Folk Roots Radio Episode 216: feat. James Bruce Moore – Soul’s Journey Home

This week’s New Release show features an interview with Toronto singer/songwriter James Bruce Moore recorded at the 2015 Folk Music Ontario conference. James has just released his second album, the gorgeous “Soul’s Journey Home”. We also include a selection of some of the great music we’re received in the past few months.

We started off this hour with another track from “Joy Of Living”, the double CD Tribute To British folkie Ewan McColl (2015, Cooking Vinyl/Compass Records). This week we listened to Paul Buchanan from The Blue Nile‘s gloriously understated take on “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, a song written by Ewan McColl in 1957 during a transatlantic phone call to Peggy Seeger who was in LA at the time. Like many great songs it only took a matter of minutes to complete. Although Ewan McColl never recorded the song himself, over the years it has been recorded by a who’s who of popular music and became a major international hit for Roberta Flack in 1972, winning the Grammys for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, on its way to becoming Billboard’s No. 1 song of the year.

We followed that with “One More Day” from Allison Lupton’s 2014 album “Half My Heart. Allison’s song won the grand prize in the “Song of the Heart” competition at this year’s Folk Music Ontario One more Day features harmonies from her Lucky Sister compatriots Tannis Slimmon and the dear-departed Rosemary Phelan. The song also appears on The Lucky Sisters own album “So Lucky”, which is now being distributed by Borealis Records. And after that we listened to Dave Gunning with “Love Fell In”, a Dave Gunning – Thom Swift song from Dave’s new album “Lift” (2015, Wee House Of Music) wrapping the set with “Sorry”, more of the beautiful harmonies of Sue and Lisa Chapin-Wickwar, from Cumbria, England UK, as Chapin-Wickwar from their 2015 album “If…”.

Celtic acoustic guitarist Tony McManus has just released his latest album “Round Trip”, a collaboration with fellow acoustic guitarist Beppe Gambetta, on Borealis Records. Beppe will be joining Tony for a show for the 9th Elora Guitar Summit concert at the Elora United Church on Friday October 30 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 and available from Ashanti, The Shepherd’s Pub and Box Social in Elora.

Toronto-based singer/songwriter James Bruce Moore has just released his second album, the mystical and soul-stirring “Soul’s Journey Home”. Whereas his well-received debut, 2012’s Lisbeth (named after his late wife) featured a folk, country, and jazz palette; the beautiful and inspiring new album is more folky but includes the prominent use of a nine-piece string section, with arrangements by Aaron Davis. The album was produced by renowned bassist George Koller (Loreena McKennitt, The Shuffle Demons) with musical support from, among others, Steve Briggs, Denis Keldie, Mark Mariash, Kirsten Rea, and David Piltch. James Bruce Moore stopped by our mobile studio at the Folk Music Ontario conference to chat about the new album.

Free the Honey are a new band on our radar. Hailing from Gunnison Colorado, they are a quartet featuring Lizzy Plotkin, Katherine Taylor and Jenny on a variety of stringed instruments – fiddle, guitar, banjo and ukulele ably-supported by Andrew Cameron on stand-up bass. Their debut album is well worth a listen – Which is our way of saying we’ll be dipping into it again on future shows!

Well, that’s all we have time for. Check out the full playlist with artist links below and share your love for all the great folk and roots music out there. Thanks to all the artists who share their music with us, and thank you for listening. We have a lot of great music to bring you on future shows. I hope you’ll join us! You can listen to this show again on Mixcloud by following the link below.

Folk Roots Radio – Episode 216 New Releases by Folk Roots Radio on Mixcloud

Nicolas & The Iceni (Theme)
Lucy She Rises (Demo)
Roll Right (expected 2015)

Paul Buchanan
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Joy Of Living: A Tribute To Ewan MacColl (2015, Cooking Vinyl / Compass Records)

Allison Lupton
One More Day
Half My Heart (2014, Self) CDN

Dave Gunning
Love Fell In
Lift (2015, Wee House Of Music) CDN

Chapin-Wickwar
Sorry
If… (2015, Self)

Beppe Gambetta & Tony McManus
Bonnie Mulligan’s
Round Trip (2015, Borealis Records) CDN

James Bruce Moore
Soul’s Journey
Soul’s Journey Home (2015, Self) CDN

Interview: James Bruce Moore joined us at the Folk Music Ontario conference to chat about new album “Soul’s Journey Home”.

James Bruce Moore
Roy Benavidez
Soul’s Journey Home (2015, Self) CDN

James Bruce Moore
Sigh Unto The Universe
Soul’s Journey Home (2015, Self) CDN

Les Copeland
Somethin’ Nice And Sweet
To Be In Your Company (2015, Earwig) CDN

Free the Honey
Take Me Home
Fine Bloom (2015, Self)