These days we see the inexorable progress of early spring.  As dirty snow gives way to mud puddles, as slipping on the ice changes to the dripping of the ice, as parkas and boots give way to raincoats and galoshes.  To help with this transition, this week on Routes & Branches & Beyond I have the second show in the Celtic Spring series.  I have Donegal craic, google frenzy put to music, impossible time signatures for sword dancers, Breton crop circles, bright but flickering sailors, cajun bagpipes, jigs 'n talkin' drums, waves of crunchy folk rock, a banjo for Spiderman, downhome gypsy jazz and bodhrans on the brain.  

All from musicians such as Altan, Breabach, Alboka, Bleizi Ruz, Arcady, Afrocelt Soundsystem, Bourne & MacLeod, Blackbeard’s Tea Party, Boys of the Lough, Battlefield Band, Alison Brown Quartet, Black 47, and 422 (the band, not just the number).  Take off those muddy boots and join us.

Routes & Branches & Beyond show # 268 2023 03 16

We put a lot of pressure on summer, really.  An unfair amount of pressure.  I wouldn't be surprised if studies showed that summer was the most stressed of the four seasons.  We go through the short days and long pants of winter, looking toward the comforts of summer, expecting it to  cure our ills and massage our joints and bandage our wounds from a year of the chaos of our world.  Oh, and we expect the season to grow our tomatoes as well!  But that seems a tad unfair - to put all of that pressure on one season.  So maybe we should give summer, the season, a bit of slack this year?  In this spirit, this week on Routes & Branches & Beyond we have another episode of Summer on the Range for 2025.

You'll hear roaring backyard barmaids, spartan dances chock full of notes, cool Abyssinian dub for the hipster in you, Norwegian re-thinking of Irish tunes, languid americana floor pallets, rockabilly honky-tonk shimmies, sardonic cowgirl lullabies, and putting on your red dress for a dance.  From musicians such as The Bookends, The Travellers, Jascha Lieberman Trio, Tailsway, Inti-illimani, Blue Asia, Boiled in Lead, Rosemary Phelan, Gillian Welch, The Ditty Bops, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Ivan Rosenberg, Daniel Kahn & the Painted Bird, and Duo Mosaic.  Put some more ice in that tea and join me.

Routes & Branches & Beyond show # 374 2025 07 10

In the middle of a hot day, a normal human body starts to close down - to protect key organs.  Kind of like when your laptop decides to upgrade right before that big cofernece presentation!  In some cultures, there is an attempt to ignore the body's pleas for rest, and people strive to produce at the same level as always.  On the other hand, in many civilized coutnries they close down for several hours every mid-day during the hot season, or sometimes massive numbers of workers take 4 or 6 weeks off during the hottest months.  So here on Routes & Branches & Beyond we are observing these laws of the universe by relaxing into our Summer on the Range series.

Today I'll have Atlantic Canadian moose avoidance fiddles, Irish poteen anthems, nordic folk noir, Danish world travelling music, bagpipe-driven blues, pleas for peace from the voice of the 60s, odes to the transfixing solitudes of northern Ontario, heart-wrenching Latinex love ballads and Scottish dance club jigs.  All from musicians such as Mark Sullivan,Viik,Baltinget,Altan,Back Alley John, Joan Baez, Hart Rouge, Rodney Brown & the Northern Roots Band, Maná, and Capercaillie.  Set up that hammock and join me.

Routes & Branches & Beyond show # 375 2025 07 17

Today on another episode of Summer on the Range we begin in Prince Edward Island, amidst fiddles and potatoes, head to Argentina for some accordion stylings, then over to the UK to celebrate the origins of skiffle, back across the pond to a classic Newfoundland pub, down to American spacegrass territory, back over to Britain for a folk punk lesson in ideology, back to middle America for some uppity blues, over to South Africa for some classic mbaqanga jive, then back to Louisiana for a cajun-Innu crossover, then we end up back in PEI.  Hope you've got your passport with you.

All from musicians such as Barachois, Inn Echo, Acadilac, Chango Spasiuk, Van Morrison & Lonnie Donegan & Chris Barber, The Government Rams, Tony Rice Unit, Ry Cooder, Billy Bragg, Saffire, The Mahotella Queens, and Zachary Richard & Florent Vollant.  Grab your travel ginger tablets and join me.


Routes & Branches & Beyond show # 376 2025 07 24

And all of a sudden we are here in mid-summer.  We are now remembering to wear sunscreen everyday, and to pay close attention to the humidex readings and mabe already are counting the number of 30-degree days we'll still have to endure.  And maybe you're asking questions of the universe.  Like "when will my tomatoes start ripening" or "how is it that there are clouds, but not rain" or "why are the picnic tables at the park never in a shady spot" or "what will I listen to now that the record is over?"  I can't answer the first three questions, but I can help with that last one.  Just join me on this, the 377th episode of Routes & Branches & Beyond.

