Name: Routes & Branches & Beyond show #322 2024 04 18 by Ivan Emke
Duration: 1 h

You may not be aware, but there is a keen competition underway at this time of the spring that your usual media outlets have likely ignored.  Of course, I'm referring to the annual Fool's Gambit - the race to plant a garden!  This is the struggle to be the first in your township to get your garden in, no matter what the experts say (because you know better, right?).  You watch the sky like a sailor, looking for clues to next week's weather.  You create shelters from pop bottles and plastic and 1x2s to protect the tender seedlings from the elements.  You coax the seeds from the soil, spending hours hunched over recently-planted rows, pleading with the goddesses of unreasonably-early fertility.  You are engaging in ritual dances to assuage the frost spirits.  And of course, you end up replanting whole sections three weeks later...!  Oh, and it can be called a Fool's Gambit, because by the end of June all of the plants in all the gardens are at about the same state of maturation, no matter when they were planted.  Though that doesn't keep me from engaging in the race every year!

For a respite from this stress, this week we have the last of the series on Celtic Spring here on Routes & Branches & Beyond.  We have songs and tunes about wing commanders, peculiar ferrets, green bushes, shoals, skylarks, merry sisters, hash (not the expensive kind), false young men, good beer, speedy ploughs and a mess of feathers.  From bands such as Nomos, Nightingale, Siobhan Miller, Ceolbeg, Kenneth & Angus MacKenzie, Mackeel, Dallahan, Malinky, Lúnasa, Allison Lupton, Donal Lunny, Matt Molloy & Paul Brady & Tommy Peoples, and Aiden Coffey et al.  Put down that packet of seeds and join me.

Routes & Branches & Beyond show #322 2024 04 18

This is the April 21, 2024 edition of Georgian Bay Roots Radio, hosted by Lloyd Lemon. 
In this episode Lloyd presents music inspired by live shows by RPR, Sue Foley, Colin Linden, and Shawn Kellerman.  These experiences are supplemented by connections with other summerfolk artists, new music, and new to him music that he’s experienced over the past few months.  Artists featured include: Fred Penner; RPR, Lucy MacNeil, Sue Foley, Ruthie Foster, Colin Linden, Harrison Kennedy, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Jay Linden, Adrian Sutherland, Shawn Kellerman and Carlos Del Junco with honorable mention of Terra Lightfoot. 
#summerfolk  #podcast  #georgianbayroots  #georgianbayrootsradio;  #fredpenner; #rpr, #lucymacneil, #suefoley, #ruthiefoster, #colinlinden, #harrisonkennedy, #blackieandtherodeokings, #jaylinden, #adriansutherland,  #shawnkellerman, #carlosdeljunco, and #terralightfoot

Episode #392 Apr 21 2024 (With Lloyd)

some gin and some coca cola

to see night become day

never too late to change

if we were loved from birth

and i'm wearing a false fur white coat like Ken from Barbie

which way now

"There is nothing new under the sun."  "And behold, all things shall be made new."  I read these competing visions in some sacred scripture somewhere - maybe the Upanishads, or the Qur'an, or the Ghagavad Gita, or the Tripitaka, or maybe the slimmed-down Bible after they banished the apocrypha.  Who knows?  That's the trouble when you get very ecumenical in your sources of inspiration - the scattered bits of wisdom all start to look alike - often because they are constantly borrowing from each other.

"What does this have to do with music," you ask?  Well, today on Routes & Branches & Beyond I'm playing a set of music that is relatively new to this world.  Yes, it is all new, but it often borrows from the past and from other traditions.  So it is new, but it is not new.  OK?  Got that, Grasshopper?  

We'll hear about dewy dells of Yarrow, fire walking, new jackets, yacht money, flying beetles, torn calico (there's a story there...), lonely roads, and advice for the wicked.  From musicians like Rum Ragged, Sultans of String, Wayne Muggridge, David Francey, James Gordon & his Exceptional Ensemble, and Reverie Road.  Turn off that canned muzak and join me.

Routes & Branches & Beyond show #323 2024 04 25

Inspired by the gonzo reporting of @owensoundlivearchive, Georgian Bay Roots walks you through one weekend of live music (plus some road tunes along the way) in this corner of the world.  

Friday night kicks off with a Thresher (Owen Sound) live show, a Saturday afternoon at Four Winds Festival's Emerging Artist Showcase means songs from Equal (Oshawa), Isla-Maria (Gravenhurst), Odd Marshall (Port Elgin), Jessie Corrigan and the Neustadt Sound and Taylor Abrahamse (Peterborough). 

 Road tunes back to the Scenic City are supplied by Natlak (Vancouver), fronted by former Summerfolk Youth Discovery winner Sterling Mackenzie, and The Apes Have Landed (Taiwan), an far flung outfit of Owen Sound, think Clock Strikes, expats.  Saturday night is Jazzmyn's with Larry Jensen and Pete Devlin and Sunday afternoon is wiled away with a Katie Gleiser recital of Debussy and Ravel masterworks, spoken for on today's show with a Ravel piece for piano and strings, performed by Sweetwater Festival performers Philip Chiu and Cameron Crozman. 

New tracks from Drew McIvor (Walter's Falls) and Bodies of Water (Meaford) ease you into Sunday evening and, hopefully, a great week.

Chapter 1 (A Road To Somewhere)

Georgian Bay Roots #393 April 28, 2024 (Tom)

If you live in the upper part of the Northern Hemisphere and you have any interest in growing things, this is a busy time of year for you.  And like me, you may be spending a lot of time in the potting shed, working on garden plans, mixing soil and amendments, nursing the tender shoots of your transpants, revising your earlier garden plans, and generally trying to balance the hopes and fears of the northern gardener.  So today on Routes & Branches & Beyond I have the first of a couple of shows of Music for the Potting Shed.  

You'll hear Welsh triple harp & pibgorn, percussive mariners, close New England harmonies, upstate New York history, reggae pioneers meet outlaw country, prairie roots meet Appalachian old-time, Saskatoon blues angels, St. John's rebels, and chamber folk from Daniel's Harbour.  From musicians such as Crasdant, Steve Knightley & Seth Lakeman & Jenna, Fairport Convention, Meridian, Joe Crookston, Ed Miller, Toots and the Maytals & Willie Nelson, Bill Bourne, Len O’Neill, Oh my darling, Patty Griffin, Suzie Vinnick, Suzie LeBlanc, and Ferintosh.  Pick up that trowel and join me.

Routes & Branches & Beyond show #322 2024 04 18

Ivan Emke

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