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Kevin Burke was born in London to Irish parents. He is a noted modern exponent of a highly ornamental fiddle style typical of County Sligo and made famous by Michael Coleman. Now based in Portland, Oregon, he is a former member of the Bothy Band and Patrick Street, an original founder of Celtic Fiddle Festival and a 2002 winner of the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship. American guitarist Cal Scott is a professional sound designer who also performs with a folk ensemble and has several soundtracks and commercial jingles to his credit. For Burke's first release on his own label, he and Scott have brought forth an unexpectedly varied cornucopia of riches. Burke’s soaring, slinky yet rhythmically precise fiddle licks are underpinned by a high-and-lonesome guitar redolent of Western bonfires, mountain air and the broad Pacific. Both players are heard at their most outgoing while politely deferring to one another as required. But above all, they seem engrossed in the most glorious form of adult play imaginable, leaping and spinning amid dancing waves and eddying shoals of catchy folkloric, "trad-arr." and newly composed tunes. The closing track, a slow air composed by Scottish accordionist Phil Cunningham as a tribute to his late brother Johnny, is stark, heartbreaking and beautiful beyond words.
Track listing:
1. The Surround / The Red Stockings
2. The Green Fields of Woodford / Seanamhas Tube Station
3. Paris Nights
4. The Lighthousekeepers' Waltz
5. The Long Set:
The Boys of the Lough / Master Crowley's Reel / Sean sa Cheo / Reel of Rio / Paddy Ryan's Dream / The Wind That Shakes the Barley
6. Minnie Foster / The Forgotten Chateau
7. The Last Train From Loughrea / Across the Black River
8. Evening Prayer Blues
9. The Doon Reel / The Reel of Mullinavat / Maud Miller
10. For Johnny
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