I have bagpipe fusion, Costa Rican reggae, women singing the blues (no doubt due to listening to too much "mansplaining") sensitive songwriters named Dave (who never "mansplain"), curious bluegrass riffs, explosive (in a good way) Canadian songstresses, Afto-Latin salsa, and session chestnuts for playing along.  All from musicians such as Rare Air, Baby Rasta Band, Native Culture, Suzie Vinnick, Tracy Nelson, David Francey, Dave Gunning, Eddie Adcock Band, Townes Van Zandt, Treasa Levasseur, Connie Kaldor, Ronald Rubinel’s Salsa Kolor, and Tim Thorne & Dave Weaver.   Keep that fiddle handy and join me.

Routes & Branches & Beyond show # 377 2025 07 31

We're still out on the range here at Routes & Branches & Beyond, and we'll be here for awhile yet.  Shucks, we aren't coming in until the fall.  No use having the smell of the house on ya in the summertime.  Instead, we'll hang out here, listening to the flatpicking that rescued country music, classics from the Dawg studios, Chicago folk blues on the road, blueberrying harps, sibling fiddle champions, songs of the British (music) invasion, secular hymns for these days of selfishness and shouting, anti-ski bum bluegrass, the sound of Picasso's mandolin, and the Queen of mean green cuisine.  

All from musicians like Chet Atkins, Jerry Garcia & David Grisman & Tony Rice, the David Bromberg Band, Martha Gallagher, Fiddlers 3, Herman’s Hermits, The Young‘uns, Speed River Valley Mountain Boys, Guy Clark, Catfish Hodge, and Fiddlin’ Johnny.  Put on a sensible hat and join us.


Routes & Branches & Beyond show # 378 2025 08 07

What a joy it is to have festival season upon us once agin!  Sure, any time of the year is good for going to concerts and rejoicing in the ability of our species to extract pleasing (and sometimes emotionally bracing) sounds from all manner of objects, including their own voices.  But there is something special about summer music festivals.  As we lay out our blankets on warm grass or struggle to set up our lawn chairs, ever joyful in the sun and mildly grumpy in the rain, gathering as a community of music lovers.  (And why do I see that same old guy with the tie dyed shirt and white straw fedora at every festival?  Maybe that old guy is me...?)   So this week, I'm playing tracks from artists I saw this past weekend at the Celtic Festival in Goderich, ON, a lovely community-infused, human-scale festival with dandy music.  

I'll play songs and tunes about larks, meadows, false lovers, long houses, midnight robbers, birthdays, police requests, wild nights, Christmas Day weddings, the coming of spring, and transatlantic proposals.  From musicians such as The Kane Sisters, Fiárock, Rachel Davis & Darren McMullen, Conor Mallon, Grosse Isle, and Rachel Hair & Ron Jappy.  Get out the patchouli incense and join me.

Routes & Branches & Beyond show # 379 2025 08 14

Espresso - Sabrina Carpenter Guitar Cover

Milk Demo

Another weekend, another folk festival.  That's how the summer rolls here in paradise  as the days slowly get shorter and the future gets dimmer.  This week on Routes & Branches & Beyond I'm playing a very small slice of artists who I heard and saw at the 50th Summerfolk festival in Owen Sound, Ontario.  Now, I will admit a bit of a conflict of interest here.  Summerfolk has a particularly strong thread in my life as a festival.  I've attended off and on (but mostly on) over the past 45 years.  It is located not far from the homestead where I grew up; it is a festival where my kids experienced the joys of a weekend live music event; it is a touchpoint that I'd return to at the "end" of the year and the beginning of another.  (I was an academic, so my year always ended in August and rose from the ashes again in September.)  But it is a space, a geography, a tradition, a community - that tends to bring out the best in performers and all of us who attend.

You'll hear music from Ryan Young, Boreal, Al Simmons, Lemon Bucket Orkestra, Luke Wallace, Mary Frances Leahy, Kobo Town, Danny Michel, and The Barrel Boys.  Get out that lawn blanket and join me.


Routes & Branches & Beyond show #380 2025 08 21

Here on Routes & Branches & Beyond we continue with our series of "Summer on the Range."  Though, to be honest, there has been a nip in the air this past week, which portends that the end of another summer is imminent and we will soon be careening into autumn (my favourite season - well, one of my three favourite seasons).  I'm hoping that the cooler weather gives a message to my tomatoes and peppers to speed up and ripen while there is still some time to set their fruits and possible reproduce (so that I can tear those sweet and spicy fruits from their stems and imprison thm in jars for winter eating - it sounds a tad cruel when I put it like that, doesn't it?).  

Today we have precision Irish dual violins, Scottish bedlam, Newfoundland random jigs, Cape Breton twisty tunes, West Coast old-time odes to spiritual heroes, Quebecois fonctionnaire shanties, hybrid grand-yet-simple jigs, and the odd subliminal Buddhist koan.  All from musicians such as The Kane Sisters, The Dardanellesm Old Blind Dogs, Eric McDonald, Karine Polwart, Brenda Stubbert, Fish & Bird, Harry Manx, Bette & Wallet, Fásta, and Bill Heffernan.  Get a jacket and join me.

Routes & Branches & Beyond show # 268 2023 03 16

Ivan Emke