Cliff McGann The Folklore Man

2006-11-24T18:56:00.000-08:00

Stevie ray vaughan - Voodoo Child (el mocambo)

I bought my first guitar the day SRV died. I remember it like it was yesterday. With $300 burning a hole in my pocket I had tried some guitars that morning and heard that SRV died and took it as a sign I was buying a guitar that day. He was a brillaint guitarist with chops, tone and feel. The full package IMHO.

2006-11-24T18:50:00.000-08:00

Don Ross - Afraid to Dance

This guy plays acoustic only and is brillaint. He loves tuning his guitar in all kinds of wierd tunings

2006-11-21T09:50:00.000-08:00

while my ukelele gently weeps

2006-10-19T20:32:00.000-07:00

The Kings of Myspace - Myspace Rap Video

2006-10-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

Little Superstar is Back and Angry this time

2006-10-04T23:51:00.000-07:00

Little Superstar

This guy has some sweet moves

2006-10-04T23:49:00.001-07:00

Nova Scotia Celtic Stepdance and Fiddle from Boston

Another Clip of the band.

2006-10-04T23:49:00.000-07:00

Boston Kiltics Nova Scotia Celtic Fiddle Dance Story & Song

A clip of me with my group The Boston Kiltics.

Article I wrote on Canada's Last Human Lighthouse Keeper

2006-08-20T18:28:00.000-07:00

Lighthouse keeper fiddles into history

By Cliff McGann

Canadian lighthouse keeper Paul Cranford, one of that country’s few remaining keepers, has for the past three decades utilized his unique 28 day on, 28 day off schedule to satisfy his passion for Irish and Scottish fiddle music. Over the last thirty years, Cranford has become a respected player, composer and publisher of fiddle music. Since 1979, his company’s publications have helped add and keep tunes in the repertoires of Irish, Scottish and Cape Breton traditional musicians. His own compositions have also worked their way into the repertoires of a diverse group of musicians including Grammy nominated Cape Breton fiddler Natalie MacMaster and Irish accordion virtuoso Sharon Shannon.

Cranford’s love affair with fiddle music began in 1975 upon his arrival in Nova Scotia from his native Toronto. Drawn by an interest in folk music, he stumbled upon a job as a lighthouse keeper within a week of his arrival. It wasn’t long before he picked up the fiddle as his primary instrument and never looked back.

During his 28 days of shore leave, Cranford gleaned tunes and technique from Cape Breton’s finest traditional musicians. He would travel the 3,970 square mile island learning from players in each community. The 1970s were the beginning of the end for the Golden Age of Cape Breton fiddling, and Cranford gleaned all he could from that eras greatest players. The 28 days of seclusion that followed, stationed at one of Atlantic Canada’s lighthouses, allowed Cranford the unique opportunity to digest what he had heard and seen during his travels.

After four years of learning from others, Cranford began giving back to the tradition that had given him so much. In 1979, he formed Cranford Publications and reissued one of the most influential books of Scottish fiddle tunes, The Skye Collection. First published in 1887, it was not easily obtainable until re-published by Cranford in 1979. Four years later he would follow The Skye Collection with the reissue of The Simon Fraser Collection. More recently, Cranford Publications has begun publishing the compositions of Cape Breton’s finest living composers including Jerry Holland and Brenda Stubbert.

While the 1980s brought automation that eliminated lighthouse keeping jobs the world over, Cranford remains gainfully employed thanks to a century and a half long dispute between Canada and the United States. His present post, Machias Seal Island, is a treeless 10-acre bird sanctuary equidistant from Cutler, Maine, and Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick. The lighthouse located on Machias Seal Island is at the center of a long-standing dispute between two countries whose relationship has generally been amicable.

US claims to the island can be traced back to the War of 1812 Treaty of Ghent. By 1865, an American known as “Tall Barney” had claimed the island for the United States. According to local Maine legend he even went so far as to defend it against Canadian officers who came during the spring of that year.

Tall Barney’s oversight upon claiming the island was that he ignored the fact that merchants from the Canadian city of St. John had established a lighthouse on the island thirty-three years prior. This lighthouse forms the foundation of the Canadian claim, and the reason why Machias Seal Island light remains the only manned station in Atlantic Canada.

Since first manning a lighthouse in 1975 at age 21, Cranford has also come into his own as a composer. According to Cranford, most of his tunes come to him while walking the shores and beaches listening to the wind and waves. By 1996, with the number of original compositions mounting, Cranford released a book comprised mostly of his own tunes. Sprinkled with tunes composed by those who had mentored him during his formative playing years, it is appropriately titled The Lighthouse Collection.

Cranford has also created an important on-line presence for lovers of traditional fiddle music at www.cranfordpub.com/

It features articles from his free yearly newsletter, The Silver Apple News, as well as hundreds of free tunes in ABC format. Free MP3’s are also available as are books and CD’s for purchase.

As this article goes to publication the US and Canadian dispute, or lack thereof, continues with regards to Machias Seal Island. It isn’t really much of an issue as the small island doesn’t register that high on either countries dispute to-do list. Until the time when one country decides to push its claim, blurring the lines between vocation and avocation, Paul Cranford returns every twenty-eight days to tend light and compose.

