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There are a lot of Irish folk in Southie, but you wouldn't guess that out here in apple country. Aside from JP O'Hanlon's in downtown Ayer every Sunday night, there really isn't a place to go to for the traditional irish session music. Say hello to the Mary, Phil, Marilyn, and Tom from Rhode Island and their "Celebrating Ireland" program which made its way to Marlborough and Hudson today. Marlborough is hosting their Saturday Morning Discovery Series at the Union Common and Hudson is hosting Saturdays at South Street at Cellucci Park (details in the calendar).
Interspersed between the fiddle, harp, tin whistle, button accordion, and bodhran music, Marilyn told some rather interesting stories, one poking fun at marriage and another that may have my kids scared tonight at bedtime. They came prepared with lots of percussion instruments for the little ones (and not so little ones). It was a great time. And I look forward to them coming back next year.
If you like Irish/Celtic music, you may love the all female group Cherish the Ladies. We caught their concert at Regis College this past April and their tour schedule has them playing May 5, 2009 at The Somerville Theater. At their concert in April they did a song that the group today did called "Welcome Poor Paddy Home." Of course Joanie Madden and crew did it much better, but the song is awesome. The chorus goes:
Hooray me boys, hooray
No more do I wish for to roam
For the sun it will shine in the harvest time
To welcome Poor Paddy home
It's almost a good a song as "Fields of Athenry" about the Irish famine which was the closing song at every bar in Ireland when we were there in 1997. But you don't here it much over here. There are, however, 150 recordings of that song on iTunes and the Boston band Dropkick Murphy's recorded it for their 2003 Blackout album. Which brings me to this major announcement: I'm back playing piano and recording. I'm going to be recording some of these traditional folk tunes on solo piano in the coming months and putting them up on a free MP3 section of this site. So check back or enter your email in "Join Our Mailing List" for major site announcements.
Links: Harpist Mary King and Cherish the Ladies.
When you think of July 4th in America, you think of sun, fireworks, bands, parades, and barbeque. Well this year we didn't get all of those things. On July 3rd we went to Devens for their annual festivities of fireworks and the Metropolitan Wind Symphony playing all sorts of patriotic and toe tapping music. Unfortunately, we had been having a week of late day thunderstorms and one big one rolled in before the show began and they basically told us to leave. So we did. But friends of ours came later and the show and fireworks eventually went off. This is usually a fantastic event because members of the Massachusetts State Police and Army and Marine Reserves display equipment and talk to kids. It is a great opportunity for children to meet those who protect us, and it is so fitting they are there for a July 4th celebration.
Next up was July 4th and we had several local festivities to choose from (all posted here in the calendar). There were festivities in Harvard, Bolton, and Acton. We decided on the Lincoln parade, but that was kind of drizzly and we skipped it. Fortunately, the sun broke through the clouds in the afternoon and the Sudbury parade went off without a hitch. There were no photographers where I was (towards the end of the route), but there were plenty of photo opportunities. We met several interesting people, saw a wonderful parade complete with floats, bands, and the famous Klein Unicycle Family, and went home for hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill.
Of course Independence Day is much more than going to parades, although that is a big part of it. It's part celebration. But also it's part reflection, or at least it should be. In Lincoln, they read the Declaration of Independence before their parade and I think that's a fine tradition. In Sudbury, former servicemen marched as well as Minutemen who all reminded us what many have sacrificed for our freedom.
In case you are wondering, the Declaration of Independence is indeed dated July 4, 1776. You can find all sorts of information at this link. I admit I cannot remember having fully read it until today. While reading this document, I was struck by a conflict. On the one hand I felt proud that our states have rights and we have freedom. On the other, I felt unsettled that the minimalist government envisioned by our forefathers has become an utter monstrosity. Of course the other conflict is that women and blacks were not counted as being "equal". Another is that all the signers from Massachusetts (John Adams, Sam Adams, John Hancock, Elbridge Gerry, and Robert Treat Paine) graduated from Harvard which is a bastion of liberalism.
If you've ever been to a Stow SpringFest, you know it usually rains (or snows)! This year we got lucky. It was a very special year for us because our town celebrated its Tercenquarternary. What's that word you say? Well the word was "invented" for this occasion and simply means we celebrated our 325th anniversary. We had a huge parade this year. We had the Stow and Sudbury Minutemen, bagpipers, tractors, trucks, antique cars and fire trucks, a replica of the Stow West School (the 1-room schoolhouse still standing on Harvard Road), and a hayride. We even had ourselves a clown on a bike! The girl scouts carried the flags belonging to Stow over the years and the parade was closed by the famed Belgian horses of Rockbottom Farm.
The parade ended at Center School where the real festivities began. There were huge cakes to celebrate the Stow Community Chest's 25th anniversary, students playing instruments at the Stow Friends of Music booth, encampments of minutemen, animals, an old-fashioned broom maker, a blacksmith, spinning and weaving demonstrations, firemen playing "water polo", 20 information booths, and activities galore.
The afternoon gave us a wonderful children's play at the Old Town Hall. "The Time Trap" was a unique lesson in Stow history from a kids' point of view. The play was inspired by books by Stow's Martha Perkins and chronicled the lives of modern day Stow kids who got caught in a parallel existence with 18th, 19th and 20th century Stow kids. The portal in time was an old outhouse.
For more images, visit: Paul's Apple Country Gallery no. 21 or see a select few in the "Images" post below. Proceeds from print sales will go to support the Stow Community Chest.
For more images, please visit: Paul's Apple Country Living Gallery no. 21. Proceeds from print sales will go to support the Stow Community Chest.
The Persuasions are one of the world's premiere a capella groups who began singing together in Brooklyn on street corners and subway stations in the 1960s. From there they went on to release 20 albums. How did they come to our little town? You may remember the tragedy of the death of 19 year old Frankie DeMeo, captain of Nashoba Regional's wrestling squad. Vinnie Sestito, an entertainment industry executive and Stow resident, brought the Persuasions here to kick off the Frankie DeMeo Memorial Scholarship Fund. The fund, which is being run by high school students, aims to create "a Northeastern experience inside the high school," according to Sestito. The reference is to Northeastern University's well-known internship program that combines classroom experience with real-world training. The fund aims to help learning disabled students achieve their potential. Frankie struggled with an autism spectrum disorder, but through wrestling and hard work became a success in high school and was preparing for college.
Donations can be sent to Frankie DeMeo Memorial Scholarship Fund, c/o Nashoba Regional Scholarship Fund, PO Box 523, Bolton, MA 01740. Image: Four members of the Persuasions (Jim Hayes, Joe Russell, Jaytois Washington, BJ Jones).
The social and entertainment event of the year in our neck of the woods has to be the Battle of the Bands at Nashoba Regional High School in Bolton. This is the second annual event and proceeds benefit the Friends of Sudanese, an organization that assists Sudanese refugees who were brought to the Boston area in 2001 by the State Department after 9 years in a Kenyan refugee camp. Last year we had the opportunity to meet one of these people who told us how different things are here and helped us to appreciate just how great this country is.
