In 1957 The Kingston Trio emerged from San Francisco's North Beach club scene to take the country by storm, bringing the rich tradition of American folk music into the mainstream for the first time. During the late 50s & early 60s, the Trio enjoyed unprecedented record sales and worldwide fame, while influencing the musical tastes of a generation.

Through changing times, the Trio has played on, remaining popular for a simple reason... great songs that sound as good today as the first time you heard them. Over forty years after Tom Dooley shot to the top of the charts, the Trio is still on the road thirty weeks a year, bringing back all the great memories and making new ones.

Called one of Celtic music's most gifted singers and arguably the best songwriter in the entire folk tradition, Andy M. Stewart has been delighting audiences with his music and humour for two decades.

Born in Perthshire, Scotland, Andy grew up in a family noted for its fine traditional singing. He first drew the attention of the music world with his work as lead singer and instrumentalist for Silly Wizard, with whom he toured until their break-up in 1988. It was while Andy was in the Wizards that he gained much recognition for his beautiful interpretations of the traditional songs of Scotland and Ireland and also became known as a master of songwriting in the traditional style.

Self-penned gems such as "The Ramblin'Rover", "Golden, Golden", "The Queen of Argyll", and "Where are You Tonight, I Wonder" have become almost instant classics, and have been recorded by June Tabor, The Dubliners and Deanta, to name a few. As an accomplished banjo player, his ear for a good tune has been displayed in his arranging and composing abilities; a style that set the precedent for many an up-and-coming band in the ever-expanding world of Celtic music.

Known for his wicked wit and sterling live performances, Andy M. Stewart is among the finest singers in the Scots/Irish traditional genre, with a voice that "conveys more emotion in one line than most singers do in a lifetime." (Beacon Herald)

Andy has recorded four solo albums, By the Hush, named Folk Album of the Year by Melody Maker Magazine, Songs of Robert Burns, Man in the Moon, and his most recent release, Donegal Rain, Mojo's Folk Album of the Month, Jan. 1998. He has also recorded three albums with Manus Lunny: Fire in the Glen (also featuring Phil Cunningham of Silly Wizard), Dublin Lady, and At It Again.
  

After more than 13 years, the Makem Brothers have spun into a musical cocoon and emerged as the powerhouse Irish vocal group of their generation. During the winter of 2003 the Makem Brothers joined forces with Irish music’s Spain Brothers to form a quintet as strong and unique as anything offered in Irish music today. The result is a musical act far greater than the sum of its parts and an electric onstage chemistry that few acts ever achieve.

The Makem Brothers know Irish music almost inherently. They grew up at sing-songs and sessions frequented by some of Ireland’s best known and prolific singers and musicians. As professional entertainers since 1989, they have had the unique opportunity to study first hand from many of the best acts in Irish music today.

They have played before millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic, including national slots on American public television and Irish talk shows. From California to Ireland and from Texas to Canada, the list of stages on which they have performed is equally impressive and includes Symphony Space in New York City, the World Cup and the Guinness Fleadh.

When it comes to Irish music, the brothers are truly professionals. Their job is to entertain and they never disappoint. Audiences can expect anything from slow meaningful songs to humorous and indeed boisterous numbers. Mixed with an onstage wit to match, The Makem Brothers have become one of the most sought after Irish acts internationally.

The Makem Brothers and the Spain Brothers realized the magic that a combined live performance could possess after honing their craft at private sessions together over several years. Their subsequent polishing created a sound that is unmatched for Irish singing bands in their generation.

Their sound comes from powerfully backed, precise three-part harmonies, varied instrumentation and a strong appreciation for the history and progression of folk music. They are also talented songwriters with an ear for “timeless” songs.

Shane, Conor and Rory Makem represent the third generation in their legendary family of Irish-born singers. Their grandmother Sarah Makem was a source singer and was visited by folk music collectors from all over the world such as Pete Seeger, Diane Hamilton and Jean Ritchie for her great store of old Irish songs. She was also the singing voice that welcomed millions weekly to one of the first international folk programs, the BBC World Service’s “As I Roved Out.”

The Makem Brothers’ father Tommy Makem first came to world prominence with the Clancy Brothers in the 1960s. Together the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem gave Irish music a popularity it had never seen, bringing it from Carnegie Hall to the Ed Sullivan Show. Tommy Makem continues to be one the world’s top progenitors of Irish culture with public television specials, sold out shows everywhere he performs and an annual festival in Ireland named in his honor.

