Celtic Connections 2013!

Beth Neilson Chapman

Capercaille

Eddi Reader

Julie Fowlis

Celtic Connections is a major Scottish festival. The festival starts January 17^th and runs for nearly three weeks Glasgow city centre over 13 venues.

Celtic is a dynamic festival of warm energetic folk tunes, foot-stomping Scottish reels and the rhythms of world music with African drums and haunting songs.

The festival in 2013 will host some big names in the folk world - Kate Rusby, Cara Dillon, Martha Wainwright, Salif Keita, The Mavericks, Jerry Douglas, Aly Bain, Phil Cunningham, Dick Gaughan and Dougie McLean. 

There is a special concert this year to remember renowned Dundee singer songwriter Michael Marra who died in November. The concert is organised by Rab Noakes and is called All Will Be Well. Last year Noakes organised  a concert at Celtic to remember Gerry Rafferty.

Michael Marra

Celtic hosts the well renowned Transatlantic Sessions; Gaelic concerts; Showcase Scotland; World Music; Americana; Blues and Jazz; ceilidh nights at the Fruitmarket venue and more.

Richard Thompson

Also younger folk and Indie artists, such as Bellowhead, Aimee Mann, Roddy Hart, Rachel Sermanni. 
The festival also holds open mic sessions every day at the concert hall on The Danny Kyle Open Stage which are well worth a visit. The Glasgow concert hall is the central venue for the three week festival.

The festival offers many interesting and unique collaborations -  watch out for these.

It is where old traditions meet new ones. While the heart of the festival is folk and traditional music the fact that musicians come from all over the world opens Scottish music up to many new influences. 

CELTIC CONNECTIONS FOLIO -

 http://www.musicfootnotes.com/2011/01/celtic-connections-portfolio_19.html

CELTIC CONNECTIONS Photos -
http://pkimage.co.uk/celticconnections

Transatlantic Sessions

Some of the world’s biggest names in folk, blues, jazz and traditional music will celebrate Celtic’s 20th year. Across two weeks, 2,100 artists from across the world will play at 300 events. Celtic is one of the world's biggest folk festivals with many sell out events.  http://www.celticconnections.com/

Scottish Music 2012

Emeli Sande Albert Hall

There is a vibrant and creative vibe in Scottish music right now as it mixes Celtic traditions with innovative and challenging newer styles of musical rhythms and structures and recording techniques. There are healthy ground roots in its major city’s with many city centre small venues for live music.

There are also several major music festivals held in Scotland each year -

T in the Park, Celtic Connections, Rockness, Belladrum, Edinburgh, (plus many folk festivals

Scottish music is in a very good place. I attend Celtic each year where they have three weeks of open mic sessions and competitions and the festival has many interesting collaborations and musicians attending worldwide. I saw Rachel Sermanni there a few years back.  

Emeli Sande. The biggest breakthrough artist in the UK in 2012 was Scottish singer songwriter Emeli Sande. Emeli Sandé is a Scottish recording artist and songwriter. Sandé first became known to the public eye after she featured on rapper Chipmunk’s, “Diamond Rings” which entered the UK top Ten Singles chart. Also a top ten hit with Wiley’s “Never Be Your Woman. Simon Cowell called Sandé "his favourite songwriter at the minute". In 2012 she received the Brit Awards Critics' Choice Award. She has written for a number of artists, including Susan Boyle, Rihanna, Gabriella, Leona Lewis, Alesha Dixon, Tinie Tempah, Cheryl Cole. In 2010, she signed a publishing deal with EMI. She later announced that Virgin had given her a record deal. Sandé released her first solo single "Heaven" in August 2011. Sandé has had three number-one singles across the UK and Ireland with "Read All About It" with Professor Green, "Next To Me" and "Beneath Your Beautiful" a collaboration with Labrinth.

Her album Our Version of Events made number one in the UK in February 2012 and became the best-selling album of 2012 in the UK, with over 1m sales. 

In the first month of 2013 there will be new album releases from Scottish rock bands Frightened Rabbit and Biffy Clyro.

Karine Polwart

New Scottish albums 2012 

Karine Polwart (Traces ) Lau (Race the Loser) Admiral Fallow (Tree Bursts in Snow)

Plus album releases from Errors, Twilight Sad, Rachel Sermanni, Kassidy, Unwinding Hours.

Scottish record labels

Chemikal Underground, Greentrax, Electric Honey, Optimo,

http://www.creativescotland.com/

The Richest Songs

The money in music is in song royalties - cover versions, radio airplays, film rights, adverts, youtube hits (60p per 1,000 plays), Karoke and so on. The Beatles were the first artists to blaze this path by writing their own songs. 
 

