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Ravenchild
''Ravenchild'' is the first album recorded by Maddy Prior after she stopped working with the Carnival Band. It has a distinctive flavour that we can now recognise as the influence of Troy Donockley. There are frequent sound effects such as wind, echo and washes of synthesiser chords. Alongside 5 traditional songs are ones written or very much adapted by Maddy. In general she is strong on words, but not so memorable with her self-composed tunes. The well-known song "Rigs of the Times" is here updated to offer social criticism of monopolies and faceless international industries. "Rich Pickings" contains the first example of Maddy singing in rap style. By far the best track is "Dance of the Wind". In an exultant extended guitar solo, Troy Donockley sounds like Mike Oldfield. It is surprising that he is not given co-authorship of this track. "Bold Poacher" is a song that Maddy had sung with Steeleye Span on "Parcel of Rogues", but Tim Hart had sung the lead vocals in that version. Mad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maddy Prior
Madelaine Edith Prior MBE (born 14 August 1947) is an English folk singer, best known as the lead vocalist of Steeleye Span. She was born in Blackpool and moved to St Albans in her teens. Her father, Allan Prior, was co-creator of the police drama ''Z-Cars''. She was married to Steeleye bass guitarist Rick Kemp, and their daughter, Rose Kemp, is also a singer. Their son, Alex Kemp, is, like his father, a guitarist and has deputised for his father playing bass guitar for Steeleye Span. She was part of the singing duo 'Mac & Maddy', with Mac MacLeod. She then performed with Tim Hart and recorded two albums with him, before they helped to found the group Steeleye Span, in 1969. She left Steeleye Span in 1997, but returned in 2002, and has toured with them since. With June Tabor she was the singing duo Silly Sisters. She toured with the Carnival Band, in 2007, and with Giles Lewin and Hannah James, in 2012 and 2013. She has released singles and albums as a solo artist, with these b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Silkie Of Sules Skerry
"The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry" or "The Grey Selkie of Sule Skerry" is a traditional folk song from Shetland and Orkney. A woman has her child taken away by its father, the great selkie of Sule Skerry which can transform from a seal into a human. The woman is fated to marry a gunner who will harpoon the selkie and their son. "The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry" is a short version from Shetland published in the 1850s and later listed as Child ballad number 113. "The Grey Selkie of Sule Skerry" is the title of the Orcadian texts, about twice in length. There is also a greatly embellished and expanded version of the ballad called "The Lady Odivere". Shetland version "The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry" was collected from a lady from Snarra Voe, Shetland, and 7 verses from its transcription were published by Capt. F. W. L. Thomas in the 1850s. It was later included in Francis James Child's anthology, and catalogued as Child ballad number 113. Thomas, Capt. F. W. L. (1855),The Great Silk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Troy Donockley
Troy Donockley (born 30 May 1964) is an English composer and multi-instrumentalist most known for his playing of Uilleann pipes. Having performed with many artists as a session player, he is most notable as a member of Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish, which he has performed with since 2007 and joined as a full-time member in 2013. Early life and career Donockley was born in Workington, Cumberland; his parents were members of a band called Travelling Country. At the age of 16, Troy joined them, playing at many venues in West Cumbria. His father's record collection was broad and gave his son a love of classical, rock, country as well as traditional music. He is a multi-instrumentalist and a master of the Uilleann pipes. His ambition as a teenager was to travel the world as a musician, but he hated "empty pop created by cynical twerps". The strangeness of the sound of the Uilleann pipes enabled him to become a session musician with prog-rockers The Enid in 1987 on their alb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chapman Stick
The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and is used to play bass lines, melody lines, chords, or textures. Designed as a fully polyphonic chordal instrument, it can also cover several of these musical parts simultaneously.Adelson, Steve"Emmett Chapman and the Stick"– "GuitarPlayer.com". The Stick is available with passive or active pickup modules that are plugged into a separate instrument amplifier. With a special synthesizer pickup, it can be used to trigger synthesizers and send MIDI messages to electronic instruments. Description and playing position A Stick looks like a wide version of the fretboard of an electric guitar, but with 8, 10, or 12 strings. It is, however, considerably longer and wider than a guitar fretboard. Unlike the electric guitar, it is usually played by tapping or fretting the strings, r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cittern
The cittern or cithren ( Fr. ''cistre'', It. ''cetra'', Ger. ''Cister,'' Sp. ''cistro, cedra, cítola'') is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is descended from the Medieval citole (or cytole). Its flat-back design was simpler and cheaper to construct than the lute. It was also easier to play, smaller, less delicate and more portable. Played by people of all social classes, the cittern was a premier instrument of casual music-making much as is the guitar today. History Pre-modern citterns The cittern is one of the few metal-strung instruments known from the Renaissance period. It generally has four courses (single, pairs or threes) of strings, one or more courses being usually tuned in octaves, though instruments with more or fewer courses were made. The cittern may have a range of only an octave between its lowest and highest strings and employs a re-entrant tuning – a tu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tin Whistle