Mickey and Liam Spain are second-generation performers who learned songs at their father’s knee in the mill town of Manchester, New Hampshire. Mick’s strong baritone voice and Liam’s endless skills on the guitar, mandolin and harmonica had always set the duo apart, but now have enabled a seamless transition to a five-man group.
 

Danny’s success as an entertainer is driven by his dedication to preserving and passing on his Celtic heritage. As the last of a generation reared in the isolation of a pure Gaelic culture, Danny’s youth recalled the simple tradition kept alive on the rugged and desolate islands. His first language is Gaelic, and his first love – the ancient music played and sung around the peat fires in the evenings. Danny evokes the often-indistinguishable link between history and myth. Whether singing the timeless songs of Galway fishermen or performing his own contemporary ballads, Danny O’Flaherty keeps a unique heritage alive.

Danny O’Flaherty has captivated audiences from Old Jaffa and Jerusalem to Washington, D. C. None other than The Washington Post raved “Suddenly we were no longer in our nation’s capital; we were on a trip across the waters as we clapped, sung a long, laughed, and yes, even wept a tear at a gentle ballad. For Danny O’Flaherty is good, very good. His program wowed an appreciative crowd.” Whether it is a sold-out concert with the Tulsa Philharmonic, an invitation only performance for the alumnae of Notre Dame University, an Inaugural Ball, a World’s Fair, a command performance for a pope or President, an intimate evening at a local pub or a featured performance for the Council of Exceptional Children’s Annual Convention, Danny O’Flaherty leaves every audience spellbound. This talented musician switches seamlessly from accordion to tin whistle to harmonica to eight and twelve string guitar. His repertoire is extraordinary. Haunting ballads of loves lost and found, songs of the sea and glen, aching calls for tolerance and peace, jigs and reels; Gaelic favorites - traditional tunes interspersed with original hit recordings from his popular CDs – all this and a bewitching personality that has audiences young and old calling for more.
 

The Dady Brothers

This versatile duo plays fiddle, mandolin, guitar, bodhran, banjo, uilleann pipes, harmonica, and even penny whistle, while performing a wide range of music styles including country, bluegrass, folk, and Irish. Their on-stage wit and wide musical repertoire make every performance too short!

In a performance list too long for this page, John and Joe have played at clubs, pubs, and festivals all over the United States, Canada, and Ireland. They have shared the stage with performers as diverse and notable as The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Trout Fishing In America, Mitzie Collins, Ani DeFranco, Bill Staines, Arlo Guthrie, Rick Danko, and The Story, among many others.

Beth Patterson is an Irish folk and Celtic musician of some renown. Combining traditional Irish, Celtic and folk ballads with Cajun, world-beat and progressive rock influences, her own creative songwriting and a unique sense of humor, Patterson's music is as memorable as her wit and charm.

Though she plays several instruments, Patterson's preferred tool is the bouzouki, a gourd-shaped stringed instrument, ultimately of Greek origins but introduced into Irish music in the 1960s. She has a degree in music therapy from Loyola University New Orleans. She was a founding member of the ensemble The Poor Clares, whose albums include Change of Habit and Songs for Midwinter, distributed nationally on the Centaur label. Her three albums, on the Little Blue Men Records label, include two studio productions, Hybrid Vigor and Take Some Fire, and one live album, Caught in the Act. She has also played on (and produced) other albums, most recently (2005) on the album Orin by the Breton progressive-folk group Tornaod.

She was a regular performer at O'Flaherty's Irish Pub in New Orleans's famed French Quarter, until Hurricane Katrina hit at the end of August 2005; O'Flaherty's may not reopen at its original site, but Patterson has since begun playing regularly at other New Orleans venues. She has also toured in Canada, France, Ireland and Belgium
 

Jed Marum is an established and a favored performer at Celtic and Folk/Bluegrass festival and concert rooms throughout the US. In 2005 he performed over 150 shows, bringing his music and songs to audiences in over fifty cities - in a dozen states.

All four of Jed's albums receive international radio airplay regularly - on Celtic and Bluegrass radio shows - on web cast programs - and on MP3 services all around the world. His latest album, MILES FROM HOME was among the Most Played Albums of the Folk/Bluegrass DJ Playlist for four months in 2005.