Young artists be warned though over the small print if signing a contract to a music publisher. Van Morrison has lost out on all the royalty revenues for his song Brown Eyed Girl (10m radio airplays) - because of the deal he signed in New York at 21 in which he was given a royalty rate that was virtually nil. 
  

The most successful bands spilt any royalties equally between them - U2, Coldplay etc.

Interestingly the woman create the hits, wheras men create the cult hits - as seen in this top ten list as most of the songs are about love, loss, longing, regret, heartbreak...  

Happy Birthday is the number one richest songs, written by school teachers the Hill sisters. Christmas songs are always big money earners and oddly many are written by Jewish songwriters.     

Top Ten Richest Songs

Happy Birthday, 30m

White Christmas, 24m 

You've Lost That Loving Feeling, 20.5m

Yesterday, 19.5m 

Unchained Melody, 18m

Stand By Me, 17m

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, 16m

Every Breath You Take,13.5m

Pretty Woman, 13m
The Christmas Song 12.5m  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/The_Richest_Songs_in_the_World/

Rab Noakes Milngavie Folk club Dec 2012

For a man who's been touring for a very long time Rab Noakes looks fit and well. He was asked how long had he been singing in front of people and he answered that he thought it was about 60 years but that it seemed like no time at all. In fact 'it didn't too seem a day too long.'

Noakes guitar playing is both melodic and assured. He has written many memorable and thoughtful songs, that are sometimes full of pathos, over his career in music - such as Branch, Eden's Flow, Clear Day, Together for Ever, and Turn a Deaf Ear. He mixes folk, blues and rock n roll styles. He played with well known Scottish singer songwriter Gerry Rafferty in his pop-folk band Stealers Wheel in the early 70s. I first heard Noakes songs in my twenties when we had singing sessions and his songs were always favourites for harmony singing.

During his long career there has been influences by a wide variety of music from skiffle to the Rolling Stones. He mentioned guitarist Dot Watson, who was his first reference point, and said that he enjoyed 'rootsy' country music rather than 'pop' country. He saw The Rolling Stones in 1964 at the Barrowlands and explained that in their first albums they were gatekeepers for many to interesting blues artists, such as Rufus Thomas's 'Walkin The Dog' which Noakes performed.

Noakes had an older wooden guitar with him as he likes to use different guitars for different melodies. His latest album 'I'm Walking Here' will be Tin Pan Alley and 21st century Skiffle Music.

Noakes enjoyed sharing his fond memories of his musical career and had many interesting anecdotes. He remembered phoning Dylan's manager about the old Scots songs that Dylan sang on his Bootleg album in 1961. He frequently mentioned Gerry Rafferty, whom he remembered with great affection and said when he first met him he was an unassuming young man from Paisley with all these outstanding songs. Noakes explained that Rafferty often used the day as a metaphor for life in his songs. He spoke of the Humblebums' Concert at the City Hall in 1969 and how after Rafferty died in January, 2011, he strummed a guitar melody about the loss for a long time. Eventually, while at an art gallery in London, Noakes wrote words that seemed to work with the melody on his smart phone. The song was the poignant 'No More Time', which Noakes performed in his second set.

He spoke of the recent loss of another legend, Scottish singer songwriter Michael Marra. He described Marra as a master of location and brevity, with words that resonated wider. He performed Marra's 'Oh No More Will I Roam No More, It's Over.'  Noakes is organising a concert in Marra's memory for Celtic Connection 2013 called 'All Will Be Well'.

During the interval a fan asked Rab to sign his vinyl of Red Pump Special, and Noakes reminisced about the day the photographs for the back cover were taken in Edinburgh.

SET (1). Brighter blue, Blues Around Me Now, That's the Way the Whole thing Ends, Out of The Blue, Walkin the Dog, Branch, Light in my Heart, Seeing is Believing, Turn a Deaf Ear,
SET (2)  Highway To Take Me Home, Absence, Goodbye, Oh no more will I roam no more, it's over, ( Marra), Bye Bye Blackbird, No More Time, Moonlight and Gold, That's the Way the Whole thing Ends, Encore: See what booze has done for me, Mississippi,

Rab is quiet and unassuming, and his demeanour, look and sound remind me of Buddy Holly and those 'Americana rock n' roll week day blues'.  He hails from St Andrews.
I especially enjoyed his song Gently Does it (Standing Up album 1995). He is a big Dylan fan and for his encore sang a excellent version of Mississippi. I was pleased my son came and he has been playing this song since the gig.  Nice to hear!

