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Rolling Waves CD

Happy New Year friends near and far. I am very excited to let you know about my latest release on Gourd Music, The Rolling Waves. I have been working on this recording for close to two years. I started recording at my home in Bonny Doon CA in early 2020, just before Covid. And then the pandemic happened, and the fires happened, and moving house a few times happened. But through it all I managed to get recording and editing in here and there, and, I have to say I am really proud of this recording. The tunes come from various sources, some are brand new to me, some are from my ancient past. I love all of these melodies dearly, and I hope that my arrangements support them and bring them to life and help the tunes find a way into your ears.

Here’s the title cut:

1. The Rolling Waves (Trad. Irish)
2. Sliabh na mBan (Trad. Irish) / Waterloo Hornpipe (Trad. Scottish)
3. What A Wonderful World (George David Weiss and Bob Thiele)
4. Mother Anne’s Song (Trad. Shaker)
5. Polska efter Nylandspojkarna (Trad. Swedish) / Hamborgar Walking Tune (Trad. Norwegian)
6. The Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter (William Ackerman)
7. Aisling Gheal (Trad. Irish)
8. Slängpolska Från Vrigstad (Trad. Swedish)
9. Lliw’r lili ymysg y drain (Trad. Welsh) / Lament for Roe Owen O’Neill (Carolan)
10. Pie Jesu (Gabriel Fauré)
11. New Morning Rain (William Coulter)
12. Jag Unnar Dig Ändå Allt Gott (Trad. Swedish)
13. Konvulsionslåten (Anders Norudde)
14. An Daingean (William Coulter)

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Fire & Grace: Alma

The new album with Edwin. See us over at Fire & Grace

Alma album cover

1. Libertango (Astor Piazolla)
2. Asturias (Isaac Albeniz)
L’Estate – Summer (Antonio Vivaldi)
3. Allegro non molto
4. Adagio e piano
5. Presto
Suite Español
6. Prelude (JS Bach)
7. Mendiokerra (Traditional Basque)
8. Allemande (JS Bach)
9. Ay Linda Amiga
(Traditional Spanish 16th Century Madrigal)
10. Courante (JS Bach)
11. Nana
(Traditional Spanish / Manuel De Falla)
12. Sarabande (JS Bach)
13. Malagueña (Traditional Spanish)
14. Menuet 1 and 2 (JS Bach)
15. Muñeira de Chantada (Traditional Galician)
16. Gigue (JS Bach)
17. Cancro Crú (Anxo Pintos)
18. Tanya’s Tune (Roger Talroth)
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Celtic Knots

This “pandemic project” happened remotely in 2021. Tomáseen and I had been wanting to get to it for years so maybe it’s a silver lining to the lockdown. Such a joy to put this together with Tomáseen Foley and Brian Bigley and Eimear Arkins. Find more over at Tomáseen Foley’s website.

Of all the world’s shimmering love stories, few have the transcendent quality of the love between Irish poet/Nobel laureate W. B. Yeats, and the beautiful English aristocrat who was to become a militant Irish nationalist, suffragette, feminist and prisoner, Maud Gonne.
The first time he saw her he said she was “luminous as apple blossoms through which the light shines”. The poems he wrote to her and about her will stand as long as the English language stands.
With their latest album, Celtic Knots: An Irish Love Story, renowned native Irish writer and storyteller, Tomáseen Foley; traditional Irish musician, Brian Bigley, and Grammy Award-winning Celtic guitarist, William Coulter, like tapestry, they weave this radiant love story around the immortal poems of W.B. Yeats.

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Westward – Éilís Kennedy

Independent Release – 2017

From Neil McFadyen’s lovely writeup at FolkRadio UK:

Growing up on the western edge of County Kerry’s Dingle Peninsula; for singer/songwriter Éilís Kennedy the poetry, songs and music of Gaeldom were, and remain, a constant influence. Those influences extend even further for her new album, Westward, as Éilís is joined by friends from Atlantic and Pacific coastlines on an album that sees her expand her outlook and her own musical skills. In addition to her musical partnership with Pauline Scanlon, as Lumiere, Éilís has also released two very well received solo albums – Time to Sail in 2001 and One Sweet Kiss in 2005. Both albums offered an enchanting mix of traditional and contemporary Gaelic and English song, and made the most of the musical contacts Éilís and her husband John have nurtured as proprietors of John Benny’s pub in Dingle – renowned for the quality of its music sessions.

