NORTHWEST (USA) MUSICIANS

WILLIAM PINT & FELICIA DALE are two of our best friends and favorite collaborators. They are brilliant interpreters of maritime songs, with hurdy-gurdy, guitar, mandolin, tin whistles and other instruments. And it's because of them that we met in the first place. They've got a lot to answer for!

CAT LOVES CROW (Joe & Karena Prater): distinctive harmony vocals with two guitars performing in the folk, old-time, and bluegrass traditions (w/ an occasional Russian diversion). They have one live CD, one studio CD and one baby. We'll look forward to another album when Arlea's a bit older. Meanwhile, we kidnapped Joe for an afternoon to have him sing a part on our next CD -- a follow-up to the Masterharper of Pern project.

TELYNOR (JOHN & ANNA PEEKSTOK): an eclectic multi-instrumental duo, who unfortunately don't perform together anymore, but I'll bet they still have their CDs available. The repertoire ranges from medieval material to original compositions, and their hurdy-gurdy, cittern, guitar and recorder arrangements are complex and mesmerizing.

ALICIA HEALEY is both a singer/songwriter and a sound engineer. She has helped us out with recording, mixing, digital editing, vocal coaching and backing vocals on a couple of our albums, and will feature on our next recording, too.

More of our favorite Northwest songwriter friends:
KAT EGGLESTON
MATT PRICE
SUSAN WELCH

And more of our favorite traditional musicians:
DENISE MARTIN (hammered dulcimer diva)
SHONTI ELDER (fiddle wiz)

ACOUSTIC / FOLK MUSIC IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

There's a great list of Seattle venues and events on Richard Gillman's NWFOLK page and from THE VICTORY MUSIC REVIEW.

MUSICIANS IN AUSTRALIA

Cath MUNDY & Jay TURNER (Australia/England) are a pair of excellent singer/songwriters, with stunning guitar, piano & violin accompaniment.

CLOUDSTREET combine gorgeous harmonies, accomplished instrumental accompaniments and a great choice of original and ingathered songs.

MUSICIANS IN THE UK AND IRELAND

ARTISAN - BRIAN BEDFORD, HILARY SPENCER and JACEY BEDFORD - were, until just recently an acapella trio from Yorkshire. All of their great CDs are still available. They've also harmonized on some of our recordings, and Mike has played percussion on theirs.

SIMON BARRON and ROSALIND BRADY (BARRONBRADY) are two fine songwriters and performers with a repertoire lightly spiced with a few beautiful traditional songs, and an excellent CD.

HILARY SPENCER (England), in addition to her work on Artisan's many recordings, has two solo albums and another two from the duo QUICKSILVER, with Grant Baynham.

JACEY BEDFORD, in addition to all her musical and writing feats (see info above and below!), also books our English tours. She does this for several of our friends, too, including WILLIAM PINT & FELICIA DALE (see the top of this page).

Harpist MADELEINE DOHERTY (Ireland), and vocalists HILARY SPENCER (UK), BRIAN BEDFORD (UK), WILLIAM PINT (USA) and ALICIA HEALEY (USA) all added their musical talents to our Masterharper of Pern recording.

More mostly traditional:
PETE COE (England)
NUADA (Ireland/England)
MARTIN BROWNE and ELIZABETH PADGETT (England)
DICK MILES (Ireland)
STEVE KEENE (England)

More mostly original:
PETE MORTON (England)
KATHIE TOUIN (England) singer/songwriter/pianist.
LES BARKER (England) Indescribable. Just go see him.

Find more UK-based musicians, venues and events on FOLK AND ROOTS.

AND MORE MUSICIANS

MARK GEISLER writes, sings, and plays a stack of instruments including harp, hammered dulcimer, guitar, violin, flute, zither... you name it! He has several CD's, solo and with various groups. He lives near Boulder, Colorado.

We first met fiddler/violinist SARAH WILFONG in the Chicago area. She's fiddled in just about every conceiveable style, and now tours with Nashville-based band "Mustang Sally".

Turkish, Persian, Galician, Croatian, Bulgarian and other influences blend seamlessly in the singing, oud, violin, viola, bendir, darbuka and more from San Francisco based STELLAMARA. Our friends Sonja Drakulich and Gari Hegedus form the core of the band.

INTERNET RADIO

Visit RADIO BRITFOLK for"the best of songs tunes and stories, ancient and modern, from all the British islands, 24 hours a day."

