CiTR -- The Saturday Edge

Started with a healthy dose of new music from - and inspired by - Cuba, followed by plenty of wonderful new releases from across Canada and UK and USA. Then an extended preview of some of the music to be performed at the 30th Annual Celtic Colours Festival in Cape Breton over the next 9 days. I love to attend this event, but just couldn't make it this year. Thankfully, there is a concert every evening live-streamed on www.celtic-colours,com and each of these shows will be available for viewing right up to the end of the month.

This week's features included a couple of unique recordings from Rogue concerts, new music from Mali, Senegal, Palestine, Iran, Cuba, Mexico, Poland, Ireland, Louisiana, upstate New York, Galicia, northern England, and Scotland - as well as all across Canada! Quite a few "doubles", with two tracks from new albums and / or classic recordings, cos sometimes a single dose is just not quite enough. Something for everyone today? I like to think so!

Music by many of the performers who will appear at next month's WOMEX Conference in the Canary Islands. These artists are featured in the pages of the fabulous UK magazine, Songlines, which beams to me every month with 100+ pages of news, musical bios and album reviews across the wide world of folk and roots music. Each month it comes with a 15 song virtual CD as well, and there is lots of music from the October issue on the show this week. I also featured some great songwriters - most of them Canadian - and some brilliant instrumentals too.

Plenty of music from West Africa again this week. So many balafons, koras, and polyrhythms! Some fine Canadian blues and roots and exemplary songwriters, then some masters of Celtic music on guitars, uilleann pipes, fiddles, and voices. Including the first excerpts of a new Dick Gaughan 7-CD box set dating back to BBC sessions over 55 years ago.

With Canada under serious threats from the orange pedophile in the White House, and this being one of our few SOCAN reporting weeks - wherein songwriters can claim their just rewards for creating the wonderful music we get to play on CiTR - I chose to feature the vast majority of this week's selections from Canadian songwriters and tunesmiths. The only exceptions were a sad RIP to legendary Irish uillean piper Paddy Keenan, and the local debut of a fabulous Spanish / Scottish fiddle duo. Oh, and a hot new single from my favourite Senegalese band.

A good tune can speak volumes without words and without need of translation. So there were plenty of instrumentals in today's show. We started in Mali, of course, as Tinariwen are in town this evening (at UBC, in fact!) There were plenty of fabulous new releases, and a few local concert previews too. The show ended with a flourish of exhilarating - and mostly instrumental - music from all around the Celtic realms.

Lots of music from the latest CD from Songlines magazine, RIP Dolly Parton and Wyckham Porteous, local concert previews, new releases, and a few songs about fires, floods and fascism - the three plagues of the apocalypse (now.)

An outside broadcast of sorts! Coming to you from an island paradise, this episode started in Senegal and Mali, sailed away to Cuba, Italy, Taiwan, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Germany before heading homeward to BC via Georgia, California and Louisiana. The 3rd hour had a distinctly Irish flavour, peppered with plenty of Canadiana, and hour 4 drifted away to Spain, Scotland and Cape Breton before returning to Louisiana for some stomping Cajun music by The Revelers (who play their first Vancouver show for 8 years next Friday) - and there was a surprise or two at the end.

Looking back at the Edmonton Folk Festival with music by Djekady (American African band), Amble (melodic original songs from Eire), DUG (Scottish / US new trad duo), Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley) and Kate Rusby leading the way. Lots of new music and local concert previews as well as a few songs from Amy Helm who plays Saltspring and Vancouver next week. All this and much more.

Special edition from the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. This show featured many of the performers from this weekend's EFMF, some from last week's Mission Folk Festival, a bunch of new releases, and a few local concert previews.