Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5

Subject: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: evansakes
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 04:55 AM

Starts tonight....but only on BBC2 Scotland for the moment.

Here's the details for Episode One

---

Episode 1 of 6, Series 5
DURATION: 30 MINUTES
Transatlantic Sessions once again brings together the best of Nashville, Ireland and Scotland in an award-winning format that affords, in the words of one critic, a unique insight into the sheer joy of making music.
Recorded in a beautiful old hunting lodge at the entrance to Glen Lyon near Aberfeldy in the Perthshire Highlands, top vocal and instrumental exponents of the Country and Celtic traditions gathered to rehearse and play together with no audience except themselves and a resident house-band of their peers. As with previous series, music co-directors were Nashville's Jerry Douglas and Shetland's Aly Bain.
Leavening the intimacy of the music-making through each of the six programmes in the series is a strong element of spectacular Highland scenic photography while this time around a greater emphasis on informal backstage conversations and stories serves to highlight the series genuinely historic qualities of collaboration and performance.

---

Episode Guide

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: GUEST,CJB
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 05:18 AM

Which reminds me that ALL of the series including the 'lost' series 1 are all on TheBox.bz I expect series 5 will soon follow.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 05:21 AM

Wonder if there'll be any English musicians in the series... nah - too much to hope for.

I have all the previous series on disc and love 'em to death - but I do wish the handle "Transatlantic" wasn't so biased. It isn't as though all the music was pure folk music anyway - much of it is material composed by the artists.

Anyway, I'll look forward to seeing the new set.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: doc.tom
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 05:45 AM

ALL of the series... are WHERE?

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Peter C
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 06:52 AM

I complained today to the BBC about it only being on BBC Scotland, but am not holding my breath! Apparently the DVD will be available in December

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: terrier
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 06:52 AM

I thought there were English, Irish and Scots musicians in all the series? I don't remember seeing any welsh musicians though.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 07:17 AM

If you have Freesat, you can receive BBC2 Scotland wherever in the UK you happen to be.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: GUEST,Frank Lee
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 07:29 AM

Will Fly wrote:- 'Wonder if there'll be any English musicians in the series... nah - too much to hope for'.

Dead right!   They claim it'll be a mixture of American, Scots, and Irish.

I've travelled the world a fair bit in the last 30 years and folks look astonished when I tell them I don't (to my knowledge) play Irish music, even though I'm English. They simply look puzzled if I tell them I play English music.
Moreover, the assumption is made that everything I play MUST be Irish, because I'm English (makes sense doesn't it?), it's just that I play Irish music they've never heard before!

There's a PhD in this I'm sure, and I expect this has been discussed at length here in the past. The Irish/Scottish 'folk industry' - an oxymoron IMHO if ever there was one - probably has too much at stake to admit there's other folk music within these shores.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Commander Crabbe
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 07:30 AM

doc.tom

Here: TheBox.bz

CC

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 07:53 AM

"I complained today to the BBC about it only being on BBC Scotland, but am not holding my breath! Apparently the DVD will be available in December"

BBC Scotland stuff is put up on iPlayer though, no? I watched all of the "World Accordion to Phil" series (presented by accordionist Phil Cuningham) on iPlayer, and that was a BBC Scotland-only programme.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: doc.tom
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 08:00 AM

Thanks Commander

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: evansakes
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 12:24 PM

Danny Thompson is English....and he's been in it since the first series.

But that's not the point for me. As I see it the programmes have always been a celebration of the results when Celtic music was transplanted by the Irish and Scottish emigrants and subsequently adapted into something quite different but essentially the same (bluegrass, country). The programmes were devised, commissioned, produced and filmed north of the border so it's hardly a surprise that they get broadcast there first. I'm sure they'll get a nationwide airing within the next few months (presumably on BBC4)

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 12:40 PM

Good point re ENlgish music. I would like to see and hear more. I am not too aware of English immigrant groups to U.S. other than Cornish. Was there much immigration after early colonial days? Did people tend to go to Canada instead perhaps? What were the patterns? Obviously they could assimilate very easily due to language etc. I would think post-colonial there might have been unpleasantness towards them but I don't know. I can think of towns in my home state that have a Welsh or German or Dutch orientation, but I can't think of English..of course north in Canada Victoria is famously British...I don't know..how much immigration was there, where did they go, what did they do..where are they now? I know a lot came to the early colonies like Virginia, many many as indentured servants. mg

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: GUEST,Brit
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 12:59 PM

The English were the majority, particularly in the years after the ending of the Napoleonic Wars - see Charlotte Erickson's 'Invisible Immigrants', for example. Although the Breitish government preferred em,igrants to go to Canada, huge numbers went to the United States.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 03:01 PM

20.01 hours on Orkney. It has just finished. It was superb and should be broadcast nationally.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 03:06 PM

Superb.
Can't wait to see Alison Krauss & Union Station in November in Birmingham. And hopefully another 'Transatlantic Sessions Live' tour in the new year?

