CiTR -- The Saturday Edge

Also R.I.P.s to Ronnie Hawkins, Kelly Joe Phelps, and Belle du Berry. A nod - of sorts - to the Queen's 70th anniversary, and as many bits of irreverence and celebration and lamenting as anyone can take in 4 hours of the musical mayhem served up today - amidst some pretty horrendous Wi-Fi connection challenges!

The mass murder of innocent school children in Texas really got to me this week. What a truly messed-up country we have on our southern doorstep. I have a lot of American friends and I play a lot of American music on the show. I empathize with them all. There appears to be no hope down there. The Republicans are doing the damnedest to screw up everything. So, all I can do is play music and try to...

Celebrating World Fiddle Day with some amazing whirling fiddles from Canada. Scotland, Ireland, America, Spain, and Norway. Plus a feature on the new CD by East Van bluegrass quartet The Lonesome Town Painters, and new CDs from dobro diva Abbie Gardner, Catalonia's Magali Sare and Claudia Colom, BC's Barney Bentall, Mississippi's Charlie Musselwhite, and a whole lot more.

Some ribald ditties for what makes May so ... ahem ... merry! Plus it's Rogue Anniversary Night, with a unique band making their Rogue Folk Club debut - Diyet & The Love Soldiers from Yukon. So a few songs from the amazing Tutchone singer songwriter and her acoustic folk / bluegrass trio, starring Bob Hamilton, legendary steel guitar player, record producer, and all round string wizard. Also some...

New music from Mali's Fatoumata Diawara and Oumou Sangare, plus a single from Terakaft to start the show. Featured the wonderful Cuban-Canadian duo Okan at both ends of today's show. They play a Rogue concert this coming Monday. Can hardly wait!! Interesting Nordic / Celtic crossover from Vilsevind, lots of Canadians excelling at story songs and fast fiddles, and a feature on Pharis & Jason Romero...

Ventured out to UBC to present the show LIVE for the first time in a few weeks. Massive amounts of construction and road works, and a whole mess of technical difficulties greeted me! Somehow managed to get it all in, though! New music from Oumou Sangare, Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder, The Unthanks, etc. Previews of Pharis and Jason Romero, Early Spirit, Okan, and Diyet & The Love Soldiers. More little tri...

Another good man done gone. Plus harps and koras and a few new releases and concert previews - plus a nod in the general direction of St. George's Day.

Featured new albums by Calexico, Riley Family Band, Matt Andersen, and Sowal Diabi - Kaboul to Bamako. Plus a sad R.I.P. to Pastelle LeBlanc of PEI's trad trio Vishten. A bit of an Earth Day set, a preview of upcoming shows by Van Django and three Canadian blues singers, and lots more new music inspired by reading the latest issue of Songlines magazine. Plenty of songs for and about refugees, and...

Music from some of last weekend's winners (and nominees) from the Canadian Folk Music Awards, and The Grammy Awards, plus nominations for Folk Alliance International Awards coming next month. Also features on new releases by Molly Tuttle, Scotland's amazing Kinnaris Quintet, and Seattle's Jim Page

Some of the bands at this weekend's Festival du Bois and next week's April In Paris gypsy jazz fling. New releases and some fabulous songwriters from Canada, USA and UK

Loads of new music this week, including tunes from such exotic locations as Cape Verde, Mali, Senegal, Cuba, Denmark, Wales, Norway, Italy, Bosnia, Ukraine, Estonia, Persia, Ireland, Scotland, and even England! And of course from all across Canada: Quebec, BC, Yukon, and Alberta mostly. A chance to revel in some incredible creativity and soulful music composed, recorded and brought to us by fabulo...

Happy Norooz! Happy Vernal Equinox! But also lament for the Ukrainian refugees and victims of war crimes.. Why oh wy?

