 2025 Anchorage Folk Festival.

Salt Creek

It could be that, in your domicile these days, there is a certain focus on "spring cleaning."  Sometimes this is simply a focus for conversation and good intentions.  Though occasionally, it may actually materialize into concrete actions such as sweeping under the couch or washing the wall behind the fridge or checking through the cans well beyond their best-before dates in the back of the cupboard.  Here at Routes & Branches & Beyond, it means cleaning off a shelf and playing the music that I've been meaning to get to all winter.  

I'll have incessant and driving Cape Breton fiddle (just like the rain there...), legendary Irish quartets devoted to your own good health, traditional government rams, celtic punk attitude from the suburbs, deep folk from the west, Scottish moist-eyed tributes, heavy wood from a guitar guru, lush love fiddles, thrift store americana, NL cultural anthems, and old-timey chamber music from York County.  All from musicians such as Andrea Beaton, Planxty, The Government Rams, The Swinish Multitude, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Dougie Maclean, Don Ross, Jay Ungar & Molly Mason, The Rough & Tumble, Tarahan, Shane MacGowan & the Popes, and The Creaking Tree String Quartet.  Get out a new broom and join me.


Routes & Branches & Beyond show # 369 2025 05 08

Cover of traditional song, recorded for Jeanette Kotowich solo dance performance Kisiskâciwan

Buffalo Gals

Gabrielle Marie

And the summer continues, here at Routes & Branches & Beyond!  This is episode 11 of "Summer on the Range," which you'll be excused for referring to as "the endless summer."  But there are just a couple more chances to ride the range before heading to more scripted theme shows.  So enjoy the freedom while you can.  I'll have stately morris marches, radically democratic folk rock, Eastern Ontario gopher fiddle, high-tech hoedowns, deperate pioneer Canadiana, west coast trombone revelry, geeky trad blues, post-communist Polish folk tunes, bittersweet country swing songs of relationship implosion (twice), and four Nordy lads with a Limerick lass.  From musicians such as Leveret, The Levellers, Gopher Baroque, Onion Honey, Yusef/Cat Stevens, Beoga, Oh Susanna, Chris Whiteley, Warsaw Village Band, Celtic Social Club, Arlen Roth, and Rick La Riviere and the Best Laid Plans.  Leave the salsa canning until tomorrow and join me.


New tracks tagged #Stringband