MacTalla Mor

Last updated

MacTalla Mor is a Celtic Roots Band that was formed in 2002 and is based near New York City. The band combines traditional Gaelic music and singing with modern music styles including, rock, blues, jazz, reggae and hip hop. MacTalla is made up entirely of members of the Ofgang family. [1]

Contents

Since their inception MacTalla Mor has toured the United States and Canada. [2] They have played at Caesar's Palace Las Vegas, Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, for ESPN, ABC and NBC TV and at Pete Seeger's Clearwater Festival.

The band has released four CDs. The CD "The New Colossus" released in 2008, was recorded in at A-Pawling Studio in Pawling New York in 2007. The CD's title track The New Colossus is based on a sonnet of the same name by Emma Lazarus the final lines of which were engraved on a bronze plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1912. [3]

Instrumentation

Discography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pete Seeger</span> American folk singer and social activist (1919–2014)

Peter Seeger was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture, workers' rights, and environmental causes.

The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City originally consisting of Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads. The group sold millions of records at the height of their popularity, including the first folk song to reach No. 1 on popular music charts, their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene." Despite their popularity, the Weavers were blacklisted during much of the 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dick Gaughan</span> Musical artist

Richard Peter Gaughan is a Scottish musician, singer and songwriter, particularly of folk and social protest songs. He is regarded as one of Scotland's leading singer-songwriters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Seeger</span> American folk musician and folklorist

Mike Seeger was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, and pan pipes. Seeger, a half-brother of Pete Seeger, produced more than 30 documentary recordings, and performed in more than 40 other recordings. He desired to make known the caretakers of culture that inspired and taught him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Paperboys</span> Canadian folk music band

The Paperboys are a Canadian folk music band from Vancouver that formed in 1991. The Paperboys blend Celtic folk with bluegrass, Mexican, Eastern European, African, zydeco, soul and country influences. The band has had a variety of members and line-ups since its original formation, with Landa remaining as the sole founding member, although veteran banjoist/bassist Cam Salay often returns as a guest performer. Known for consistently creating pop songs with melodic hooks, their music has been called versatile, with a wide range of influences, melding diverse musical influences more successfully than some other Irish rock bands have previously.

<i>We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions</i> 2006 studio album by Bruce Springsteen

We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions is the fourteenth studio album by Bruce Springsteen. Released in 2006, it peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 and won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album at the 49th Grammy Awards.

Hudson River Sloop Clearwater

The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. is a non-profit organization based in Beacon, New York that seeks to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands and waterways through advocacy and public education. Founded by folk singer Pete Seeger with his wife Toshi Seeger in 1966, the organization is known for its sailing vessel, the sloop Clearwater, and for its annual music and environmental festival, the Great Hudson River Revival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clearwater Festival</span>

The Clearwater Festival is a music and environmental summer festival and America's oldest and largest annual festival of its kind. This unique event has hosted over 15,000 people on a weekend in June for more than three decades. All proceeds benefit Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit environmental organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Mammals</span> American contemporary folk rock band

The Mammals are a contemporary folk rock band based in the Hudson Valley area of New York, in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Springsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band Tour</span> 2006 concert tour by Bruce Springsteen and the Sessions Band

The Bruce Springsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band Tour, afterward sometimes referred to simply as the Sessions Band Tour, was a 2006 concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and the Sessions Band playing what was billed as "An all-new evening of gospel, folk, and blues", otherwise seen as a form of big band folk music. The tour was an outgrowth of the approach taken on Springsteen's We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions album, which featured folk music songs written or made popular by activist folk musician Pete Seeger, but taken to an even greater extent.

The Eighth Step Coffee House was founded in Albany New York in 1967 by FOCUS CHURCHES, a coalition of local historic churches dedicated to street ministry without proselytizing, and for its first 30 years "The Step" had its office and coffeehouse in the basement of historic First Presbyterian Church at the corner of State and Willett Streets along Washington Park.

Pete Morton is an English folk singer-songwriter who lives in London, England. According to fRoots, Morton "is amongst the best that the British roots music scene has produced in living memory."

The Sessions Band is an American musical group that has periodically recorded and toured with American rock singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen in various formations since 1997.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Casey Neill</span> American musician

Casey Neill is an American musician. He leads Portland, Oregon-based band Casey Neill & The Norway Rats, singing with a raspy vocal quality and playing electric and acoustic guitars. Neill's style, folk-punk, mixes influences from punk, Celtic and folk music, and has been compared to R.E.M. and The Pogues.

Toshi Seeger was an American filmmaker, producer and environmental activist. A filmmaker who specialized in the subject of folk music, Toshi's credits include the 1966 film Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison and the Emmy Award-winning documentary Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, released through PBS in 2007. In 1966, Seeger and her husband, folk-singer Pete Seeger, co-founded the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, which seeks to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands. Additionally, they co-founded the Clearwater Festival, a major music festival held annually at Croton Point Park in Westchester County, New York.

Celtae was a Canadian band, formed in 2001 in Ottawa, playing neo-Celtic music. The band was founded by Nathan MacDonald of Cape Breton Island, and included Matt Holland of Summerside, Prince Edward Island and Tyree Lush of Gambo, Newfoundland and Labrador. Original fiddler Jules Sisk left the band, and was replaced by Dana Arrowsmith of Sudbury, Ontario.

God's Counting on Me, God's Counting on You (Single) is a 2012 single by Pete Seeger featuring Lorre Wyatt & Friends, produced and arranged by Richard Barone and Matthew Billy, and released by Billy Barone Productions. Originally recorded in 2010 aboard the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, the song was written immediately after that year's massive BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The spill is referenced in the lyrics. It was Seeger's final single release.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Niteworks</span>

Niteworks is an Electronic Celtic fusion band from the Isle of Skye. The band are known for writing new songs in Gaelic and melding the bagpipes and Gaelic songs such as puirt a beul with techno and house beats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Wakes</span> Folk rock band

The Wakes are a folk rock band from Glasgow, Scotland. The band's sound is a mixture of Celtic traditional music fused with punk rock and funk. The band's lyrics embrace their culture, heritage and surroundings. They cover all manner of subjects from anti-fascist politics, immigration and unemployment to uprising and rebellion in Scotland, Ireland and beyond. Musical influences include The Pogues, Dick Gaughan, The Clash, Dropkick Murphys and Bob Dylan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christine Primrose</span>

Christine Primrose is a Gaelic singer and music teacher. She was born in Carloway, Lewis, but she currently lives on the Isle of Skye.

References

  1. News-Times "Paying Homage to Halloween's Roots"
  2. Palm Beach Post "Freebird on the Bagpipes"
  3. Watts, Emily Stipes. The Poetry of American Women from 1632 to 1945. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977: 123. ISBN   0-292-76435-9