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: BTNG
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 03:09 PM

sorry to..ummm..rain on the parades of the Anglos and Anglophiles, but the point to this series was and is the interaction between Scots, I rish, American, and yes, even Canadians got involved (The McGarrigle sisters with Kate's children, Martha and Rufus Wainwright is incredble to watch)Kate & Anna McGarrigle - Hard Times Come Again No More

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 03:12 PM

sorry to..ummm..rain on the parades of the Anglos and Anglophiles, but the point to this series was and is the interaction between Scots, I rish, American, and yes, even Canadians ..............

And the point is?

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 03:13 PM

Well, hidden within your American subgroup above, there had to have been a lot of English-origened people. We do speak their language, with a Dutch accent it is claimed. mg

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: BTNG
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 03:23 PM

"American subgroup"...Canadians will not thank you for that
and my point is. We have an incredible series of series happening and the English tradition is not directly involved

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: BTNG
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 03:24 PM

PS there's alot of the Transatlantic Sessions available on You Tube

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Commander Crabbe
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 10:01 PM

If you missed it and have access to Sky Player you can watch it there.

CC

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: evansakes
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 02:58 AM

Blissful telly....as ever. I think the location this time was the same as the previous series...and thy haven't changed the formula one bit (but then again why would they?).

It's now on the BBC iplayer at that link in the first post above.

ps Great to see Eric Bibb is one of the guests this year....is he the first Afro American to feature on Transatlantic Sessions?

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: LesB
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 03:30 AM

Thanks for the link to the box.biz but unfortunately it goes straight to a login page, with no other info on it. So can anyone tell me what the box is?
Cheers
Les

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: GUEST,The Lamenting Whelk
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 04:10 AM

I love the Transatlantic Sessions, but the bias against Welsh and English artists is more of a political anachronism than because of any genuine musical differences; all the traditions of our islands are interconnected whether the supporters of some outdated folk apartheid like it or not.

Here's an excellent article on the subject by Irish musician Toner Quinn:

Toner Quinn - What About England?

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 04:30 AM

Thanks for the article by Toner Quinn - he sums the situation up beautifully.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 07:03 AM

Just as the folk music of England has many regional variations within it, at the same time it has a great deal in common with the music of its neighbours. I can't believe that the English emigrants didn't take any songs with them. Perhaps the Cecil Sharp Project - touring England and Scotland in January - will shed some light on this. Folk music in Wales has had a profile perhaps even lower than folk music in England, so I was stunned to hear the Welsh group Calan earlier this year.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: bubblyrat
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 09:35 AM

I LOVE the TS programmes , and now play "Shove The Pig's Foot etc " ,and other tunes as a result, but I ,too , fear that the time when someone from Sussex appears , playing Scan Tester tunes on English concertina, or Rob Murch plays "Jacob or Enrico" on his banjo , is a long way off !!
      Still , that's the bias of the programme-makers against English music for you ( the bastards !!).

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 11:45 AM

During the last series Danny Thompson made a humorous aside about feeling a bit lonely. I can see his point!

I guess as RTE put a lot of money into the programme, and since nobody has coughed up any cash for an equivalent involving a few more people from south of the Tweed, we're stuck with it. Not that it's not brilliant of course, just that it's not enough.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: TopcatBanjo
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 12:10 PM

Here's the direct link to Episode 1 on iPlayer as there seems to be some confusion in the posts above.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b015frjm/Transatlantic_Sessions_Series_5_Episode_1

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 12:48 PM

I downloaded the wmv file from the iplayer and so far it is converting to DVD compliant VOB format in SUPER © - never used to be able to do this without a clever little programme, and for the last year or so not at all!!!

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 04:50 PM

No, it failed again.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Commander Crabbe
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 06:26 PM

Blicky for the above link

Transatlantic Sessions Episode 1

CC

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Stanron
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 10:16 PM

I have enjoyed all of the Transatlantic Sessions programs I've seen on BBC 4. Any chance to see Aly Baine and Jerry Douglas playing on TV is welcome.

It has also been obvious from the outset that there is a strong anti English bias to the program. This has not stopped me enjoying what I actually got. Obviously Danny Thompson is English, but his role is in accompanying rather than playing a lead role.

Have I seen one of the Lakeman brothers on the prog? Maybe being Cornish absolves him of his Englishness.

Michael McGoldrick and Dessie Donnelley are from Irish descent but were they born in Manchester? I don't know. Could they actually be English?

We all know that the Irish and the Scottish hate the English. The political heritage of the last 2 millennia is unavoidable. None of us actually are responsible for any of it but we all seem to keep on dramatising it.