Jed is known as a gifted singer and an exceptional guitar player. He is an accomplished banjo and harmonica player as well and brings some fascinating new sounds to the stage with unusual hybrid instruments like the hi-strung backpacker and the banjola. Widely respected as a songwriter, Jed has licensed several of his original songs for use by other recording artists, movies and television.

In recent travels, Jed is headlining at several of the nation's big festivals, including The North Texas Irish Festival, Chicago Gaelic Park Irish Festival, Mississippi Scottish Games, Tucson Folk Festival, Texas Scottish Festival and many regional festivals around the US.
 

If you wish to hear some top notch Irish Folk music, here you go! The Conly's have been performing traditional Celtic music in the Shreveport-Dallas-Houston-Jackson area for over twenty years.

The festivals in which the Conly's have performed include North Texas Irish Festival, Natchitoches Folk Festival, Red River Revel in Shreveport, Louisiana Folk Fest in Monroe, Mississippi Celtic Fest in Jackson, Yukon Celtic Fest in Oklahoma and 7 Nations Fest in New Orleans and many others.

The Conly's consists of Bill Conly, Bob Jordan and Betty Waddoups and Keith Waddoups. In addition to the Irish band, Bill plays guitar and vocals for the 12th Louisiana String Band performing War between the States period music all over the Southern states. Bill plays guitar, mandolin, bodhran, bazooki and also handles vocals. Bob Jordan contributes great guitar and banjo leads as well as additional vocals. Bob has a long history with folk music in the Tennessee and North Carolina mountains. Bob did instrumentals for John McCutcheon when he recorded "Wind that Shakes the Barley." He also recorded with David Holt in his Brand New Old Time String Band. Betty Waddoups plays the flute and penny whistle in the Conly's Irish Band as well as doing lead and harmony vocals. Betty has a remarkable ability to carry a great lead on songs that she has heard for the first time. Betty also plays in a folk-pop band known as Shakey Ground at the Celtic Crossing, an Irish pub in which the Conly's also perform. Keith Waddoups fills in this great band, adding additional vocals, bodhran and snare.

Their newest release is the 2003 Gospel Album and gives us a great set of gospel favorites with the Irish sound we have come to love from the Conlys.

Jim Flanagan

A native of Ballyvourney, a small village in the heart of the Muskerry Gaeltacht (an Irish speaking area) in County Cork, Jim Flanagan now lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He has performed at major festivals (Milwaukee, Dallas, Colorado, Atlanta, New Orleans, Savannah, Austin, Jackson) and in regular pub performances over the years has established himself as a significant force in Irish music in the Southeastern United States. Steve Winick (Dirty Linen) compares him favorably to Daithi Sproule (of Altan) and the great traditional singer Joe Heaney (Seosamh Ó hÉanaí) - in whose company any Irish singer would be proud to be placed.

Celjun

Music jam parties abound in southwest Louisiana. The region is home to a wealth of versatile musicians who gather together regularly, drawn by the local bonhomie, good food, and a mutual love of traditional music of all kinds. The band Celjun evolved out of these gatherings, a small circle of friends who continued to explore the merging of Cajun music with that of Ireland and Appalachia, and a curious delighted audience followed. The resulting blend is at once both familiar and surprising: Irish ballad with Jazz bass, an Appalachian fiddle hoe-down accompanied by Irish bouzouki, Cajun fiddle two-step in unison with the concertina, Irish jigs, reels, hornpipes and polkas, all sharing a strong sense of groove and creating a new fusion: CELJUN MUSIC.

Beyond the Pale

Beyond The Pales' eclectic and diverse mix of traditional celtic, Americana and contemporary styles and is the key to their popularity. They have developed their unique sound by blending their original songs and compositions with an array of  traditional dance tunes and folk songs of Ireland, America, Scotland and Europe  using a wide range of instruments including fiddle, flute, accordion, guitar, hammered dulcimer, tin whistle, saxophone, harmonica, concertina, clarinet, mandolin bodhran, percussion, and of course the voices of band members.

Beyond The Pale have been featured performers at some of the largest music festivals in the USA including in The North Texas Irish Festival ( Dallas) and The Texas Scottish Festival and Highland Games (Arlington). They have shared billing  at these events with some of the top artists  in the world including Altan, Tim O’Brien, Eileen Ivers, Solas, Danu, Lunasa, Dervish, Silabh Notes, to name just a few. In addition to these large events, BTP give frequent concert and festival performances throughout Texas and the South Central US. They have appeared live on National Public Radio’s “The Glenn Mitchell Show” and “ No Cover” and on RTE, Ireland “ Live From Miltown”. Beyond The Pale’s members have performed throughout the USA and in Europe.

