In shifting times, paying attention to connection can be a way to gain perspective and to stay grounded. Connections to loved ones, to friends at distance, to well loved pieces of art, or books, or landscapes can all work to the good. There are many ways to do this, ideas which musicians explore too.
Writing physical letters and postcards can work for this, and it is what Anna Massie was thinking of as she wrote her song Thanks for Writing. Anna comes from Scotland. In demand as a guitarist, music director, and producer as well as a member of the bands RANT and Blazin' Fiddles, she keeps things going. During pandemic time lockdowns in Scotland when things quieted down, she got to thinking about those letters and postcards, though, and wrote a song that's lasted.
Note: these days you will also often hear Anna, when she's not on tour with those aforementioned bands, as presenter of Travelling Folk on BBC Radio Scotland.
Award-winning singer and songwriter Claire Lynch took a story from the Bible you may recognize to frame the ideas she and her friend Pamela Brown Hayes had for the song Go and Do the Same. Claire grew up in Alabama, where she began her career in bluegrass. Later she spent time in Nashville, and has for some time been based in Ontario in Canada.
This song is from one of her earlier recordings, Friends for a Lifetime. Word comes that she's recently released a new album called Empty Pair of Shoes, with all songs written by Claire, featuring her best-loved genres of ballads, bluegrass, and swing.
Shannon Heaton was looking out the window of her home in the Boston area one day when she noticed two cardinals sitting together on a fence. Cardinals were not usual visitors there. She watched as they stayed for some time. Then one flew away.
Shannon had recently heard of the passing of Pastelle LeBlanc, who with her twin sister Emmanuelle and with Pastelle's life partner Pascal Miousse, made up the award-winning trio Vishten. Based in Prince Edward Island in Atlantic Canada, they specialized in the Acadian music.
"Immediately, this tune took wing," Shannon says. "It's in the key of E major, which was a favorite on the accordion for Pastelle." Shannon plays Two Cardinals on the flute, along with her husband and musical partner Matt Heaton on guitar.
Shannon considered the natural world and the world of friendship when creating her tune.
So, too, did John Douglas as he wrote the song Wild Mountainside. It goes with the ideas of connection for many reasons. I am sharing the song just now to honor John, as well. He passed away early in August from a sudden brief illness.
Mountain landscapes come into the song, as do the connections of friendship and love, ideas of courage and patience, too. That's a lot to carry in a song, but John did it well, as does Eddi Reader, who sings it here.
Eddi is from Scotland, as John was. Some years back, she had been working down in England with her music. John had returned to Scotland. Thinking about how Eddi was missing Scotland, he wrote this song, the story goes, to encourage her to come back to her native Scotland and take a chance on building her music career there. She did, and her music flourished. She took a chance on John, too, as the couple married.
We extend thoughts of care and kindness to Eddi and all John's loved ones.
Cardinals, mountain landscapes, help from a stranger, a note in the post: connections all and ways to stay connected through these shifting times. May the stories these musicians tell be good companions to you as your journeys continue.
Thank you for staying with us through this journey. Below, you'll find a link that will take you to an article which has a bit more backstory on the series. It also has links to a number of the stories, including ones called Listening for Community, Music for Winter's Changes, and The Geography of Hope.
Kerry Dexter is Music Editor at Wandering Educators.
You may find more of Kerry's work in National Geographic Traveler, Strings, Perceptive Travel, Journey to Scotland, Irish Fireside, and other places, as well as at her own site, Music Road. You can also read her work at Along the Music Road on Substack.