Noakes says music is all about the dialogue and more about performing than simply the song. He spoke of those residency night gigs were artists can learn their craft in front of the live audience and the live performance when 'flying' in the heart of the music toughens you up and you have to learn loads of songs. He played in Denmark 6 nights a week. (I hope those residency nights are not in the past with those large tv screens so prevalent in bars nowadays?) Noakes now runs his own production company Neon.

It seems to me that these intimate venue gigs enrich and soothe the soul. His new album will be called I’m Walking Here – and will be Tin Pan Alley, 21st century Skiffle Music.

Noakes was supported by Colbeg,

It is fun for me to follow the older folk tunes and folk artists alongside the newer pop music songs. I begin to wish some of these older folk artists would collaborate more with the younger musicians.

A two way street though. Experience and wisdoms might be passed on and the energy and enthusiasms of the younger artists could inspire and innovate. Mumford have cleverly mixed dance rhythms with folk tunes to great success.
 Gently Does It

• (Rab Noakes)

And a few years ago you'd been on this road so long
Now they're building a highway to take you home

Gently does it for a change
I used to think you were just like a mountain range
Your big boots stomped where small men feared to tread
I can hardly believe what I've just read

They say you can't travel any more
But you've got the key to a new front door
And don't you know 'cause you once said it all
When you stand so high you've got so far to fall

Not everyone can look you eye to eye
'Cause you get difficult, dangerous I'm damned if I lie
But we all pay the price
And they place your ante high.

Viking Galaxy photoshoot

http://musicfootnote.blogspot.co.uk/viking-galaxy-photoshoot

Glasgow Independent Record shops

LOVE music, 34 Dundas Street, Glasgow, G1 2AQ

Love Music specialises in new, indie and alternative vinyl and CDs. Important section of Glasgow's music scene with a great selection of local acts and specialises in indie, rock, punk and Americana. Love Music Glasgow is an Independent Record Shop in Glasgow, the shop was previously known as Avalanche Records.

Love Music Glasgow is an old-school independent record shop, selling both new and second-hand music. They buy and sell CDs, vinyl LPs & singles, music DVDs and movies on DVD, as well as a range of merchandise such as T shirts, coffee cups, fridge magnets etc. They specialise in rock music, in all its various forms. They are supportive of local groups and record labels and stock hundreds of unsigned artists. They also do in-store performances and signings - Moby, KT Tunstall, James Blunt, Futureheads.  http://www.lovemusicglasgow.com/ 

Monorail, 12 Kings Court, King Street, Glasgow, G1 5RB

Don't mistake the slender couple of shelves in the back room of vegan venue Mono for a lightweight enterprise. Owner and muso Stephen Pastel has been setting Glasgow's hipster pulse from here for years.

Rubadub Records, 35 Howard Street, Glasgow, G1 4BA

Specialist record shop.   http://www.rubadub.co.uk/

Missing Records, 247 Argyle Street, Glasgow, G2 8DL

Loved and revered in Glasgow and now centred on this main shop near the Arches (with another shop in Paisley). Top class selection of secondhand music and films…

Alba Second-Hand Music, 55 Otago Street, Glasgow, G12 8PQ

Sturdy, long-running store handily situated for the College of Piping, dealing in printed music for most instruments, ensembles and orchestras. http://www.albamusick.co.uk/

Play It Again* Records, 47 Ruthven Lane, Glasgow, G12 9BG

Play it Again* Records are keen to avoid the corporate-ness of logos and more. They sell and buy old records, CDs & DVDs that are in decent condition and fairly priced. Nothing will ever…

Fopp Records Westend

From its origins as a one-man stall in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1981, it expanded to a chain of over 100 branches^[ throughout the country in 2007. With the demise of Music Zone, Fopp became the third largest specialist music retailer in the UK in terms of store numbers (after HMV and Virgin Megastore). Shortly after the takeover of rival chain Music Zone, Fopp went into administration in June 2007, resulting in the closure of many of its stores. Eight stores survived and are operating under the Fopp brand as an independent part of the HMV group.

The first Fopp store was a market stall in Decourcey's Arcade near Bryes Road in Glasgow opened 1981 by Gordon Montgomery.

The Leamington spa store was reopened as Head, a separate store from Fopp, but retaining Fopp's stock and assets. The HEAD store opened on 2007 and employed some of its predecessor's former employees. The store hosts regular performances from local bands, to allow musicians, artists and authors from Leamington and its surrounding areas to sell their work. This was initially a single store, but has expanded into a chain of four sites.

