Alignment is Good: Eileen Ivers and "Linin' Track"

Linin' Track, our random tune for today, is performed by Eileen Ivers, an American fiddler who grew up in the Bronx. Exposed to music, the violin, and to Ireland at an early age, she was slated to have a career in mathematics but increasingly found her interest lay in her violin, and she left her post-graduate work to pursue a career in music. She is a founding member of the iconic Celtic folk group Cherish the Ladies and performed on the Riverdance tour. Her solo work has been termed eclectic, focusing on American folk but also incorporating salsa, funk, jazz and Irish traditional music. Linin' Track is from her 2016 album Beyond the Bog Road, which has a theme of Irish immigration and assimilation into the pool of other immigrants and their traditions in the United States. Linin' Track is a traditional tune previously sung by musicians such as Lead Belly. This version features Deirdre Brennan (sister of Moya Brennan and Enya) and Tommy McDonnell on vocals, and highlights the fact that many Irish immigrants found work keeping railroad tracks aligned where they were often working side by side with African-Americans, so the song juxtaposes both Irish traditional and American blues in the music.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eileen_Ivers; http://georgegraham.com/reviews/ivers2016.html