>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, DC.
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
Good afternoon, everyone.
I'm Betsy Peterson, the director of
the American Folklife Center here
at the Library of Congress.
And I want to welcome you here
today for a special treat.
This is one of our
open mic conversations
that we have periodically
and it's an opportunity much
like our Botkin Lectures to provide
a forum for leading scholars,
researchers, artists who are
involved with traditional culture,
cultural heritage, to come
and share their thoughts
and ideas with all of us.
These events are also taped, and
so I want to ask you right now
if you have any electronic devices
turned on, please turn them off.
As I mentioned, these are taped.
They make their way
into our archives,
so they'll be available
to all of you.
These conversations,
and our lectures,
and our concerts are
also put on the website.
Look for them in a couple of months
after the events and you'll be able
to hear these lectures
and these conversations.
The Open Mic Series is something
we've just started the last couple
of years and for us we
see it as an opportunity
to basically invite
you all to listen
in on an open archival interview
session with leading musicians,
artists, scholars,
composers, and authors to talk
about traditional arts and culture
in relation to their careers.
Many of today's most influential
artists have been inspired by songs,
ballads, tunes, tales, and
traditional knowledge collected
by folklorists, ethnomusicologists,
and others.
And much of this is
preserved in the archives
of the American Folklife Center,
and other folklife
repositories around the country.
Recording archival interviews
with artists has long
been an important part
of the American Folklife
Center's mission, and in fact,
one of the first ever extended oral
history interviews was done here
at the library in 1938
when folklorist
and then archive staff
member Alan Lomax sat down
and interviewed the legendary
Jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton.
Well, we're jumping ahead to today
and we have an equally
exciting interview scheduled.
Today it's my pleasure to introduce
the renowned Scottish radio producer
and on-air host Fiona Ritchie.
Every week since 1983, the Thistle
and Shamrock, Ritchie's thoughtful
and hour-long radio program on
Celtic and Celtic influenced music,
is aired by more than 338
national public radio stations
in every state in America.
And I know many of you
in this audience listen
faithfully to this program.
In addition to almost
singlehandedly developing
and directing the world's most
listened to Celtic music program,
Fiona has also recently
co-authored the bestselling book,
Wayfaring Strangers, the Musical
Voyage from Scotland and Ulster
to Appalachia , which the New
York Times gave a rave review
and deemed "essential."
Today Fiona will be discussing
this publication as well
as her overall career
with AFC folklorist
and staff member Nancy Groce.
And she'll also be staying
afterwards to do a book signing.
So please stick around
and buy one of those books
and take a moment and
talk with Fiona.
To the millions of her loyal
American listeners Ritchie is both
the voice of her native
Scotland and a trusted guide
to the contemporary
Celtic soundscape.
For more than three decades she has
illuminated how important Celtic
music has been in shaping the
musical heritage of North America,
Europe, and Australia,
and how vibrant the world
of Celtic music is today.
And in 2012, Queen Elizabeth
was impressed enough by all
of this activity to award Fiona
the prestigious Member of the Order
of the British Empire, or MBE Award,
for her services to broadcasting
in Scottish traditional music.
So please, let's give a warm welcome
to Fiona Ritchie and Nancy Groce.
[ Applause ]
>> Nancy Groce: Well, we're
delighted to have you here today.
And I know you've been to Washington
a couple times before but what I'd
like to do over the next hour
or so is talk to you a bit
about how you got into
this whole enterprise
and your research on your new book.
And then perhaps we could take
some questions from the audience?
>> Fiona Ritchie: Sounds great.
>> Nancy Groce: All right.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Thanks
a lot for coming.
>> Nancy Groce: So, did you
grow up in a musical household?
>> Fiona Ritchie: I grew up in a
radio household, and if you grew
up in a radio household you
grew up in a musical household,
if you listened to the
right radio stations.
We had an old -- I wish we still
had it, people used to get rid
of old things in favor of the new,
as I'm sure many of you recall.
But we did have one of these old
valve radios that you had to turn on
and it would take a
while for it to warm up.
And there's be this lovely glow
through a glass plate at the front
which was painted with all sorts
of locations, and there was sort
of weight on the dial
so when you turned
and tuned the dial,
it had a heft to it.
And I remember as a child
if you give it a bit
of a spin it would keep going and it
would -- through all these stations.
You'd hear voices coming
in from Radio Luxembourg
and places like that.
So my mom always had the radio on
and the radio would accompany her
household chores, and she would --
we would always sing to the radio.
Her great preference was for
the songs of Robert Barnes
and Scottish country-dance music.
So whenever that was on there
would be singing and dancing
to the accompaniment of the radio.
So you could say that in a sense
I was influenced to both love
of the music and the dance
music, and also its transmission
into our house via radio.
>> Nancy Groce: And where was this?
Where did you grow up?
>> Fiona Ritchie: I grew up
in a ferry town called Gourock
on the banks of the River Clyde.
I was born in Greenock, that's
what they call the tail of the bank
where the river cuts
away and starts --
>> Nancy Groce: This
is the River Clyde?
>> Fiona Ritchie: The River Clyde
on the west coast of Scotland.
The River Clyde flows from way up in
the hills, has a very narrow stream,
eventually to Glasgow, where it
comes wide enough to take vessels,
immigration ships and
the like in the day,
and of course Glasgow is a big port
for the tobacco trade and others.
And then it cuts away down
at Greenock and that's
where the river really opens
out into what we call the firth,
and you can see the -- we
can look across to the hills
of [inaudible], the Highlands.
And Greenock was a port of
embarkation for immigration ships
and in fact, almost up into my
childhood people would still
immigrate by ship to
Canada from Greenock.
But Gourock was a smaller
ferry port town,
just a little bit further round.
