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