Brought up in Edinburgh with a Father from Coleraine, Co Derry, Allan is strongly influenced by both Scots and Irish traditions. Well-respected as a singer-songwriter-guitarist (with songs covered by Craobh Rua and others), his new album "Voicecall" is a great success, not least for his own beautiful songs. He is accompanied tonight by top fiddler Paddy (The Hat) Duncan, previously with Corner House.
Saturday 6 October Fo'c'sle Joint Promotion
The New Album "Rosa Mundi" will be on sale.
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Bona-fide American folk artiste and virtuoso banjo frailer with an inimitable voice, her strong family roots have made her the inheritor of the best in traditional music through both Ulster and Smoky Mountain ancestors. Debby is a wonderful entertainer, spicing her act with her own witty and topical songs and has regularly toured the UK to great acclaim since 1968.
THOUGH she has lived most of her adult life in the Appalachians, Debby McClatchy was born in San Francisco in 1945. Her father's great-grandfather came to America from Ulster during the potato famine, was a '49er' in the Californian gold rush and founded The Sacramento Bee, still northern California's leading newspaper. Her mother came from a Tennessee Smoky Mountains family reaching back seven generations to Thomas Jefferson's sister. Mom would sing Carter Family songs as lullabies and music hall songs for fun.
GROWING UP amongst such a sense of history and musical heritage solidly underpins McClatchy's deep knowledge and respect for the origins of the music she makes. Her powerful songwriting and occasional use of contemporary material are directly related to and rooted in her ingrained sense of the traditional forms of the music.
BACK IN THE 1960s McClatchy was a University history student who also found employment playing guitar and banjo in ceilidh and old-time string bands. Going solo, she became a full-time, professional, musician, touring in Europe as well as in America. In 1999 she made her 25th, 'Silver Jubilee' tour of Britain.
DEBBY McCLATCHY is an expert entertainer of enormous presence and sensitivity, always in warmest rapport with her audiences, whether in an intimate club, a concert hall, a huge festival marquee or a school. She plays an enormous variety of acoustic instruments, but her main tool is her old-time mountain banjo. She is recognised as one of the finest frailers of the banjo in the accompanying style and is much valued as a workshop teacher. Her combination of good-time, old-time instrumentals, glorious singing - with occasional outbreaks of freestyle Appalachian stepping and mountain fiddling - has made her one of the most popular and appreciated of traditional, performing musicians and teachers.
On to November 2001 Programme Details