ONE VERY INTERESTING VIDEO

A CONVERSATION WITH FATHER CHRISTMAS: If you've wondered where our Christmas traditions come from, you'll be fascinated by the insights in this DVD from TALDISH CASTLE, who also publish medieval cooking videos, and created our promo video clip.

MUSIC DISTRIBUTORS

For out-of-the-ordinary acoustic music, try DUSTY STRINGS in Seattle, or Amarillo TX -based CANADIAN RIVER MUSIC.

Also for out-of-the-ordinary but not necessarily acoustic music, check out CDBaby.com

WRITERS

Our good friend ELIZABETH ANN SCARBOROUGH, best known for her science fiction/fantasy novels, is also a designer and crafter of elaborate beaded jewelery. Her bead book, Bead Time Stories, is a collection of original beadwork patterns (with photos by Mike Freeman). Her website will keep you up to date on her science fiction writing as well, including her collaborations with Anne McCaffrey.

Internationally bestselling science fiction writer ANNE McCAFFREY was our collaborator on a special recording project "THE MASTERHARPER OF PERN," music from her character Masterharper Robinton, besides being a good friend and a delightful person.

Both Elizabeth and Anne have long been involved in music, and more recently some of our musician friends have taken to writing as well - FELICIA DALE and JACEY BEDFORD both have stories published in sf/f short story anthologies.


And speaking of connections between music and sf/f, if you haven't read ELIZABETH KERNER's Song in the Silence yet, find it! The sequels, Lesser Kindred and Redeeming the Lost, are equally brilliant and highly recommended.

DANNY CARNAHAN has written not one but three murder mysteries set in and around the California tradtional music scene. Danny wrote the song Borderlands, which is on our 'Cut to Rhythms' CD, as well as the version of True Thomas that Tania recorded way back when.

It'd be equally appropriate to put ROB LOPRESTI in our list of musicians links, but since we've just read his mystery Such a Killing Crime (set in the heart of the 1960's Greenwich Village folk scene), here he is. You'll want to read this book, too!

ARTISTS, INSTRUMENT MAKERS AND OTHER CREATIVE FOLKS

Tania's current favorite instrument is a tiny ocarina made by CLAYZENESS WHISTLEWORKS, who can usually be found at the Pike Place Market in Seattle.

We first came across LORI LOTZE'S inspired artwork embellishing many of her father's flutes. Her dad, ALLAN GUFFEY, makes the Kiowa (Native American) flutes that we first used in our concerts and recordings.

We've lately added more Native American flutes by another skilled maker - STELLAR FLUTES, based near Shelton, Washington.

Our dulcimers are made by DUSTY STRINGS ACOUSTIC MUSIC SHOP in Seattle. If you'd like more information about hammered dulcimers, contact them or THE NONSUCH DULCIMER CLUB in Britain.

Cali and Alden Hackmann, who live just up the road from our home in Suquamish, spend their days (and most of their nights too) building fabulous OLYMPIC INSTRUMENTS hurdy-gurdys. They also bring world-renowned musicians to our corner of the world every year for the OVER THE WATER HURDY-GURDY FESTIVAL.

Completely unrelated to music -- Tania's brother Lars Opland designs and vacuum forms model airplane kits (early Alaskan and Canadian bush planes.) KHEE-KHA ART PRODUCTS is his home business in Wasilla, Alaska.

OTHER BUSINESSES WE APPRECIATE A LOT

We make a lot of phone calls all over the world, and our lives have been made much easier by a small company called ONESUITE.COM. We even use them when we're at home -- can't find better rates anywhere for the variety of calls that we make, and we love not supporting the telecommunications giants. OneSuite doesn't do any advertising, just gets customers by word of mouth. If you decide to try them out, please mention that we referred you (our ID is "mikentania1") to get some free call time for you and for us!

When we're in the western hemisphere we do most of our travelling around by VW bus. It's a cozy way to travel, but comes with its own challenges. Knowing where to find a good VW mechanic is crucial. Our friend Ray at TEC SHOP in north Seattle has kept us rolling, fielded desperate phone calls from the road, and generally been there when we needed him.

We were also very lucky to find Frey's Foreign Cars when we had trouble in Boulder CO. They don't seem to have a webpage of their own, but you can find their details along with a whole directory of VW repair specialists on ROADHAUS.COM

For general all-around auto help, we're very fortunate to live so close (some of the time) to SUQUAMISH AUTO REPAIR. Larry, Fred and the rest of the crew are a great team.

And it's not just the car that sometimes needs work while we're on the road. BRIAN RODGERS just outside of Rochester (U.K.), did tune-ups on one of our guitars and an octave mandolin last time we were there. Brought new life to both!