There are some fine traditional musicians in England. Perhaps we should make our own programs.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Effsee
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 10:34 PM

Stanron..."We all know that the Irish and the Scottish hate the English. The political heritage of the last 2 millennia is unavoidable."...that's one helluva sweeping statement!

I'm a Scots born chappie, with both Irish and English genes so I take offence at such a statement!

I've sung all genres of British folk music in various clubs world-wide, and find that comment quite uncalled for.

The Transatlantic Sessions are exactly what they are...by definition.

The programme is produced by a combination of Scots/Irish companies...what do you expect?

..."There are some fine traditional musicians in England. Perhaps we should make our own programs."... Agreed! So why doesn't the format appeal to English TV producers?

Personally, I enjoy the ensemble playing very much, but I wouldn't expect to see it in any folk club soon, too many performers, but the show they take on the road for concerts are very well attended I believe.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Stanron
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 10:53 PM

It might be a sweeping statement, but might it not also be correct?

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Effsee
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 11:14 PM

Absolutely not...the idea of a population of one nation hating the population of another is absurd. My aunt died of malnutrition in a Japanes prison camp...am I to hate the whole Japanes nation ?

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Stanron
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 11:23 PM

I hope not. But explain to me why lots of wonderful English folk musicians never appear on these programs.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: michaelr
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 02:31 AM

Anti-English bias? What nonsense. As was explained before, the series explores the connections between Scots/Irish and American music. `Nuff said.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Tradsinger
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 03:19 AM

But the series perpetuates the myth that all American music is derived from Irish and Scottish music,which is certainly not the case. Americans like to see their folk/country/old timey music as all coming from Ireland and Scotland, and so American music gets this dubious 'Celtic' label. It is not surprising that the Transatlantic sessions musicians can blend their music; after all they are top musicians and ought to be able to. I would like to see some Trans North Sea sessions, where Shetland fiddle players got together with top Swedish/Norwegian musicians. After all, their music has a lot in common. It's all an anti-English musical conspiracy!

Rant over.

Tradsinger

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: evansakes
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 07:11 AM

"It's all an anti-English musical conspiracy!"

Anglo and celtic music are essentially separate traditions. This is 'apples and oranges'. Both taste fine but they're not the same. This programme concentrates on the celtic music links and it's funded and made by them. Not much point trying to fit square pegs into round holes. There's no bias and no conspiracy. Let's all get over it and move on. Be grateful and acknowledge the series for all the good things it IS rather than things it isn't even trying to be.

Why not concentrate instead on lobbying to get something similar set up which properly investigate and celebrates English musical links with the Americas? I'd be interested to see a series like that as would most other followers of folk music...maybe the EFDSS should use some of their Arts Council funding to try to make it happen.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: BanjoRay
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 07:23 AM

If the included brass bands and morris music I'd probably stop watching.....(leaves hastily)

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Ian Burdon
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 10:00 AM

Stanron, rants work better if they don't contain duff information. Pedantic, maybe, but Sam Lakeman *has* been on Transatlantic Sessions - Season 3. You'll find it on YouTube - for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PZDD_Zt6MA

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 10:36 AM

Aren't the Lakeman brothers from Devon, not Cornwall?

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: BTNG
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 10:50 AM

The Lakeman Brothers originate from the village of Buckland Monachorum, near Yelverton, Devon (this info courtesy of a little bit of Googling)

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: The Maverick
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 12:39 PM

Would be better without the Americans IMHO!

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Will Fly
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 12:52 PM

Would be better without the Americans IMHO!

Mmmm... well, I've watched the first programme on the iPlayer and have to say that the highlight for me was the penultimate song, played by US banjoist and mandolinist Dirk Powell and Sam Bush - "Boats Up The River", with some fine Uillean piping to boot.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: Tradsinger
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 01:41 PM

TwickFolk wrote:

Anglo and celtic music are essentially separate traditions. This is 'apples and oranges'.

I can't accept that, I am afraid. There is no such thing as a Pan-Celtic music style that binds all 'Celtic' areas together. The nearest musical tradition to Irish and Scottish is, in fact, English, in terms of reportoire, style, stepping, etc, so there is a strong cultural link. Elements of all of these cultures crossed the Atlantic and formed the varied American folklore that we have today. But we are doing a disservice to folk music if we continue to perpetrate the American-Celtic myth.

I won't post any more on this subject as I am sure it will generate more heat than light.

Tradsinger

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: GUEST,Auldtimer
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 03:16 PM

Was it just me or was the sound a bit off. What I was listening to just did not seem to be what was being played. Other wise it was all good, Big Edna included, although she went off on her own with her hands flaping.

Subject: RE: Transatlantic Sessions - Series 5
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 03:26 PM

For those of you with Sky you can watch it, it doesn't matter where you live as all the regional BBC channels are available even though you'll probably be tuned to your local station.