From: mike@fionn.lbl.gov (Michael Helm)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.celtic,rec.music.folk
Subject: Re: Maire Ni Chathasaigh and Chris Newman
Date: 12 Apr 1992 20:36:42 GMT
Organization: N.I.C.E.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.128.60
Summary: extraordinary music
Keywords: harp

[Cross-posted & altered distributions.]

(I did make it, for those of you who saw my ba-distribution
article, despite rain, terrible traffic, confusion, & lack
of parking.  Well worth it & then some.)

Kayo Parsons-Korn writes:
>Maire Ni Chathasaigh plays Irish folk harp and Chris Newman
>plays any style of guitar you wish to name. This guy is hot!

That is an *understatement*!   Where has he been hiding???
(More on this later.)

>hearing. I wish now I had asked them for the rest of their tour
>schedule. If anyone knows, they may want to post it on the net.

Here's what's left, courtesy of Chris:

4/13 Harp Workshop, Lyon & Healy Harps, Chicago IL 312 786 1881
     (+1 more day in Chi to meet with Flying Fish)
4/15 Harp Workshop Rockville MD 301 762 8197
4/16 (Concert) The Parting Glass, Sarasota Springs NY 518 583 1916
4/17 (Concert) The Irish Ctr Comm. Barry Club Philadelphia PA 215 849 8899
4/18 Harp Workshop Doylestown PA 215 297 8851
4/19 Departure

I hope those numbers are correct.

There's still time for you to rush down to your travel agent &
book your flites :-)
 
Earlier they had done a couple shows in Texas, & really liked Austin,
where they played the Cactus Club.  He said that they'd had a real
good crowd there, were well-received & would really like to come back.
Chris app'tly had never been in the US before (but everywhere else)
& wasn't getting to see much of the country as the tour was pretty
compressed into one-niters (typical) & had been arranged at the
last minute sandwiched between other commitments.

These two play very, very well together.  Maire sings like an angelic
being & plays like one too -- I can't do her justice, but I don't
want to give the impression she wasn't there.  The real discovery
for me was Chris, tho.   He played some wonderful English 
folk-fingerpicking style guitar  as well as some great flatpicking
Clarence White-style solos on some jigs they did.  These 2 players
interlock beautifully when they play, complementing each other's
solos & giving ea other plenty of room.

Does anyone know anything more about Chris?  I didn't get a chance
to talk to him much about his background, but he told me that
he'd been playing the folk clubs in England &c for many years
tho he'd never done any of his own music before -- this was the
first time he'd really gone out to do his own music, previously
he'd worked as a backing musician for various singers & had toured
all over the place with them.

While listening to them play earlier, I'd been thinking to myself,
"Well, I wonder how many marshmellows an acoustic guitar can toast
when you burn it up?  Why bother playing, since there are pickers like
this in the world?" when Chris started telling a story about CD's
& reissues of old records & one such that someone had sent him.
It was of 2 Spanish/Classical guitar players of the early '60's,
La Goya & Presti, who'd made a few albums, been pretty popular,
but whose records had been lost in the shuffle [1].  He said
that his jaw had to be pried off his kneecap, & his initial
feeling was well, that was it, mite just as well go burn the
guitars now, why bother &c.  His 2nd reaction was, well, some
of these tunes are stealable! & we were treated to a "jigified"
bit of Fernando Sor on harp & guitar.

[1]Ida Presti, who was also La Goya's wife, died on tour acc to Chris
& that was the end.  Goya is still around but really didn't resume
a public career for many years, teaches at a Parisian music conservatory
& did some jazz/classical guitar-piano duets with someone whose name
has slipped my mind.  He also said that the Goya-Presti duets were
being sold on the Philips label in the UK, on 1 of those cheap reissue
lines.