Lloyd MacDonald - Aires in
Bloom
Fiddles,
viola, cello & guitar accompaniment by Lloyd's
sons Paul, Martin, Sean and Danny.
Piano - Doug
MacPhee, Seamus MacNeil, Denis Carey and Mildred
Leadbeater
Irish pipes &
whistles by Ryan MacNeil. (note - Ryan and Seamus are
both members of The Barra MacNeils)
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An avid gardener
and fiddler, Lloyd MacDonald recorded Aires and
Blooms earlier this year at the age of 80. His first
CD, it is an album of Scottish, Irish and Gaelic airs
interspersed with a few hornpipes, strathspeys and
reels.
Complete
set listing & titles below
Samples
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Lloyd MacDonald -
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Born in 1931, Lloyd was
brought up on The Gannon Road, North Sydney, a district of
Cape Breton that at the time hosted a hybrid of Irish,
Acadian, and Scottish fiddle music &endash; a style known
today as the "Northside Irish style". Lloyd's father James
and his uncle Murdoch were both Northside
fiddlers.
Lloyd received formal
training at a very early age from "Professor" Jimmy
MacDonald, in North Sydney. By the early '40s, Lloyd was
performing and winning awards at the Gaelic Mods held in St.
Ann's, and by his late teens was performing live on the CJCB
radio on a weekly basis. At the time, Lloyd was greatly
admired by other fiddlers, such as Winston Fitzgerald, for
his soulful slow air playing and his renditions of tricky
hornpipes and Scott Skinner tunes.
Soon after Lloyd got
married (1955), he stopped playing the fiddle for about 25
years in order to start a business and raise 12 children. He
started playing again in the late '70s and made his first
trips to Scotland in the early 1980's. Since then has
traveled extensively throughout the UK and Ireland.
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Aires
and Blooms - Lloyd MacDonald
links to select books
andor to transcriptions/soundclips
- Ross
Memorial Hospital
(Scottish air by Phil Cunningham)
- Moving On (Irish air - Denis
Carey)
- Saratoga
Hornpipe / The Niagara
/ The
Arthur Seat (J. Scott
Skinner)
- Miss Rowan Davis (air by Phil
Cunningham)
- Bovagalie's
Plaid (air by J.
Scott Skinner)
- The
Weeping Birches (air
by J. Scott Skinner)
- The
Firth House, Mrs.
Forbes of Leith (J. Scott Skinner), Princess
Beatrice (W.
Laybourne), Eugene
Stratton (J. Scott
Skinner) - hornpipes
- Lament (Ronan
Henderson)
- Fred Wilson's Clog, Minnie
Foster's The Ball and Pin (clogs and hornpipe from
Ryan's
Mammoth Collection)
- The Flower's of the Quern
(air by J. Scott Skinner)
- The
Foggy Dew & Over
the Hills (Irish melodies)
- Mrs.
MacDouwal Grant, Dr.
Keith Aberdeen (J. Scott Skinner), Carnie's Canter (J.
Scott Skinner), Clydesdale Lasses (strathspeys &
reels).
- Captain
O'Kane (Turlough O'
Carolan)
- Slan Leis an Uaignueas (Irish
air - Denis Carey)
- The
Farewell (marching air
by William Marshall)
- Calum
Road (Donald Shaw),
Minstrel's Fancy, O'Brien's Reel, Jackie
Coleman's
- Mo Dachaidh (My
Home),
Marry
Young and Fair (aka
Jack's Gaelic Song - Mairi Bhan Og)
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