Kudos

... and the Just Plain Folks award for Americana Song-of-the-Year goes to ... the incredible Eve Selis. But hey, considering the competition, I was more than happy to walk away with a second place finish!

Musical Roots - by Megan Smolenyak I admit that I began my “research” for this article with a little trepidation.  I’m a fan of virtually any means of honoring our ancestors and I love music, so when I learned of two CDs created as musical roots tributes, I knew I had to have them.  But I wasn’t sure that I’d actually like them.   What if good intentions resulted in mediocre music? I started by inspecting the jewel case inserts and noted two similarities between Steve Lanza's     Ancestral Songs and Angus Macleod's The Silent Ones. Both were folk music of a sort and both focused mainly on families that had settled in Canada. I was to quickly discover, however, that this is where the parallels ended.         Ancestral Songs First I listened to Steve Lanza’s Ancestral Songs.  Singer-songwriter Lanza comes from a musical family, so perhaps it’s no surprise that “poring over old photographs in family albums, reading the meticulous diary kept by his grandfather, and making pilgrimages to Newfoundland where his grandmother was born in 1899” inspired this collection of nine tunes.  What did surprise me, though, was how taken I was with it. He had me from the first song, Terra Nova, the story of Adam Hudson, founder of Adam’s Cove, Newfoundland, the fishing village from which Lanza’s grandmother hailed.  Forget that I have no Newfoundland roots and no sailing tradition in my family.  Before the song was half-way over, I found myself joining in the refrain, “Terra No-o-va, beckons thee!” His song about his “grandfather’s grandfather,” Norman Jesse Franks, caught me off-guard with its, well, frankness.  This colorful Nova Scotian was typical of characters many of us have hanging somewhere in our family trees.  This traveling music teacher left more than a musical legacy.  He had nine children by three different women, one of whom was Lanza’s great-grandmother.  Lanza tells the tale honestly, but sweetly. Fisherfolk is a “celebration of family traditions preserved and passed on from one generation to the next.”  Although the song obviously focuses on fishing, Lanza charmed me by embedding a second tradition into the song when he had his then-five-year-old son, Michael, join in on the last chorus.   Perhaps they are no longer fisherfolk, but Michael’s winsome contribution makes it clear that the family’s musical heritage will live on. And lest you should be thinking to yourself, “I don’t recall hearing about Italians settling Newfoundland,” Lanza includes a tribute to his Italian grandparents in Sicily.  Appropriately centered on the festival of I Morti – an event that honors ancestors – the song tells of a young fellow’s wistfulness at the prospect of leaving his beloved homeland. I was enchanted by the whole CD and can truthfully say I would gladly listen to it over and over even if it had nothing to do with family history.  My only regret is that Lanza doesn’t share my Irish-Rusyn roots, so I could anticipate a collection of songs of my own heritage! The Silent Ones: A Legacy of the Highland Clearances Angus Macleod’s is mellower and more contemplative than Ancestral Songs, but equally captivating.  Although this singer-songwriter has his own distinctive style, his music struck me as vaguely Enya-esque, but with more bite and verve, and I suspect his sound will resonate with anyone with a drop of Gaelic blood. The Silent Ones tells the story of 109 families that were evicted from the isle of Lewis in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides and transported overseas in 1851.  Many of them resettled in Huron Township, Bruce County, Ontario, Canada.  In Honoring Our Ancestors, Macleod (as interviewed by Joan Griffis) tells of the moment that sparked his decision to create this tribute: The impetus to tell the story of the Lewis Settlers struck me while I was standing on a lonely windswept stretch of land at the edge of Europe almost four years ago.  I had come to Lewis with my aging father to find the village of our ancestors.  The trip was very emotional.  My father was 82 at the time and not in the best of health.  I think he wanted to see where his family came from before he passed on.  It was a cold and rainy November morning and I found myself surveying the ocean and a tiny collection of ruins which looked more like randomly placed rock piles than former dwellings.  With the village in sight and tears dripping down my cheeks from the emotion of the moment, and from the gale force winds pounding off the Atlantic, the motivation to pursue my lifelong dream came like a thunderclap.  Returning to Canada, I picked up stakes and moved to Huron Township. The Silent Ones is especially close to my heart as I am a direct descendant of these Gaelic pioneers.  My CD was recorded at my own recording facility, located on a plot of land first settled by my great-grandfather and namesake, Angus Macleod.  Composing and recording within the picturesque confines of Huron Township, the exact location of most of the events described in The Silent Ones, was a constant source of inspiration for me. With a mixture of instrumentals as well as Gaelic and English vocals, both spoken and sung, this music evokes the suffering and hopes of the dispossessed.  Together, the songs tell the tale, familiar to millions with roots in Scotland and Ireland, of famine, eviction, departure, crossing, and resettling in a harsh, new land.   Among my favorites is An Cuar Siar (The Western Ocean), a moving lament to those who lost their lives during passage.  In Catriona Nic Choinnich, Macleod pays homage to his great-grandmother, an avid promoter of the Gaelic language, who taught all of her children to sing and speak in the language of their forefathers.  The CD ends on a hopeful note with It Lasts Forever, a song about comfort taken from a vision of his grandfather in a dream at a time when Macleod was mourning the loss of Gaelic culture.  At once soothing, haunting and mystical, The Silent Ones is a musical testimonial to the fortitude of one man’s ancestors, an almost universal theme that will strike a chord with many.   Music to My Ears Yes, I was predisposed to like these CDs, but I was delighted to discover that I genuinely enjoyed them simply for the music and not just for the meaning.  If you would like to learn more about Ancestral Songs or listen to a few songs, visit www.ancestralsongs.com.  To do the same for The Silent Ones, go to http://www.torquil.net.  And if you know of any other such tributes – actual or in the works – please let this fan know so I can add to my collection! Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, author of Honoring Our Ancestors (HOA) and In Search of Our Ancestors, can be reached through www.honoringourancestors.com.  More of Angus Macleod’s story can be found beginning on page 182 of Honoring Our Ancestors and information about her HOA grants can be found at www.honoringourancestors. com/grants.html.