CiTR -- The Saturday Edge

Started with some Cuban music, then a few songs from India for Diwali (The Hindu Festival of Light). Some Canadian Blues, then a few songs for Remembrance Day. A few songs from artists coming to town in the next few weeks, and a lengthy feature on the great Irish bouzouki player and producer, Donal Lunny, who led some of Ireland's most celebrated bands (Planxty, Bothy Band, Moving Hearts, and Mozaik) before passing away the other week. Finished with a new song from Bryan Adams to celebrate Lake Ontario - while the orange dummy throws his toys out of the pram in this rather encouraging week! Come on Dems, release the Epstein Files as soon as you can!!

Lots of spooky tunes and songs about the US Midterms and other horror stories - like Halloween, for instance! Plenty of new music from the pages and digital CD of the latest issue of Songlines magazine - and more! Also major features on artists coming to town in the next few days. The last song was too long for the allotted time, so I put the full version onto the podcast, which will be available later today.

Featured new albums by Bruce Cockburn, Richard Thompson, Angel Forrest, and Orchestra Baobab. Plus extensive concert previews (including BC songwriter Allen Dobb who launches his new CD this very evening, Irish trio Amble who play The Orpheum on Tuesday, and other upcoming Rogue shows and a few more gigs around town, like The Great Canadian Songbook at the Kay Meek on November 8th, and Allison Russell at The Chan on November 9th). There were also a number of Halloween "tasters" and a few surprises along the way.

Songs "out`shot" instrumentals by a ratio of 4 to 1 on today's show. More than half the show was Canadian. Almost 70% was new music released in 2026. Songs of sadness, consternation, and hope, and love. Speaking of which, one of my most beloved things in life is to be able to present 50 or more favourite tracks every week on CiTR. Speaking of sadness, I get very little feedback, so if you're enjoying a show, why not drop me an email on [email protected], or send me a DM on FB? It can be a bit lonely on the radio, sometimes. Just knowing someone is out there and reacting to the music is a great thing. Thanks for reading this, and huge thanks for tuning in!

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.