Éilís opens Westward by evoking the warm atmosphere of those sessions with the gentle familiarity of Bill Caddick‘s John o’ Dreams, a song perfectly suited to her soft, lilting voice. In both her previous albums, Éilís collaborated, very successfully, with Santa Cruz guitarist William Coulter. William’s Grammy-Award winning fingerstyle guitar provides Westward with a constant companion to Éilís’ vocal, and the equally familiar sound of cellist Barry Phillips, who also joined William on Éilís’ previous albums, adds a somnambulant richness.

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One Lane Bridge – recording

Independent Release – May 2014

One Lane Bridge, guitarist William Coulter, cellist Aria DiSalvio, and fiddler John Weed will mesmerize and delight with their unique, artful arrangements of traditional and contemporary tunes. Fusing folk styles from Ireland, Scotland, Sweden and Spain with modern influences results in something both ancient and cutting edge — a rhythmically vibrant, melodically engaging chamber-folk music at home in the concert hall or on the dance floor.

Track List:

  1. Humours Of Lisheen / The New Mown Meadow
  2. Costa De Galicia
  3. Lurka’s / Marga’s Moment
  4. Prelude from Cello Suite #1
  5. The Abbey Reel
  6. The French Polka / Maids Of Mt Kisco
  7. Remember Blake
  8. Gusty’s Frolics / Broken Pledge / The Hare’s Pane
  9. Last Of The Starrs
  10. Sara Davis / Humours Of Andytown
  11. Long Dance
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Toward the Sun

Find this at CDBaby

Brian Finnegan and William Coulter released Their first duo recording, “Toward the Sun”, in early July 2014. Performances on the east coast and a return trip to Nova Scotia celebrated this new CD.

Brian Finnegan is widely regarded as one of Ireland’s most exciting and innovative traditional musicians, flaunting his flute and whistle with a flamboyance and flair. “A thrilling talent, marvelous technical dexterity, bold musical imagination and urgency, combining playing of breathtaking suppleness and delicacy.” – Scotland on Sunday –. Finnegan is also acclaimed as a composer of tunes in the traditional style, amply attested to by his spectacular CD, “The Ravishing Genius of Bones.” William Coulter is a Grammy Award winning guitarist who has been performing, recording, and teaching traditional and classical music for the past 25 years.

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Happy Here

This album with Ben Verdery, is available at Gourd Music.

William Coulter and Ben Verdery have found a unique and energizing partnership.Their space is made of acoustic strings. Strings have their own kind of chemistry, and steel and nylon played together have their own subtle dynamic and exchange. They talk back and forth, like old friends who don’t get together as often as they’d like to.

Something original is going on. Part of it is the mix of strings themselves – one guitar strung with steel, another strung with nylon. We seldom hear this. Ben Verdery says that he tried it once before, in a couple of tunes recorded years back with Leo Kottke. It makes a very pleasing mix of textures, like silk laid next to satin. One helps to define the other.

But the more important chemistry is what the performers release in one another as they play. Bill Coulter and Ben Verdery have found a unique and energizing partnership. What we get from Bill & Ben is a guitar performance at its most intimate. There is heart here and a meditative quality. Each musician goes inward to his still center, in order to come outward with a shared sound that is masterful yet vulnerable.

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Jefferson’s Fiddle


Available from the Gourd Music site where it says this about that:

Jefferson’s Fiddle is a delightful collection of modern arrangements and readings of classical and traditional repertoire that showcase Thomas Jefferson’s extensive music library. This new recording features the talents of William Coulter on acoustic guitar and Deby Benton Grosjean on fiddle.

Selections include Scottish tunes such as “Robin Adair,” “The Last Time I Came O’er the Moor,” and “Money Musk.” Three compositions composed for Jefferson by Anglo-Italian musician and painter Maria Cosway are included—“Tacite Ombre,” “Ogni Dolce Aura,” and “Sospiri del Mio Cor.” Also featured is traditional music of America and Ireland, as well as “Sarabande and Gigue” by the Italian composer Archangelo Corelli (1653–1713).
Joining William and Deby on Jefferson’s Fiddle are Barry Phillips, cello; Shelley Phillips, English horn and oboe; Lars Johannesson, flute; Jennifer Cass, pedal harp; Linda Burman-Hall, harpsichord; and Neal Hellman, mountain dulcimer.

Jefferson’s Fiddle – Song List

  • Jefferson and Liberty
  • Aileen Aroon
  • George Washington’s Favorite Cotillion/Corn Riggs Are Bonny
  • The Last Time I Came O’er the Moor
  • Ogni Dolce Aura
  • Rustic Reel/Off She Goes
  • Adagio
  • Menuet
  • Thugamar Féin an Samhradh Linn
  • Tacite Ombre
  • Money Musk Stathspey and Reel
  • Sarabande
  • Gigue
  • Robin Adair
  • Sospiri del Mio Cor

Listen on SoundCloud: