Hi JL B…

Here’s a British link that some might find interesting!

http://www.iscr.webspace.fish.co.uk/rakes/contents.htm

hope it works OK

When you get tired of FA's playing of scatchy, nails on a blackboard, fiddlin' Irish Trad music, you can turn your media player dial to www.grassyhill.org for a break. It's not that far from Tipperary.

Straighten your kids out by sending them to their room and have them listen to 2 hours of bagpipes. They'll beg to be good!

http://www.yellowhousearts.org for Ozark pleasures past, present and future, with schedule of events.

http://www.kulakswoodshed.com Paul Kulak's labor of love in No. Hollywood. Scheduled live web broadcasts and archived performance videos/artist links.

http://www.kffa.com (from Helena Arkansas)
Internet radio station, Home of the original " King Biscuit Time" Delta blues ..live and archived shows...Also every Saturday night www.wsmonline.com airs the Grand Ole Opry live from start to finish, Unlike GAC television runs only the one hour. An opportunity to hear some of the best pickers around.

Add "http://" before the "www." the link will become highlighted and active.
eg:
http://www.wsmonline.com ,
http://www.grassyhill.org

http://www.folkscene.com/ - Howard and Roz Larman have been running this streaming site for many years, solely on donations. The music is handpicked, and they also provide a community resource for folk/acoustic events throughout Southern California.

http://www.tvfolk.net/ LIVE performance videos from Iceland, Faroe Islands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and other World Folk artists.

Hungarian folk music links:

ghymes.hu/en/ (English page)

www.makam.hu

www.artvillage.hu/kiss_b.html

Szia!

Forgot to credit Laszlo for Makam! Way cool site!

Now, I have to remember to add all of these links to the links section!

http://www.cdroots.com/ More roots music gems from around the world.

Here's some Chinese:
http://www.unn.com.cn/guqin/ezhibo.htm
which is a live concert and search 'li xiang ting' for the modern master of this instrument.

Joe G. - That Chinese link is not working for me...are you still getting it?

To help with language translations, you might find this site very helpful:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/

One of my favorites is is http://www.hober.com which bills itself as "thinking radio" playing "unvarnished music from around the world..."Hober broadcasts from a geodesic dome in the oak forest just outside Washington DC."

http://www.myspace.com/sigurros
Sigur Ros, an Icelandic wonder...plugged, but a curious mixture of ethnic Folk and Ambient Rock.
A mind expanding experience.
The site has streams and downloads along with schedule of tour dates.
If you like Hegningarna and Garmarna and U2, chances are you'll find Sigur Ros interesting.

http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/ video of "Glosoli" with little band of Icelandic children on landscape. Piece starts out sounding like boots or skis sloshing through the snow.

Icelandic is the one language that comes closest to violating the Grimm's Shift, if there are any linguists out there.

Jack - That would be closest to the old Norse then, right? There's this one old trad. song, "Ormenlange (The Great Serpent)", sung in Icelandic, and I believe it comes pretty close to the old Norse in delivery.
It's an interesting dance - each person holding the shoulders or clasping hands of the next person while the first in the line winds his way beneath the arms between the others here and there, eventually causing a tight knot of the whole serpentine line. The object is not to break the chain.
I believe it's a fertility dance of sorts.
As I understand it, he Great Serpent in Norse Mythology is what holds the whole of what is together. He grasps his tail with his jaws, and as long as he maintains this position all is well with the world.
WATCH OUT! if he ever loses his grip...all Hel will break loose!

Any Icelandic listeners out there who might shed some light upon this subject?

Yes, it is traditional for the children to memorize old Norse epic poems with great care to maintain proper pronunciation. This and fierce devotion to their ancient language has preserved it in a state much closer the the language they used over a thousand years ago than virtually any other language on earth.

Fascinating. And it's cool that the Icelandic people have volunteered to be catalogued with the Human Genome Project as well. I still have cousins there in and around Reykjavik.

If anyone has the words and translation for the Icelandic version of "The Ormenlange (Great Surpent)", would you please contact me or submit it here? Thanks.

http://www.kerrvillefolkfestival.com A Texas Hill Country super gathering of Folk Music and curious characters.

http://www.festivalfinder.com/folk/
Summer is a'comin' in, and here's a festival finder for the folkie set.

Here's one of my all time top three favorite song writers:
http://www.larrynorman.com/main.html
http://www.larrynorman.uk.com/ you can also hear samples from two early LPs (which are now available on CD) on this site.

Psycho-Folk Rock is how some of Larry's music has been categorized. (I assume that means "psychodelic"??) Several Folk and Rock artists have covered some of Larry's groundbreaking songs, and Dylan is proported to be a fan.

http://www.campbluegrass.com/
Camp Bluegrass is a one week residential picking camp for bluegrass musicians, held each July at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas located 30 miles west of Lubbock. Classes fill up quickly!
This year's festival will be held 16-21 July 2006.

37th Annual South Carolina State Bluegress Festival - Nov 23-25, 2006, ... 1st Annual Bill Jorgenson Bluegrass Festival - June 9-11, 2006 - Kewaunee, WI ...
http://www.bluegrasstymes.com/Festivals.html

Looky-looky!
Check out the teachers for O'Flaherty Irish Music Retreat (near Dallas, TX) 27-29 October 2006 - our very own Shannon Heaton from Folk Alley's Open Mic!
http://www.irishtradmusic.org/oflaherty.htm

Two of my favorites:

FieldsOfBluegrass.com (Indiana)

www.myspace.com/motherfools (Wisconsin)

Here are my two:

English Folk Rock by an old mate of mine, who writes much of it and performs with his band Black Rat around the folk clubs and festivals of the English Midlands.

http://www.black-rat.com

My band - Wives and Servants, uncategorizable and unmarketable, I call it 'civilized Finchley, lesbian, coffee-house pop'. I might be a bloke, but I've been a full-on lesbian since I was five. W&S performs music written by members Tim Haigh and John Mindlin. New album out in September-October, when we've finished arguing about the sleeve colour.
CDs available from CDbaby.

http://wivesandservants.com