Minnesota Lumberjack Songs

• By: Brian Miller
• Format: CD with two booklets
• Publisher: Two Tap Records
• Usually ships in: 1 to 3 business days
• Product ##: 6482

Bemidji native Brian Miller performs thirteen songs of “shanty boys” from the logging heyday of 1830 to 1900. The package includes the CD and two booklets illustrated with historical photos. A 16-page booklet tells of Irish- and Scottish-influenced song traditions in the lumber camps of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Canada, and elsewhere, including profiles of singers Mike Dean, Arthur Milloy, Patty McLaughlin, and Hank Underwood. A 20-page booklet provides complete song lyrics and notes. Brian Miller is joined on the CD by musicians from Minnesota and Ireland including Dáithí Sproule, Norah Rendell, Tommie Cunniffe, and dancer Danielle Enblom.

Songs included are The Maid of the Logan Bough, The Shanty-Boy’s Alphabet, Jim Whalen, Two Quadrilles (Otto Rindlisbacher’s / Bob Walter’s), The Banks of the Little Eau Pleine, Kettle River, Morzie Ellsworth, Mickey Free, The Three Nations, Highland Fling / Paddy Hill’s, Kitardine, The Mines of Cariboo, Save Your Money When You’re Young.

Brian Miller lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he sings and plays guitar, bouzouki, whistle, and Irish flute. He has performed across North America and in Ireland with groups including the Two Tap Trio, the Máirtín de Cógáin Project, and Bua, which was named “Top Traditional Group” by the 2009 Irish Music Awards. He has also been a guest lecturer on the Irish song tradition at University College Cork, Ireland. He is a fiscal year 2010 recipient of an Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This project is funded, in part, by the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.