Pat & Rosie Maloney

"Pat Maloney is at least as impressive on stage as he is in the Studio.  Maloney is a great talent.  His songs, rich in the poetry of straight talk, contain dramatic images and deft turns of phrase.  He is an exhilarating, emotional performer.  One is reminded of John Prine because his voice carries the same kind of gruff sentimentality but Maloney is certainly nobodies' clone...  Folk musician though he basically is, he avoids the lugubrious and self righteous pitfalls of 90's stool and guitar work."  (Chuck Cuminale, City Newspaper, Rochester, New York)

Pat is joined onstage by his wife, Sweet Rosie Maloney, on backup vocals, Irish whistle and percussion.

North Channel

Between Ireland and Scotland there is the North Channel. 

 

Consisting of a group of people of Irish and Scottish descent, this band presents traditional Celtic Music from North America to North West Europe. 

 

The music they choose is mostly traditional, historical and involves audience participation. They love the music and hold dear the tradition.  You can tell they love what they do and play to entertain.

 

Too listen to North Channel is like being in the company of family and friend – you feel like you have met them before. 

 

Richie Stafford

Multi-instrumentalist Richie Stafford is a native of Dublin who learned to play flute as a boy in Co. Sligo, Ireland.  Equally at home with the fiddle as the flute, he has an enormous repertoire of traditional tunes.

Richie unfailingly communicates his sincere warmth, wit, and charm to audiences through his renditions of traditional Irish songs.

Strathspey & Reel Society

The Gulf South's only Scottish Fiddle Orchestra, the New Orleans Strathspey & Reel Society was formed in 2001 to promote the preservation of the traditional music of Scotland and the surrounding regions. Made up of amateur musicians drawn from the both classical and folk traditions, the Society meets regularly to play together and learn new tunes that reflect the traditional music of Scotland, Ireland and the Cape Breton area of Nova Scotia. With a cadre of about 12 musicians, the performing members of the group have played at several local and regional Celtic festivals and Scottish Highland Games; these include the Celtic Festival in Jackson MS., The Louisiana Scottish Games of Jackson, La., and the Highlands & Islands Festival in Gulfport MS. We also support other local & regional Scottish organizations by performing at their events including Tartan Day festivities and St. Andrew's Day celebrations.

New Orleans Quarter Shanty Krewe

Rowan Moon

Rowan Moon is  a contemporary Celtic band based in North Texas. Through the diverse spectrum of their collective life experiences they are able to bring forth a fresh approach to both Irish and Scottish traditional tunes, as well as a unique "twist" to many contemporary songs.  Plus, they have a wonderfully large collection of original songs that range from folk to fantasy.  Their repertoire of songs appeals to a very broad base of music lovers- and they are able to adapt their music to nearly any venue, electric or acoustic, indoors or out. 

Tim Glennon

Born and raised on New York’s Long Island, Tim is the eighth child of twelve and the son of a first generation Irish New York City Policeman.  Tim began singing and playing the piano around the age of five, playing mostly for family and relatives.

It was in while he was in high school that Tim started singing with his oldest brother Jack at “Irish Affairs.”  The Glennon Brothers were primarily influenced by the likes of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, and The Irish Rovers.

While attending St Edward’s University in Austin Texas, Tim honed his craft as a solo artist, playing at the Student Union while pursuing his degree in Theatre Arts.

After graduation from College, marriage, and four children, Tim resumed his solo act playing and singing in Irish establishments in the Northeast.  In 1999 He moved to Shreveport Louisiana and established himself as a “Celtic Artist” among the local musical establishment.  He has played, and continues to do so, at various pubs and clubs of Celtic themes from Dallas to Monroe and Corpus Christi to New Orleans.

Celtic Gumbo

Baton Rouge-based Celtic Gumbo plays high-energy Louisiana-flavored Irish music. irresistibly rhythmic, their music will have your feet moving and toes tapping as soon as you hear it. Blending in elements of other musical traditions, Celtic Gumbo keeps the Irish at the forefront, but you can hear the influence of Scottish, Breton and yes, Cajun music in their original arrangements.