Alright, it's time to get serious about Christmas and the holidays. Parties are happening, gatherings planned, and if you don't want to get stuck listening to the Kenny and Dolly album over and over, you'd better have some new tunes ready to go. There are always a few new festive releases each December, and here's some Maritime flavour for your fireside chats.
I submit to you that Celtic is perfect for Christmas. First of all it's got the trad covered, and everybody wants a traditional Christmas. One of Cape Breton's finest,
Còig always does lively and fun music, able to give us the traditional as well as a new spin on old favourites. That's just what works great with the beloved Christmas canon of songs, whether carols or popular numbers; give us the songs we love, but make them fresh.
The trad players normally do "sets,", essentially medleys of three or four tunes with unique arrangements, and that's another element that works really well for Christmas instrumentals. The lively "The Spree We Had At Christmas" for instance moves into "Good King Winceslas" in its middle section. "Have A Bari Merry Christmas" turns "O Christmas Tree" into a bluesy guitar piece, then sends it into "Go Tell It On The Mountain."
Those Celtic-flavoured instrumentals are lovely for listening, and bonus, you can sing along since the words are familiar. When they do a few vocals, well, there's no problem there, as the group boasts the voice of fiddler Rachel Davis, who was just nominated as Traditional Singer of the Year at the upcoming Canadian Folk Music Awards. She handles the heartstring numbers, "Silent Night" and "The Christmas Song." Multi-instrumentalist Darren McMullen gets to sing the more modern and fun numbers. "Daddy's Beer," written by Nova Scotian pals Dave Gunning and Jaime Robinson, is a laugher about a Christmas morning hangover with the kids getting the noisiest toys possible, while Ron Sexsmith's "Maybe This Christmas" is a thoughtful tune that deserves to become a classic.
Còig now have two holiday albums, and put on a very popular Christmas tour each year. Folks in Ontario can catch them the next three nights, at the Delta Old Town Hall tonight (Friday, Dec. 6), Manotick United Church Saturday the 7th, and Sunday, Dec. 8 they will be at St. Andrews United Church in Pakenham, all part of the Ontario Festival of Small Halls. Then they spend the rest of the time leading up to Christmas touring through New England, where the band is very popular.
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