A Truly Regional Seisiun Descends Upon Sullivan's

Mark Warford

Was it a planetary anomaly? ...synchronicity? Whatever the case, on Thursday, January 21st, Patrick Sullivan's Saloon saw the gathering of great players from Kentucky, North Carolina, and Tennessee cookin' up the craic at that night's seisiún. Bundle 'n' Go, the hosts of the Jack of the Wood seisiún featured in this newsletter, made a trip over the Smokeys. On the same night, as fate would have it, Dan Cummins, the Kentucky coordinator for the CRA and a mighty tenor banjo player, just happened to be passing through Knoxville on a business trip.

A truly special evening, this serendipitous seisiún at Sullivan's featured some spirited sets combining the collective tune vocabularies of three states in our Celtic Republic. We can also say that just about every instrument in the pub seisiún array was represented: fiddles, Uilleann pipes, accordion, concertina, whistle, flute, bodhrán, tenor banjo, bouzouki, and guitar.

A similar interstate event this past summer when Dan hosted a seisiún / workshop at his home in Lexington that featured his friend, Philippe Varlet. Some readers might recognize Philippe for his extraordinary efforts to preserve old recordings of Irish music in America (check out "Milestone in the Garden" on Rounder Records). Jeff Thomas of Bundle 'n' Go biked to Knoxville, joining Sullivan's box player, Herb Williams, and myself for the road trip up to Lex for what turned out to be a glorious evening of high spirited playing and a valuable presentation by Philippe on several topics in Irish traditional music.

If you have a special Celtic musical experience to share, scribble it up and e-mail it to us at CRA. If we don't document it, who will...?