Music

Redwine Jam offers an eclectic mix of North American and Celtic folk music, both traditional and contemporary.Their North American material ranges from Appalachian folk to songs by such artists as Gordon Lightfoot, Nanci Griffith, Steve Goodman, Paul Simon, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, John McCutcheon, Bob Wills, and Mississippi John Hurt. Skip Romaner's mastery of bluegrass, folk-grass, and Western swing guitar styles adds another exciting dimension to their repertoire.

They play a wide array of instruments including guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, penny whistle, flute, recorder, mountain dulcimer, and bodhran (Celtic drum).  Each song or tune in a set is unlike any other - you never know what's next!

In addition to shows mixing all their styles, the trio also offers these specialty programs:

TRADITIONAL AND ECLECTIC CELTIC

In the early 1980s Chris co-founded Barney's Goat, a folk group specializing in Celtic music.  Carol joined the band two decades later.  For Redwine Jam they have kept and reworked most of the more than 100 songs and tunes, mostly Irish and Scottish,  from the Barney's Goat repertoire.  The amazingly extensive and diverse collection includes many traditional pieces as well as newly written material by such brilliant folksingers as Tommy Makem, Andy M. Stewart, Robbie O'Connell, Eric Bogle, and Tommy Sands.Redwine Jam's Celtic repertoire features dozens of Irish pub songs and lively instrumentals that make for the ideal St. Patrick's Day celebration.  Hilarious drinking songs popularized by such folk legends as the Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem, spirited jigs and reels, and typically wry Irish humor joyously keep the pints flowing. For less raucous occasions the group mixes in a variety of emotionally gripping story ballads, plaintive love songs, sweet instrumentals, and haunting strains born of the Scottish and Irish mist.

YULETIDE FOLK 

For many Redwine Jam fans a highlight of the winter holidays is the group's enchanting seasonal program.  Moving seamlessly from rambunctious to reverential, this performance features  traditional and contemporary seasonal folk music from the British Isles, Ireland, the U.S. and Canada.  Highlights include English midwinter wren carols, traditional Scottish favorites such as Christ Child Lullaby, Irish rousers such as Bells Over Belfast and Christmas in Carrick, the uproarious Irish-American vaudeville classic Miss Fogarty's Christmas Cake, Gordon Lightfoot's  bittersweet Song for a Winter's Night, Canadian David Mallet's Ballad of St. Anne's Reel, and John McCutcheon's deeply moving masterpiece Christmas in the Trenches.  This diverse, delightful program makes your holidays complete.

SONGS OF THE PEOPLE:  The American Folk Revival

 This one-hour multi-media concert combines live music with video clips, photographs and commentary to recount the history of the great American Folk Revival and the vital musical legacy it left us.  The program weaves a narrative explaining the musical roots of the movement, its emergence in the 1940s and zenith in the late 50s and early 60s, and its profound influences on the many genres of grassroots and contemporary folk music we enjoy today.  The trio performs songs and tunes that were either drawn from folk tradition and popularized during the Folk Revival or written by the troubadours who emerged from beat generation coffeehouses to gain immortality in that era.  Film clips of artists such as Odetta, the Kingston Trio, Joan Baez, Peter Paul & Mary, Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs enhance this look back at a music phenomenon that changed all our lives for the better.

A MUSICAL HISTORY OF IRELAND AND IRISH-AMERICA 

This program combines historical narrative with performances of songs and tunes that emerged from or comment on highlights of Irish and Irish-American history.  It's a brisk, entertaining way to give listeners an overview of the coming of the Celts, the travails of the Irish under centuries of English dominance, the emigration to America of Ulster Scots who were destined to become the Scotch-Irish, the Great Famine and resulting mass migration to the U.S., the emergence of Irish-American identity, the tumultuous struggle for Irish independence, the violent period of Catholic-Protestant strife known as “The Troubles,” and today's Ireland and Northern Ireland.  Along with traditional jigs and reels, the trio performs songs ranging from humorous to heroic and tragic.  Included are emigration ballads, anthems from the valiant but ill-fated United Irish Rising such as Young Roddy McCorley and Rising of the Moon, the wry “Orange” send-up The Old Orange Flute, laments for the Great Famine including Kilkelly Ireland, the hilarious Irish-American vaudeville classic Muldoon the Solid Man, and Tommy Sands' heartrending ballad There Were Roses, recounting a true story from the the Troubles.