Ed's Journal
journalcontent
May 2008
Greetings from Austin...
Well spring has been and gone here in
central Texas and summer is waiting to roll in and start me whining for
the next few months. At least I get to escape the endless summer here
on numerous occasions, traveling to festivals and gigs all over the
country, as well as crossing the Atlantic in June with the annual
Folksong Tour - I've 27 good folks signed up for this year's tour and
we'll have 10 days in mid June getting a taste of several parts of the
country and a great variety of singers and musicians. Among those who
will join us this trip will be : Iain Fraser & friends; Brian
McNeill; Janet Weatherston; Jim Malcolm; Tam Speirs; Artie Tresize; Ann
Martin and Adam McNaughtan....plus other friends we may visit or who
will join us en route.
Spring has been nicely busy - flying out for
weekends in Charlotte NC twice, Sumter SC, Bridgeport WV and Washington
DC. The last journeys before Scotland will be to the Houston Highland
Games and the Texas Scottish Festival in Arlington; while later in
summer I'll be at a new festival in rural Pennsylvania, then back to NC
for the Traditional Song Week at Swannanoa, followed by the Grandfather
Mountain Highland Games.
In between these travels, Rich Brotherton and I have
begun recording a new CD - of Robert Burns songs. 2009 is the 250th
anniversary of Burns' birth; so we should have the CD available in
plenty time for those celebrations. Of course, I've recorded several
Burns songs on earlier CD's and will include those tracks on the new
one; but there will also be a couple of tracks from John
Taylor's first recording and 8 or 9 new tracks. Burns wrote, collected
or refurbished over 260 songs in his short lifetime and is truly
Scotland's greatest songwriter/folklorist as well as the national poet.
One of his great skills was to fit words to existing fiddle tunes; so
the fiddle of Brian McNeill will be strongly featured on the recording,
and we plan to have E.J.Jones add some of his wonderful whistle and
smallpipes. Mainly, however, it'll be the instrumental and engineering
skills of Rich Brotherton that will come through - I cannot imagine
recording without this amazing musician.
All the best, Ed
The most recent CD, Never frae My
Mind,
was released a year past August.
Rich Brotherton did an amazing job of accompanying, arranging,
engineering, producing and mixing.
Thanks to modern technology, Brian McNeill was able to add fiddle and
concertina tracks. Other great
contributions come from E.J.Jones on various pipes and whistles; Karine
Polwart and Jil Chambless on harmony vocals; Mark Stone on various
drums; Marty Muse on steel guitar; Pipo Hernandez on charango and Rob
Forkner on bodhran. I am really
excited about this collection of songs, and feedback from a variety of
sources has been very positive. You can help with promotion by
requesting your local folk radio show to play tracks from the CD (if
the station doesn't have a copy, let me know and I'll send one)...and
don't forget to support non-commercial radio stations when they ask for
your help
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CD ORDERING
There is a order form in this web site for ordering all 7 CD's by mail using
a check, money order or credit card. 5 CD's, however, are
available from CDBaby.com or PayPlay.fm where you can also download individual tracks
from iTunes :
Never Frae My Mind : http://cdbaby.com/cd/edmiller4
http://payplay.fm/edmiller4
Generations of Change
:http://cdbaby.com/cd/edmiller3
http://payplay.fm/edmiller3
Many's the Fine Tale : http://cdbaby.com/cd/edmiller2
http://payplay.fm/edmiller2
Lowlander
: : http://cdbaby.com/cd/edmiller
http://payplay.fm/edmiller
The Edinburgh Rambler : http://cdbaby.com/cd/edmiller5
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