The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria. A tin whistle player is called a whistler. The tin whistle is closely associated with Irish traditional music and Celtic music. Other names for the instrument are the flageolet, English flageolet, Scottish penny whistle, tin flageolet, or Irish whistle (also ga, feadóg stáin or feadóg). History The tin whistle in its modern form is from a wider family of fipple flutes which have been seen in many forms and cultures throughout the world. In Europe, such instruments have a long and distinguished history and take various forms, of which the most widely known are the recorder, tin whistle, Flabiol, Txistu and tabor pipe. Predecessors Almost all primitive cultures had a type of fipple flute, and it is most likely the first pitched flu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Low Whistle
The low whistle, or concert whistle, is a variation of the traditional tin whistle/pennywhistle, distinguished by its lower pitch and larger size. It is most closely associated with the performances of British and Irish artists such as Tommy Makem, Finbar Furey and his son Martin Furey, Old Blind Dogs, Michael McGoldrick, ''Riverdance'', Lunasa, Donie Keyes, Chris Conway, and Davy Spillane, and is increasingly accepted as a feature of Celtic music. The low whistle is often used for the playing of airs and slow melodies due to its haunting and delicate sound. However, it is also becoming used more often for the playing of jigs, reels and hornpipes from the Irish, Scottish, Manx, Welsh, and English traditions. A reason put forward for this being, it's easier to produce some ornamentation on the whistle, due to the size of the finger holes. The most common low whistle is the "Low D", pitched one octave below the traditional D whistle. A whistle is generally classed as a ''low'' whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uilleann Pipes
The uilleann pipes ( or , ) are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. Earlier known in English as "union pipes", their current name is a partial translation of the Irish language terms (literally, "pipes of the elbow"), from their method of inflation. There is no historical record of the name or use of the term ''uilleann pipes'' before the 20th century. It was an invention of Grattan Flood and the name stuck. People mistook the term 'union' to refer to the 1800 Act of Union; this is incorrect as Breandán Breathnach points out that a poem published in 1796 uses the term 'union'. The bag of the uilleann pipes is inflated by means of a small set of bellows strapped around the waist and the right arm (in the case of a right-handed player; in the case of a left-handed player the location and orientation of all components are reversed). The bellows not only relieve the player from the effort needed to blow into a bag to maintain pressure, they also allow relatively dry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Bonny Bunch Of Roses
"The Bonny Bunch of Roses" (Roud 664, Laws J5) is a folk song written in the 1830s by an unknown balladeer from the British Isles, perhaps with Irish sympathies. The earliest known version of the tune is in William Christie's ''Tradition Ballad Airs, Volume 2'' (1881), but there is another tune, of Irish origin. There is an obvious difficulty in identifying the narrator's voice. It is a conversation between Napoleon's son (Napoleon II, 1811-1832, named King of Rome by his father upon birth) and his mother (Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, Napoleon's second wife, whom he married after divorcing Josephine). The sentiment is sympathetic to Napoleon but is also patriotic. Napoleon was defeated because he failed to beware of the 'bonny bunch of roses' - England, Scotland and Ireland whose unity cannot be broken. Historical context The Irish, who were themselves in an unequal union with Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries, were divided in their attitudes towards Napoleon Bonapa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hard, Hard Times
"Hard, Hard Times" is a traditional Newfoundland folk song/ballad, adapted from an earlier English song, "Rigs of the Times" by William James Emberley. The song has been sung and recorded by a number of Newfoundland musicians. History William James Emberley (June 26, 1876 – June 10, 1937) was a Newfoundland and Labrador fisherman who grew up in Bay de Verde, Newfoundland (now Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada), the son of Joseph and Jane (Russell). During the Great Depression of the 1930s, because of the collapse of the international economy, fishermen, including Emberley, were unable to sell their fish; many were reduced to living on the government dole, which was six cents a day. In 1936, Emberly adapted the English song, "Rigs of the Times", to reflect the fishermen's plight. He called it "Hard, Hard Times". Emberley's verses reflect a style commonly found in the 18th-century English broadside which made fun of various occupations and made light of difficult circumstance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folk Music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with a people's folklore, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk rev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tim Hart
Tim Hart (9 January 1948 – 24 December 2009) was an English folk singer and multi-instrumentalist, best known as a founding member of British folk rock band Steeleye Span. Early years Tim Hart was born in Lincoln, England, but moved to St Albans in Hertfordshire at a relatively young age: his father, the Rev. Canon Dennis Hart, was successively perpetual curate then vicar of St Saviour's church in Sandpit Lane, St Albans from 1955 to 1992. Hart began his life as a musician performing with the Rattfinks, St Albans School's second band, the first being The Zombies. In 1966, he began performing with Blackpool-born folk singer Maddy Prior, touring English folk clubs. In 1968 and 1969 the duo recorded two albums: ''Folk Songs of Olde England'', Volumes One and Two. Steeleye Span From 1970 to 1982, Hart and Prior were the backbone of Steeleye Span. Hart's contribution to the band demonstrated his musical abilities on a wide range of instruments, some electric, including: acoust ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
