I went down to the Stone Mountain Scottish Highland Games this weekend. Friday night was warm, and very little autumn color has occurred there though in other years it is often high color by the weekend of the Stone Games. We camped as always; on Saturday morning a squall blew through hard and fast, and by afternoon the weather was cool and clear.
One of the people around our fire Saturday night was a Canadian singer of Irish traditional music named Michael Kelly. He and I went through a whole host of songs, and to my astonishment he and I knew almost none of the same songs. Wild Rover we both knew, but he had never even heard of Dubliners or Clancy Brothers standards like The Old Orange Flute, or Kelly, the Boy from Killane.
Instead, he knew a whole array of songs I've never heard before. It was akin to discovering that there's a second Bible, or a whole set of Tolkien novels you'd never read.
Looking at his YouTube channel I see that we know a few more of the same songs than we happened to come up with by the fireside, but it's still got a number of songs that may be new to you as they are to me. And of course the echoing joy of will be when he discovers the Clancy Brothers, which a singer of Irish traditional songs will love like finding the first Bible.
2 comments:
Do they still have the Lazer light show at Stone Mountain? It's been 35 years since I've been there, except for a round of golf 4 years ago with my late brother.
I think so. They still set off fireworks at what I assume is the conclusion of that show.
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