New music and song from around the planet: Sahara, Mali, Cuba, Italy, Finland, Albania, Ukraine x 6, Baluchistan, BC, Nova Scotia, USA, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Quebec. Plus some spirited instrumentals to keep us all bouncing along towards St. Patrick's Day

Music by fabulously strong and talented women from Africa, Cuba, Spain, France, Italy, Baluchistan, Ukraine, Canada, and America. New releases from Oysterband (UK), Mama's Broke (NS), Dakhabrakha (Ukraine), Early Spirit (BC), Chris Newman (Yorkshire), Dlu (Scotland), Andy Martyn (London), and three great trad bands from Quebec. Plus concert previews for Coig, Forro do Cana & Celso Machado. And mor...

This show is dedicated to the people of Ukraine, hunkered down in the face of a brutal invasion by Russia. Absolutely heart-rending! Some Mardi Gras faves to lighten the mood, some great new African music at the beginning of the show, and a panoply of performers coming to town over the next few weeks as live music returns. At last!

Plenty of new music today, from Africa, Tuva, Spain, Italy, Canada, USA, Scotland, and Ireland. Plus Part 3 of my homage to Norma Waterson, Rogue previews for Dalannah Gail Bowen and Gary Comeau's great bands, and a truly stunning anthem from Janis Ian

Songs for Valentine's Day, World Radio Day, Lunar New Year, and other celebrations. It's a beautiful day here on the left coast and there is way too much negativity about, so this was a very full hatful of uplifting songs and danceable tunes - for the most part!

A bumper 4 1/2 hour program with some hot new releases, some of my all-time favourites, some concert previews and a bunch of anecdotes about my own personal history in radio, and the thoughts of a few other CiTR DJs as we celebrate 85 years on the air! That's 15 more than a certain monarch! Speaking of queens, the "queen of English folk music", Norma Waterson, passed away this week. I am absolutel...

Twice a year CiTR reports to SOCAN, the Canadian Performing Rights Organization so they can calculate and distribute royalties to composers and songwriters. They monitor commercial radio all the time. Independent artists hardly get a look-in. So, if they can skew the statistics by only monitoring REAL radio stations twice a year, I reckon it's up to independent DJs like me to skew the statistics b...

Heaps of Celtic music from Scotland, Canada, and Ireland as we celebrate Burns Day, Planxty's 50th anniversary, and John Doyle's birthday too. Threw in some January songs and new music from Janis Ian, Eliza Gilkyson, Steve Dawson, and Spanish newcomers Almale, and Coloma Bertan. Plus great young desert blues band Toumastine.

New releases from Songlines Magazine, a remarkable new (to me) Spanish collaboration of Galician, Basque & Catalan musicians, new music from Steve Dawson, Oysterband, Janis Ian, and more. Plus some great young Irish bands and singers. Tributes to Canadian bluesman Harpdog Brown and PEI's banjoist and composer Koady Chaisson of The East Pointers to round out the show. Such sad losses to Canadian mu...

More of my favourite albums from 2021, a lot of different languages and a wide variety of cultural roots. Plenty of Canadiana and some poignant songs amidst the generally cheery upbeat mayhem!

Some of my favourite recordings of 2021. There were just too many to fit into one show, so Part Two will be next week! Finished up with some songs for and about the turn of the year, and a shout-out to Yves Lambert, who was made a member of the Order of Canada this week. Bonne Annee tout le monde!

Started off with a few of my favourite albums from around the world before following Santa's sled down the Camino to the Nativity and beyond. Some of the most unusual seasonal songs from around the northern hemisphere - and a lot of my own personal faves. Snow falling here in Vancouver today. So glad I chose to record the show and send it to CiTR so I could stay home to listen while watching the c...

A big feature on legendary Jamaican bassist, producer, composer Robbie "Bass Spear" Shakespeare in the first hour, and further tributes to Mike Nesmith and Bill Staines, also recently departed. Some seasonal fare from Galicia, Cape Breton and Vancouver; some rootsy bluesy stuff from Dalannah Gail Bowen, Crys Matthews and co., plus a rousing Celtic finale with a few memorable blasts from the past.