Album Cover

Destination: Scotland

Musical Album: Adoon Winding Nith (Whitefall Records) recorded by Emily Smith and Jamie McClennan

A GUEST POST by Kerry Dexter

Today, as I settle in to my Paris apartment, Kerry Dexter brings us musical travel to Scotland with the Scottish National poet, Robert Burns.

Toasting the New Year with Auld Lang Syne: when the name of Robert Burns comes up, that might be what you first call to mind . A well known song indeed, and he wrote a few others you likely know, among them My Love is Like a Red Red Rose and Comin’ Through the Rye. When Emily Smith and Jamie McClennan started thinking about doing an album of Burns songs, though, they wanted to go beyond the expected.

McClennon and Smith

They did that, in several ways in Adoon Winding Nith. Smith, award winning Scots Singer of the Year, and McClennan, who plays fiddle, guitar, and other instruments,  began building the album around songs connected with Dumfries and Galloway, an area in the southwest of Scotland which was the poet’s home for much of his life. It is also where Smith grew up, and in her own writing,  a landscape she often explores. The pair added several lesser known Burns songs, and a few well known ones, Smith says, “just because we like them!”

The result is a balanced and engaging program, which serves the Scottish national bard’s work well and showcases Smith’s and McClennan’s individual gifts and their creative work as a duo.

• The opening cut, Adoon Winding Nith, is an upbeat treatment of a happy song in which Burns moves quickly from musing on the charms of the River Nith to the charms of a lovely lady. It will have you taping your foot to the beat as the story unfolds.
• Silver Tassie is  a reflective ballad of a man heading off to war and leaving his beloved, which Smith and McClennan handle with gentleness and grace.
• You can almost see the lively farmer and his happy wife dancing along  in The Plooman.
• The eleven tracks wind to a quiet yet powerful close with Burns’ song of brotherhood and equality, A Man’s a Man for a’ That.

Smith and McClennan invite you in to the songs with singing and playing which, while staying true to spirit and tradition, make the music sound as fresh as though the songs were written yesterday. You have to think Robert Burns would approve.

Kerry Dexter suggested songs for Scotland last year, and she gives us music to accompany the Great American Road Trip each Wednesday over at Music Road. Thanks, Kerry. I love Robert Burns down to earth poetry, and I’m sure I’ll like the musical version as well.

What music do you listen to that reminds you of a country you’ve visited? Remember that your comments enter you in the Bella Italy Contest. And please share this interesting post with friends on Twitter or Facebook (handy buttons below).

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library

©2010 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Mel Gibson, Braveheart Poster in Julie's Office

Destination: Scotland

Movie: Braveheart

Chasing Mel

A Guest Post by Julie Sturgeon

My husband is the one who chose to see the newly opened movie Braveheart that weekend in May 1995, and I went along knowing absolutely nothing about the story other than it was a Mel Gibson film. With looks like that, he could read legal proceedings and I’d sit there counting it money well spent.

I walked out 3 hours later with a new obsession.

I couldn’t get enough information about this William Wallace and his Scotland. I expressed it in the usual ways: saw Braveheart 5 times in the theater, bought the letterbox version of the movie, snagged the cutout stand from a local video store, custom framed the full-sized movie poster in my office. And then I joined a Braveheart discussion board and virtually met people from around the world who counted themselves as “big fans” to say the least.

One of the couples living in Scotland decided to host a convention in 2000, complete with an historian who would lead the group to Wallace historical sites, a private showing of the movie, and a feast with dancing at Stirling Castle. The same day I learned the dates, my mailbox spit out an ad for an Indiana University alumni travel trip to Stirling, Scotland over those same dates. Translation: awesome travel package price.

When God hits me on the head with a hammer that hard, I usually get the message .

I told my husband to enjoy studying for his master’s degree, grabbed my passport and spent three days devoting every waking moment to Braveheart. The IU Scotland group, of course, had a daily agenda like all group travel plans. I simply didn’t show up for their program. .

Instead, I walked through the church where they believe Wallace lived as a child, and stood at the well outside Glasgow where he was likely betrayed. We climbed every one of those winding staircase steps to the top of the Wallace Monument. I danced with cast members James Robinson II (young William Wallace) and Andrew Weir (young Hamish), now teenagers, in a medieval costume to the sounds of a Scottish pipe band.  A Paramount film crew captured much of it on tape, with excerpts shown on The Discovery Channel.

I wound up my travel weekend at a private showing of Braveheart, in an audience that included John Murtaugh, whose mug as Lochlan was larger than life on the screen in front of us. We had a nice conversation over lunch, although to be honest, I was so starstruck, I don’t remember a word of it.

My only regret is that Mel Gibson didn’t drop in as a surprise guest. I had my camera ready, even if I doubt I could have found the words to ask for a photo.

