Celtic Music Radio’s Album of the Week for this week commencing 21 May is Monongah from Kyle Carey.

Listen to Ross Macfadyen in conversation with Kyle Carey on Saturday 21 May at 12 noon and 12 midnight and on Monday 23 May at 6.00pm

The ingredients of Kyle Carey’s music include the songs of the American Folk anthology, the Appalachian poetry of Louise McNeill, and weekends spent working at Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY and listening to the best musicians in contemporary folk.

Kyle Carey spent her earliest years in the Alaskan Bush, where her parents were teachers and where she found herself immersed in the Yupik language and its songs. “I think I developed a sensitivity to language there,” she says, “that would help me later in my study of Gaelic language and song.”

She went to high school in rural New Hampshire and then took her guitar to Skidmore. Kyle went to the Isle of Skye in Scotland, there deepening her study of Gaelic song and achieving fluency in the language. Under the tutelage of songstress Christine Primrose, a native of the Isle of Lewis and one of Scotland’s respected traditional singers.  She learned the secrets of pronunciation and tone that distinguish such singers in their delivery of a traditional Gaelic song.

In the winter of 2011 Kyle traveled to western Ireland to record her debut album, ‘Monongah’. Produced by Donogh Hennessy (Lùnasa), Kyle’s debut album features Athelone-based guitarist Neil Fitzgibbon, Pauline Scanlon (Lumiere) and Aoife Clancy (Cherish the Ladies) on harmony vocals, Cape Breton fiddler Rosie MacKenzie (The Cottars), Brendan O’ Sullivan (Gràda), old-time fiddler Cleek Schrey, Appalachian expert John Kirk (Quickstep) on mandolin and banjo and Trevor Hutchinson (The Waterboys, Lùnasa) on double bass.

Buy Kyle Carey’s Monongah CD here.
Listen to Ross Macfadyen in conversation with Kyle Carey on Saturday 21 May at 12 noon and 12 midnight and on Monday 23 May at 6.00pm