North Antrim Music Forum / Dulcimer partners

Dick Glasgow of Causeway Music, organiser of the annual Causeway Dulcimer Festival, reports: 'Just wanted to let you know that I've launched a wee "North Antrim Music Forum" as an addition to my website.'

Dick hopes that the Forum might be (among many other things) another useful way to promote bluegrass & Appalachian music here in Ireland; and on a first glance it has great possibilities. The sixteen basic headings on the Forum include entries for live music happening now in North Antrim; Ulster and Antrim 'myspace' websites; the hammered dulcimer in Antrim; old-time music and the Appalachian connection; and videos of traditional music.

The wealth of material under the last heading includes the 16-minute 1947 film To hear your banjo play, with Pete Seeger (in his late twenties) playing 'Sally Ann', 'Flop-eared mule', 'Old Joe Clark', and other tunes; Woody Guthrie, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee; and footage of Appalachian life and music, much of which is still going strong nearly sixty years later. Worth looking at for the sight of Pete Seeger's banjo tailpiece alone!

You can reach the NAMF by way of this link. Strongly recommended for entertainment, information, and communication generally in North Antrim and beyond.

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Thanks to FOAOTMAD for the news that Christie Burns, hammer-dulcimer player and former director of the Cork Dulcimer Festival (forerunner of the Causeway Festival), is now based in Bowling Green, KY; has 'partnered up (musically and matrimonially)' with mountain-dulcimer player Butch Ross and produced an old-time CD, Here to play, which can be sampled at their MySpace site. (The site also has a brief but priceless video clip of two nyckelharpas - the big Swedish keyed fiddle - playing for a dance.) Christie and Butch were recently tutoring at the Nonsuch Dulcimer Club annual week-end at Launde Abbey, Leicestershire, UK, on 28-9 October.