Websites

My breaks at work usually consists of a busman's holiday--looking things up on the computer as opposed to. . .looking things up on the computer. When the links are interesting enough, I save them for later. It occured to me yesterday that some of them might be interesting enough to pass around to other folks, so here are a few; hopefully something for everyone in here!

James Graham’s new CD
http://www.footstompin.com/artists/james_graham
My favorite Scots Gaelic singer; I happened to catch him singing on Traveling Folk, a BBC radio program* a few years ago in a great live recording of the Young Scottish Traditional Musician of the Year competition. I've been meaning to write up a review of his CD's one of these days, but I think the reviews on Footstompin' Records pretty well cover anything I could say--he's good! And for the language fans out there, his CD jackets include both the Gaelic words and an English translation. James Graham also appears in the beautiful recording on the very bottom of this page, though it's group singing:
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/nq/resources/musicofscotland/GAELIC/agaelic.htm
(This page is a nice introduction to Gaelic singing in general, too.)

Freddie Green
http://www.freddiegreen.org/
Quite a different sort of music! Freddie Green was the long-time rhythm guitarist for Count Basie's band. I have some aspirations of learning to play this style of guitar (it would help if I would practice) and admire his views on the role of a rhythm guitarist, not to mention his playing.

Gaeilge quiz
http://www.daltai.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/daltai/quiz/index.cgi
This is Irish Gaelic, and I haven't tried it yet, but it looks useful.

Vaquero expert
http://www.elvaquero.com/Rawhide%20Braiding%20History.htm
Again, one of those sites which I saved since it was full of information, but haven't had a good look at yet. The vaqueros are, to my way of thinking, among the most interesting figures of California history.

*Which reminds me--BBC Radio Scotland is great fun with its "Listen Again" feature; you can stream the week's archived shows. Traveling Folk has a lot of variety, if you are in a folksy mood, but my favorite is Pipeline, the bagpiping hour. It has a *lot* of good music, as well as interviews with the great pipers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/radioscotland/