And least we may not all be swallowed up by some big media conglomerates.....Let's remember Virgin media was once a tiny shop in Rose Street Edinburgh owned by Richard B and a pal.. small beginnings...and yes small is sometimes better. Support your small local shops.

Scottish Portraits

Alexander McCall Smith - author

Rab Noakes singer songwriter

Alex Salmond - Scotland's First Minster

Emeli Sande - singer songwriter

Karine Polwart - folk singer songwriter

Dikc Gaughan - traditional folk singer

John Byrne - playwright and artist

Eddi Reader - singer

Ian Rankin - writer

Iain Banks - novelist

I have been building my gallery portraits of Scottish writers, artists, politicians and musicans over several years now at Celtic Connections and Edinburgh festival - Scottish Portraits - http://pkimage.co.uk/scottishportraits

Emeli Sande at Royal Albert Hall

Some days are ordinary grey days, but yesterday was an extraordinary day.

There was a glorious blue sky and those small fluffy white clouds as I headed to South Kensington via bus and tube and for a late lunch at the V & A café, where the pianist played under the ornate Victorian rooftops. 

2012 has been a big year for Sande, not only did she get married, her debut album Our Version of Events was the top selling album and went triple platinum in the UK. She has a glowing warm stage presence with her large smile and her sincerity. I have seen her perform at several of Glasgow's top venues - the Oran Mor, King Tuts and the Old Fruitmarket. 

It felt very strange to be in such an iconic venue. I entered the hall via its Stage Door entrance for my Pass, where we waited. Professor Green came in shortly after!  I shook his hand and said how much I enjoyed his big hit song with Emeli - Read All About It. Green had a beautiful girl with him who looked  like a model. I took in the images on the walls – in particular one memorable image of Frank Sinatra as he waved to his enthralled audience taken from the stage by photographer David Redfern, I was in awe!. I thought how hard it is now to get those kind of images with all the restrictions imposed on photographers these days – only the first three songs, no moving about etc. etc.  I wished to savour every moment knowing these were moments I would never forget.    

I will never forget ascending the narrow steps that entered the arena the theatre’s red and gold lights shimmered above us, where there were the shadow outlines of people on the tiered circle galleries as spotlights hovered and I feel I have now entered a realm of fantasy, folklore, mystique and hidden memories.

Another Emily, from New York – an Emily King played as the support.

When Emeli appeared in the shadows at the top of the dark steps we know she is a star in the making. She savoured the experience, as she paused to take in the atmosphere and those moments as she arrived on the iconic stage.  The halls doomed arena offer perfect acoustics for voices to reverberate and bounce into the air. 

Sande began with her distinctive song Daddy, which was followed by Tiger and Where I Sleep. Then the backing singers and band got a chance to shine with the refrain I Left My Heart in Pluto.

In the middle of her set Emeli sat at the piano centre stage and said, 'This is where I know myself and where I am raw.’ She started with the emotional Clown and she said sometimes we all need to show the Clown in us.  Next she sang her well loved song River. She said she’d had emotional responses to this song and that one young girl who’d never been to a music concert before had said to her that Emeli was 'her river of music.'  Then she sang a song by one of her main musical influences, Nina Simone, ‘I Wish I Knew How It Feels to Be Free’ which drew positive audience reactions.

‘We should all speak up and use our voices.’ Emeli said when she sang Read All About It: and the audience was delighted when Professor Green came on stage to perform for this number one hit song. Emeli returned to the stage in a red dress and with her song Wonder: a song full of light when she got the audience on their feet

Anything can be achieved if you have love, when she spoke of the support of her parents. Then she sang her hit song Heaven that has that danceable drum beat and soaring vocal. Labrinth then appeared to sing their chart song Underneath Your Beautiful. And for her encore she sang her touching Maybe, followed by her rousing Next To Me.

Emeli makes the dream her own, but she also takes us with her. This was one of my best days too.

Having followed Emeli's career for five years since 2007, it is both strange and wonderful to see her now on the Big Stage and called the Voice of 2012. I remember the intimacy of her Oran Mor gig and how moving her voice was there.

THE SET:  Daddy, Tiger, This is Where I Sleep, Breaking the Law, ( two new songs)  My Kind of Love, Abide With Me, Clown, River, Nina Simone’s How It feels to be Free, Read all About It, Wonder, Mountains, Heaven, Maybe, Next to Me,

Proceeds to the Princes Trust. The concert was being filmed for a DVD, photography was restricted, but the colours and vibe were awesome.