2006-08-08T20:52:00.000-07:00

Atlanta Grape Festival

2006-07-06T05:23:00.000-07:00

Kira and Liam

2006-06-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

*@!*ing Amazing Blind Guitarist

Tin Whistle Links

2006-01-31T18:46:00.000-08:00

Chiff and Fipple...
Your First Stop Has to be Here

Brother Steve's tin-whistle pages

Tin Whistle Fingering Chart

Whistle and Squeak

Wikepedia Tin Whistle Page

Guitar Links

2006-01-30T11:49:00.000-08:00

I teach Guitar @ the Music Academy of Chelmsford. Here some of my favorite guitar related links.

DADGAD TUNING
http://www.modhran.com/chords.html
http://www.geocities.com/celtictunes/chords1.htm
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/f/p/fpm108/glw/lessons/lesson47a.htm
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.speek/dadgad/

http://www.musictheory.net/
http://www.cyberfret.com
http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/
http://www.olga.net/
http://www.guitarnotes.com/
http://www.guitarnoise.com/
http://guitar.about.com/library/bleasysongs_band.htm
http://www.harmony-central.com/Guitar/tab.html
http://www.guitartabbooks.com/freelessons/bluesartist.htm

Big Summer Classic-Ben Harper

2005-07-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

Since getting laid off a couple years back I haven't been going to too many shows besides my annual trip to the Evolve Festival in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

Last night I went to see Ben Harper at the Avalon in Boston. Good show. Blues harp great Charlie Musselwhite joined Harper for a bunch of tunes. Harpers first set was with the band and then he did a wicked little acoustic set and finished the night off with another set with the band & Musselwhite. I'd only seen Harper once before, opening for Dave Matthews back in the day.

Saturday I went to the Big Summer Classic at Great Woods/Tweeter Center in MA. I'd seen Keller Williams and Spearhead before and thought they were both great. It was my first time seeing Yonder Mountain String Band and String Cheese Incident but I was already a fan of both. Umphreys McGee was completely new to me and blew me away. Great drummer and some crazy ass guitar protechnics melding Satriani, Zappa, Yngwie etc. Interesting stuff IMHO. String Cheese were damn good.

Cliff McGann The Folklore Man Blog Entry #1

2005-07-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

During the late 90's into the early part of the 21st Century my life had become the biggest nightmare I could have imagined. I had become a fat apathetic American working for one of the many fortune 500 corporate whores that own Warmerica.

I had a miserable 9-5 job that made me feel less than alive and I hated the ship of horrors my life had become. After 9-11 I decided to take control and live life to the fullest.

I would need a push out the door,Thanks Krissie!!, but I had already lost 70 pounds by that time, become vegetarian and had a plan. Unfortunatelly my plan didn't involve getting laid off a month after buying a house in a Boston suburb whose name ends in -ord. I was in a ball on the floor for 2 days after and then I remembered my plan.

Become a profesional storyteller.

It sounds ridiculous I know but since my life already had plenty of ridiculous in it, a Masters Degree in Folklore, I decided what the hell and began planning for world domination using the ancient art of storytelling.

I play a bunch of different instruments, make documentary films, tell stories to children of all ages at libraries, schools, senior centers in the New England area and beyond. I also drive one of the craziest camaro's your likely to ever see. More on that later.

If your 9-5 makes you feel less than alive my advice it to start hashing your own plan.

Cheers, Cliff

Cape Breton Side Trip

2005-07-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

I only got up to Cape Breton for two days during my July trip. I've been going up to the Sydney, Nova Scotia area more frequently lately as I've been working on a documentary film on Woodcarver Murray Gallant.

I got to see Murray and spend a bit of time chatting with my friend David Stephens who painted Seaflower. I always stop with Seaflower at Wilsons Gas Station on the MikMaq reserve in Cape Breton. They just love it and I love the cheaper gas.Seaflower and I

Return Trip from Nova Scotia in Seaflower

2005-07-20T08:07:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a trip to Nova Scotia in my art car Seaflower. On the return trip my purebred Minitaure Daschund Winston, whom my wife and I got from a shelter, was propositioned for sex.

A gentleman pulled up beside while I was walking Winston during a driving break and asked if he was purebred and if he was fixed. He then asked if I lived handy as his female was in heat. I had to get back on the road so I jsut couldn't do it. As I was walking Winston down the road I kept apologizing to him saying I could have got him laid when an elderly woman comes around the corner walking her terrier and giving me the dirtiest look.

Crossing the US border in Calais, Me was breeze. Under a minute. You'd think it would be harder in a car with marbles and dice all over it but its been easier. As I pulled away from the guard shack I looked into the customs building and 3 officers were looking at the car when the largest and most tattoed one says, "awesome ride man."

No speeding tickets this time coming home. $185 speeding ticket on the way up for being colorful. The cop was curious and from appearance alone was apparently inbred.

We, in the US, live in a police state that isn't about protection but profit. If it was about protecting and serving I'd be all for it but it isn't. Insurance agencies help fund police so they can get the latest greatest speed detection hardware which helps states make more $ and insurance agencies reap the benefits when they increase your premium.

In Canada I drive 90mph, am always in control, and have never got a ticket. Once you cross the border into the US it seems like you could drive down the highway with guns blazing but as long as your not doing more than the legal limit the cop, whose hidden down an embankment behind an underpass, isn't going to catch it with his laser.

I recently found out that most Laser manafacturers in the US actually give away their product to the police and only bill them after the police have written enough tickets to pay for them.

In the US we pay $35 billion a year to keep our prison system going while it has turned into another cash cow driven by profit with 1 in 150 US residents now in prison.

US Prison Facts