There is something very reassuring in our world of uncertainty to not only have a sustained and consistently excellent musical happening like Celtic Connections but also for it to have a perpetual feature like the consistently sold-out Transatlantic Sessions. It’s hard to believe that it was a year since we last sat in the same spacious, acoustically excellent Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow, listening to the preceding incarnation of this institution that connects Scottish, Irish and U.S. musical traditions.
For starters, co-band leader Jerry Douglas made the fair point that one thing that can’t be changed is the Transatlantic Sessions’ opening theme tune, the foot-tapping barndance Waiting For The Federals – a tune fiddler Aly Bain recorded on his first solo album in 1984 and was then recorded during the second Transatlantic Sessions television series in 1998 – which the house band played with typical drive and gusto. Whilst the vocal guests change every year, the house band made up of Aly Bain, Phil Cunningham, Jerry Douglas, John Doyle, Daniel Kimbro, Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker, Donald Shaw and James Mackintosh has for the most part, aside notably from Daniel taking up double-bass duties from Danny Thompson a few years ago, been consistent for over a decade but at the start Jerry Douglas also announced banjo player Allison de Groot and fiddle player Tatiana Hargreaves as new additions, following their guest membership with the band last year.
Lindsay Lou sits somewhere at the intersection of bluegrass, folk, and Americana. She stuck to material from her Queen of Time album from last year. In her first set, Nothing Else Matters, a great song written by Maya de Vitry and Phoebe Hunt, and her album’s title track were beautifully enhanced by Jerry Douglas’s subtle dobro accompaniment (he guests on the first song on the album). Lindsay really got into her stride for her second set with Nothing’s Working and Love Calls, both with intriguingly different melodies and tempos, the latter having something of a calypso feel.
After her substantial roles last year as part of the 30th Anniversary opening concert and opening for Duncan Chisholm’s Black Cuillin premiere, Kim Carnie was the evening’s Scottish vocal representative. For her first half set (all vocal guests have slots in the first and the second half of the show), she began assuredly with Nighean Sin Thall, a traditional Gaelic waulking song from her 2022 debut album And So We Gather, played with a funky swagger backing from the band. Always confident and relaxed, her singing bright and appealing, Kim finished her second set with the brisk Chan Eil A’ Chùis A’ Còrdadh Rium. This humorous South Uist song tells the tale of a man who, having failed to sell a young cow, meets just about everyone he owes money to.
Introducing a set of Irish jigs played by Michael McGoldrick on uilleann pipes, Jerry Douglas acknowledged to the audience that, as much as they like the singing guests, they seem particularly appreciative of the tunes that make up not far short of half of the evening’s performances. Michael played the jigs, Fraher’s/ Patsy Geary’s/ Para Handy, as skilfully and soulfully as we’ve come to expect, with the house band locking in behind perfectly, and it was good to see the pipes as a featured instrument in this context. Later, playing flute, Michael joined two new band members, Allison and Tatiana, to play a great set of tunes. It was my favourite moment of the evening, creating a remarkable sense of intimacy and informality, not least given they were on a big stage in a big venue.
Belfast-based singer-songwriter Joshua Burnside introduced a touch of anti-Tory banter, which got a big cheer – he said he knew he’d be safe with a Glasgow audience. His very engaging songs amalgamate multiple influences, including Irish traditional music – he spent some time participating in the bar sessions – and his song Louis Mercer, from Late Afternoon in the Meadow (1887), had a lovely traditional feel. Joshua sang 26th St and Blood Drive from his debut album Ephrata, which won the Northern Ireland Music Prize for Best Album in 2017, introducing Blood Drive as his reflections on whether there is any balance in the world between all the good things and all the bad things that happen.
The fiddle players Aly Bain and John McCusker saw out the first half in fine style with My Lily, a traditional Cape Breton tune recorded by the late Jerry Holland and also by Aly and Phil, and John’s Under One Sky from his album of the same name. Other band members stepped up to sing: guitarist John Doyle invited the audience to join in with Burke & Hare and bass player Daniel Kimbro singing Michael Collins, a song not about the Irish republican leader but about the American astronaut who was on the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing trip but was the one who didn’t get to walk on the moon. Jerry Douglas led off longstanding favourite tunes Gone to Fortingall and Michael McGoldrick’s Wired to the Moon. Accordion player Phil Cunningham said he was always required to come up with something moving and sad, and he didn’t disappoint, playing the contemplative Melody for Eve, accompanied by just the two fiddles and uilleann pipes.
Jerry introduced Carlene Carter as ‘country royalty’, and she played the role very well. To begin, she sang her own songs, including I Fell In Love, which she amusingly introduced by talking about how she believes strongly in marriage but also believes strongly in divorce. In her second set, her rendition of The Carter Family’s Wildwood Flower was a particular highlight, a song she learned from her grandmother “Mother” Maybelle Carter. Carlene finished with a song written by her mother June for her stepfather Johnny Cash; Ring Of Fire was unsurprisingly a big crowd pleaser, a couple of thousand people helping out with the chorus for the night’s final song.
The house band returned to the stage for an encore of a set of reels – The Old Favourite/Kid On The Mountain/Sleep Sound – all played with as much energy and sparkle as they’d had at the start and as good as anything we’d heard all evening. Aside from Jerry briefly forgetting who one of the guests was and Joshua forgetting to tune his guitar, what was particularly impressive was the lack of obvious first-night rough edges (a second Celtic Connections gig came two days later, followed by further dates in Scotland and England over the next week). This lot really know how to keep up the standard year after and year.