Julie Sturgeon

Julie Sturgeon is a 25-year journalist who is now putting her research skills to work as a travel agent finding vacation deals. When she is not chasing Mel Gibson,er-ah, William Wallace, you can also find her blogging at Curing Cold Feet.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library

©2010 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Music: Eddi Reader Sings Robert Burns (Eddi Reader) and Cuilidh, (Julie Fowlis)

When I travel to a place, I frequently buy music along the way, and when I get home, the music takes me back. I like to put New Orleans jazz on while I’m writing, or listen to bouzoukis when I’m writing about Greece. So I sought the advice of musicologist and traveler Kerry Dexter when I was planning a trip to Ireland last year.  Who should I listen to? Where were the best places to hear traditional music?  What should I buy?

It suddenly occurred to me, that if I am interested in music of a destination, perhaps the travelers who visit A Traveler’s Library would also like some musical advice. So I turned to Kerry Dexter again. She writes here about music for the traveler to Scotland, and tomorrow she will write about music for a traveler to Ireland. You can read more of her recommendations at Music Road, her blog about music and travel.

Kerry says, “As a musician and a writer, I’m most often following the music when I travel. Sound really brings you into a place, I find, whether that be  a place you’ve visited often or one where you’ve yet to travel.”

Sounds of Scotland

Eddi Reader singing at Celtic Connections in Glasgow

When Eddi Reader was growing up in Glasgow, she thought the poetry of Robert Burns she had to read at school — he is Scotland’s national bard — was not for the likes of her, that it was set apart and too fancy. But as a Scot, and as a musician, she began to be drawn to his writing of daily life, of laughter, of love, of the Scottish landscape. Asked to do a couple of Burns songs with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Reader agreed. It wouldn’t be your usual orchestral concert, though.

“I wanted it to be a bit of a rough diamond,” she says, “so it’d sort of have that band in bar sound, circa 1787.”

Working with classical arranger Kevin McCrae and folk fiddler and producer John McCusker, she came up with a set of songs which bridged the two ideas. This music became the core of the album Eddi Reader Sings Robert Burns. [Note you can buy, or sample her songs at this Amazon link.] From the inviting Jamie Come Try Me through a quiet take on the familiar Auld Lang Syne, and as well with six bonus tracks added to the original release for the year of Homecoming Scotland, Reader invites the listener in to a musical experience at once conversational and reflective.

There’s  a rollicking Charlie Is My Darlin’, a passionate plea for social justice in Ye Jacobites,  affirmation of friendship in Willie Stewart, and a celebration landscape and reflection on change in Leezie Lindsay, a song which Reader developed from a fragment of  a chorus left by Burns. There’s also Wild Mountainside, by John Douglas, which sets love and trust in Scotland’s highland landscape, and several new jigs and reels interweaving the songs. It’s a set you have to think Robert Burns himself would enjoy.

Julie Fowlis at Celtic Connection, Glasgow

Julie Fowlis knows a bit about history in song too. She sings in Scottish Gaelic,  which she grew up speaking in North Uist in the Western Isles off the north coast of Scotland. No museum pieces on her album Cuilidh,[Note: sample or buy at Amazon at this link] though — even though some of the songs go back centuries, they tell of life and love and work, laughter and humor and what’s for dinner? Whether you understand Scottish Gaelic or not, you’ll hear all those things, along with rhythms of the sea, stories of history, ideas of change, and a taste of how people lightened their lives with song in earlier days, just as we do today.

“The weather was extreme, and the conditions were hard,” Fowlis says. “But they were very expressive people. They were always singing and writing poetry. It could be something light-hearted, like the food on the table or what washed up on the beach, or it could be something completely beautiful.

Hug Air a’Bhonaid Mhor, in English called Celebrate the Great Bonnet, makes a fine and lively opener, and ‘Ille Dunn,’S Toigh Leam Thu, My Brown Haired Boy, is a thoughtful ballad. There are English translations of the twelve songs in the liner notes for Cuilidh (that word means treasure or hidden, and is pronounced cooley), but really, just listen.

***

Kerry Dexter is an independent writer, editor, and photographer. She’s the former folk music editor at VH1.com and at Barnes and Noble Music, and a long time contributing writer to world music magazine Dirty Linen. Her work has  appeared in Strings, Ireland and the Americas, CMT, CBC, Symphony, The Music Hound Guides, and The Encyclopedia of the World History, among other publications. She writes about Irish, Scottish, and other sorts of music, and the creative practice of being a musician, at  Music Road.

Photographs by Kerry Dexter.

If you want to see more about Scotland: Books Suggested by a Reader and Mysteries  Set in Scotland and Kerry Dexter on more Scottish music at Music Roads. And don’t miss Kerry’s  recommendation on Irish Music.

Thanks, Kerry. Kerry will be checking in to reply to any questions or comments you have about her recommendations for Scottish music.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library

©2010 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Authors: Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith

Nope, we’re not talking Loch Ness Monster here.  Some readers recommended some good mysteries for the traveler to read on the way to Scotland.

