NEXT EFC GIGS: June-July 2018

LATE NEWS: Tickets are now on sale at Summerhall box office for the Miriam Erasmus gig there on Wed 18 July.

MAIRI CAMPBELL

Wednesday 27 June 2018

The Pleasance Cabaret Bar, 60 The Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ
Time: doors 7:30pm / showtime 8pm
Admission: ... £10 (non-members), £9 (conc), £8 NHS & emergency services staff, £7 (EFC members), £5 (students)

Tickets are available on line or at the door from 7:30pm

Mairi Campbell is an extremely talented and gifted musician who works in folk music - singing and playing fiddle - as well as in theatre. For the latter genre, Mairi has a new show on the stocks ("Auld Lang Syne") for this year's Fringe in August.

"her voice can stop the clock" (The Scotsman)

Mairi Campbell is a pioneering figure in Scottish music. Her music has a rooted and powerful quality and her musical interests are wide ranging: from playing Scottish dance music to pushing the boundaries of the traditional music scene with her soundings and improvisations.

We last saw Mairi at Edinburgh FC earlier this season when she appeared as part of the Himmerland show in early November 2017 but, in her own right, it's over a year since she guested for us.

Mairi has won multiple awards including, at the annual Scots Trad Awards ...
Scots Singer of the Year
Female Musician of the Year
Tutor of the Year.

Plus separately an award for the Neil Gow Composition of the Year

In 2015 Mairi created her first solo theatre show Pulse, an autobiographical account of a musician seeking pulse, co-devised and directed by Kath Burlinson. Tracks from her 2015 album Pulse, a collaboration with the producer David Gray, feature in the show.

WIKIPEDIA
YOUTUBE (Scots Trad Awards - "Auld Lang Syne")

SKIP GORMAN with KATE MacLEOD

Wednesday 4 July 2018

The Pleasance Cabaret Bar, 60 The Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ
Time: doors 7:30pm / showtime 8pm
Admission: ... £10 (non-members), £9 (conc), £8 NHS & emergency services staff, £7 (EFC members), £5 (students)

Tickets are available on line or at the door from 7:30pm

Skip Gorman was introduced to traditional music at eight years old, when he received his first guitar and a Jimmie Rodgers record. A few years later, he was lucky to have the opportunity to see musicians like the legendary Bill Monroe and Maybelle Carter at Newport Folk Festival. An encounter with Monroe at age 14 years was pivotal in young Skip’s life and, aside from being a masterful cowboy singer and fine fiddler, Gorman is one of the premier mandolinists in the style of Bill Monroe.

In 1995 Skip's album, A Greener Prairie (Rounder), was released to universal acclaim and was named one of the top ten folk recordings of the year by the Boston Globe, “one of the most masterful and flat-out gorgeous cowboy albums to lope down the trail in years.” Gorman’s 1996 release, Lonesome Prairie Love, was a finalist for the prestigious NAIRD Traditional Folk Recording of the Year award. In 1999, he released his eagerly awaited third Rounder album, A Cowboy’s Wild Song to His Herd, which had the honour of being selected by Amazon.com as one of the Top Ten Folk CDs of 1999.

While he pursued a degree in Latin American Studies and Spanish at Brown University, Gorman played in various old-time music and bluegrass bands, including a stint with bluegrass legend, Frank Wakefield. After graduating, Gorman traveled to Ireland, where he explored the Celtic roots of American music and to this day, Skip remains an accomplished Celtic-as well as Western-style fiddler.

In 1973, he headed to graduate school in Utah and began collecting rare recordings by early cowboy singers like Carl T. Sprague, Jules Verne Allen and Powder River Jack Lee. While in Utah, he performed the music of Western pioneers with the Deseret String Band and in 1977 went on to record his first album of old-time cowboy songs and fiddle tunes, Powder River. This seminal recording on Folk Legacy Records along with his Trail to Mexico (1983) was among the very first attempts by a folk revivalist musician to reintroduce the older traditions of the music of the American cowboy.

Skip returned East and taught high school Spanish and history for twelve years. During these years, he performed with Rick Starkey of Martin Guitars in a bluegrass duo, Rabbit In A Log, and released a solo instrumental recording, The Old Style Mandolin Vol 1. One of the tunes from this album, Cowboy Waltz, was featured in Ken Burns’ acclaimed BASEBALL PBS documentary behind the slow motion pitching of the great Walter Johnson.

LATE NEWS ... On this trip Skip is bringing over his partner, Kate MacLeod and says: "Kate is a great singer and fiddle player. She will be singing harmonies and helping me out for a week while in Scotland on fiddle and guitar."