Post Description

“Old Crow Medicine Show jamming with The Corries” is how acclaimed Scottish songwriter Malcolm MacWatt describes his new EP.
 
Based on this inspiration, SKAIL features three songs with the Appalachians, evictions, slavery and independence at their heart and is a meeting of Scottish and American roots music with MacWatt playing all instruments throughout.
 
“The Crofter and The Cherokee” links the Highland Clearances with the Trail of Tears as a Georgia native travels back in time tracing his family roots up the Appalachian Trail and across the Atlantic to Scotland. In this song the fiddle motif represents Scotland with the banjo and resonator guitar sounding off for America.

“The Widow and The Cruel Sea” is the story of a woman who loses her fisherman husband at sea and is desperate to escape the social confines of a young widow in a Highland village to start a new life in the American colonies. 

“Old World Rules and Empire Takes” looks at British rule over the Eastern seaboard of America. It touches on the Battle of Kings Mountain, a crucial skirmish in the War of American Independence, where forces for the Crown, led by Major Patrick Ferguson from Aberdeenshire, were defeated by settlers, many of whom would also have been of Scottish descent. The song ends with the line “Scottish blood in American clay” to acknowledge those trans-Atlantic ties.
 
MacWatt, who plays guitar, fiddle, resonator guitar, banjo and bodhran on the EP, said:
“SKAIL very much reflects me as an artist: I’m a mixed-race Scot with a deep appreciation for the traditional music of Scotland but who is heavily influenced by American folk and roots. The songs almost wrote themselves, in fact there’s times I felt voices long gone were whispering in my ear.” 

Tracks:  
01 The Crofter And The Cherokee
02 The Widow And The Cruel Sea
03 Old World Rules And Empire Takes

Staat er compleet op, 10% pars mee gepost. Met zeer veel dank aan de originele poster.