The British Isles seem to produce enormous numbers of mystery writers. But although Agatha Christie may have been the mother of the cozy mystery, Conan Doyle was not the first mystery story writer.  That distinction belongs to Edgar Alan Poe.

But back to Scotland, where some writers have attracted our readers’ attention.

Ian Rankin, chosen by reader Coleen, has an intriguing website that includes a map of Edinburgh with pinpoints for locations in his series of Rebus mysteries.  Rankin wrote a book a year about his popular detective from 1987 to 2007. The web site describes the importance of Edinburgh to the books. “Edinburgh plays an important role throughout the Rebus novels: a character intself, as brooding and as volatile as Rebus.” WELL! Surely a traveler to Scotland must read those books!

Alexander Mc Call Smith, says Jessie Voights. I have to agree that he is a fun, light read. I have only read one of his Scotland mysteries, in the Philosopher Club Series starring Isabel Dalhousie.  He has a second group of mysteries, the 44 Scotland Street series. The 44 Scotland Street cast of characters live in an apartment house, giving the writer plenty of room to develop characters and plots. It sounds like it is made for television. I first met him through reading his mysteries set in Africa, The Ladies’ Number One Detective Agency, which is guaranteed to make you fall in love with the characters and laugh all the way to the last page. Don’t miss Mr. McCall’s web site. It is a much fun as his books.

I’m sure there are many more mystery writers in Scotland and their fans will speak up. We’re listening….

And more about books for Scotland here: Books on Scotland Suggested by a Reader and Sounds of Scotland.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library

©2010 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Destination: Scotland

The Scottish Flower, Thistle

Books by: H. V. Morton, George Blake, Edwin Muir, Kathleen Jamie, and others.

When I asked for suggestions for books for travelers to ten specific destinations, I put Scotland on the list. Alasdair Pettinger, who edits the valuable Studies in Travel Writing web site, had some definite ideas about Scottish travel literature, and literature about Scotland for travelers.

“I find the most engaging travel books were written in the 1920s and 30s: H. V. Morton, In Search of Scotland (1929) and In Scotland Again (1933); George Blake, The Heart of Scotland (1934); and Edwin Muir, Scottish Journey (1935).” He goes on to explain,  “They proceed from an imaginative documentary impulse that is missing from recent travelogues which tend to be more introspective and inclined to dwell on cultural identity.”

I learned that H. V. Morton was one of the most popular (or THE most popular, according to the speaker) travel writers of the twentieth century in the British Isles.  He traveled around the world and wrote 50 books, many of them titled “In Search of….” He gave practical information along with descriptions of the country or city he was visiting, and appealed to the middle class reader. Perhaps it is not fair, but I picture him as kind of an early Rick Steves, encouraging people to travel, in an age when Scotland was practically unknown to the average Englishman.

Muir, on the other hand, was known as a novelist and poet. According to reviewers of his only travel book, he  writes beautifully but politically about his subject. I could find very little about Blake, and my local library does not have his books, so it will be some time before I can read him. Perhaps Mr. Pettinger or another reader can enlighten me.

Despite his predilection for the earlier writers, Pettinger  lists some more recent books by Scotsmen either returning to their country, or rediscovering Scotland.

Invisible Country (1984) by James Campbell

A Search for Scotland (1989) by R. F. MacKenzie

Four Scottish Journeys (1991) by Andrew Eames

Native Stranger (1995) by Alistair Scott

In Waiting (1998) by Michael W. Rusell

He also mentions an Englishman, Charles Jennings, whose Faintheart: An Englishman Ventures North of the Border (2002) is a Bill Bryson-type book. “(the book)hides some perceptive observations behind its self-deprecating humour. And I would rate it more highly than the Scottish sections of round-Britain accounts by Bill Bryson and Paul Theroux,” says our Scotland contributor.

Pettinger saves his highest praise for a contemporary Scottish writer, Kathleen Jamie. “But no one captures the intensity of the lived moment indoors or outdoors better than Kathleen Jamie in Findings, 2005” A new edition of the book, whose subtitle is “Essays on the Natural and Unnatural World” came out in 2007.

I have found some quotes from this book, “Once, on a flawless sandy beach in Donegal, I found five silver fishes, freshly abandoned by a wave, glittering and bright as knives presented in a canteen,” that make me most eager to read it. She is a poet, even when writing prose, and her sharp observations remind me of Ann Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift From the Sea.

See more about Scotland in Music of Scotland and Mystery books in Scotland. If you like Scotland, you may also want to look at the posts on Ireland. I have written about McCarthy’s Bar, the Beara Peninsula, and the Blasket Islands. And don’t miss R. Todd Felton’s book on Literary Ireland.

Well, there you have it, from a between-the-wars perspective, through home-coming books, and humor, to the observations of a poet.  Do you agree with Alasdair’s leaning to the writers from early 20th century? Can you add to my very sketchy research about them? Let’s talk.

Photograph courtesy of John Haslem of Scotland,  “foxypar4″ via flicker.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library

©2010 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.