And mom would tell me all kinds of
town about the Clyde, including,
she would often say it was
tears that made the Clyde.
So you had the sense that
there'd been sorrow and sadness
with immigration, with the recent
-- the Blitz during the war,
which my mom and dad had
lived through with Greenock
and Gourock being shipbuilding
it is.
So I always thought about that when
I saw this vast firth of water,
that it was tears that
made the Clyde.
It had quite an impression
on me as a child.
>> Nancy Groce: So you
grew up listening to radio.
Do you play anything or
sing anything as a child?
>> Fiona Ritchie: I sing a lot.
We were all sort of encouraged
to take up instruments
like the recorder at school.
But my great love during school
years and primary school and right
through high school was being
a member of children's choir,
which went to national
competitions and like.
And the choir leader would do
a really eclectic assortment
of music including, you
know, American spirituals
and rather dramatic
discordant arrangements
by composers such as Zoltan Kodaly.
But she also did do a
lot of Scottish material
and I probably learned lots and lots
of songs arranged for, you know,
children's choir -- youth choir,
really it was, through this.
And it often came back
to me as I grew up
and in fact I have encouraged my
children to enjoy music in that way
because it's lovely to make a joyful
sound with a lot of other people.
>> Nancy Groce: And were you
very aware of being Scottish
when you were growing up?
Because it's different
than today, right?
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yes.
No, I wasn't really very aware
of being Scottish when I grew
up because we really didn't
travel beyond Scotland.
I remember my dad one time put
us in the car and had an inkling
to take us to the borders of
Scotland to see the turning
of the autumn leaves, which were
particularly spectacular there.
And we drove to a bridge near the
town of Coldstream, I believe,
which was one of the many places
where the border was marked
between Scotland and England.
And we tentatively walked
across this [inaudible].
And, you know, waited
to see what might happen
and retreated back again.
So, we didn't really
travel that far afield
until we were sort
of into our teens.
And then, of course, as soon as
you leave Scotland you become aware
of being Scottish, but we
weren't really that aware
of being Scottish growing up.
During the late '60s some
people left Northern Ireland
when the troubles,
as they were known,
the ethno nationalistic conflict in
Northern Ireland really flared up.
So, a couple of Northern Irish
families suddenly arrived
and you were aware that they
sounded different than [inaudible].
But we grew up [inaudible] just
a place full of Scotch really.
>> Nancy Groce: And then you
went to university in Sterling,
which is one of the great
Scottish universities.
But how did you get to America?
>> Fiona Ritchie: That
was interesting.
I did go to university at
the University of Sterling.
I was attracted to it because of
its beautiful countryside setting.
When I went to university
there were four ancient --
or old, and some ancient
universities, and four new ones,
and Sterling was one
of the new ones.
And I just liked the idea of
living kind of a little bit
in the country, around [inaudible].
And at that time, too, I
started to become more aware
of Scottish traditions because
there were people at Sterling
who were bringing in
the Boys of the Lough.
Flora MacNeil, the
great Gaelic singer
who very recently passed away,
I remember seeing her singing
at the University of Sterling.
And in fact, she did a
very interesting thing
which I just told her son
and daughter very recently
when she passed away.
But she was the first person I
ever heard singing unaccompanied
and also stopping and starting
again if she felt that she didn't
in the right key for
herself, very comfortably.
Which is lovely to see someone
with such comfort with her work.
We saw bands like the
Whistle Binkies, and you know,
groups like that back then.
And also, the University of
Sterling had a good association
with Jean Redpath who would come
and teach Scottish song
in their summer schools.
And then much to my great pride, at
my graduation ceremony Tom Anderson,
the wonderful Shetland fiddler
and tradition [inaudible],
was given an honorary degree.
So I always felt the
University of Sterling had --
was right on when it came to kind
of recognizing Scottish
traditional arts.
How I went to America was,
there was a connection.
I'd gone to study Scot --
English and Scottish literature
and got very nicely sidetracked
into the area of Psychology
which I very much enjoyed.
And it sparked off an academic
exchange between the University
of Sterling and the University
of North Carolina at Charlotte
who had professors who
were annoyed with the fact
that they didn't really get
sabbaticals and so they worked
out a way of basically having job
exchanges, swaps, and we're reaching
out to all kinds of universities.
Because Sterling, unlike many
other universities in Scotland,
not even UK at the time, was
on the U.S. semester system
and there terms sat very
much as yours do here,
it was a perfect candidate
for that kind of job swap.
So, as an offshoot from that, UNCC
had such a great connection going
on they decided to invite a student
over for a semester and that was me.
So that opened the door.
I went back and finished my degree
at Sterling and then decided
to return and that was where I
had my next detour into radio.
>> Nancy Groce: So do
you want to just walk us
through how you started in radio.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Well,
having grown up, as I said,
with the radio always on,
when I came over as a student
I immediately asked somebody --
I couldn't have cared less really
at the time whether
there was a television
in our little student
apartment, which there wasn't,
but I asked someone if
I could borrow a radio.
And I put it on and tuned up
and down, and I was looking
for whatever sounded to me like
BBC, and I couldn't find it.
But I did find some --
[ Laughter ]
I did find some great
album rock stations
and some very interesting
religious stations
which I hadn't heard
anything like before.
So I suppose much like a sort of,
almost like an anthropologist
I became kind of fascinated
by stations like this, things
that sounded so different to me.
And then there was one
classical music station
which was a public radio station,
but no news that I was looking
for and that sort of thing.
But I enjoyed it.
When I came back a year or so
later I put the radio on again
and there was this voice that came
out and it was an NPR news voice.
There was BBC reporters,
suddenly public --
National Public Radio had
sort of hit town, if you like.
>> Nancy Groce: That's just
when I was starting, right?
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yeah.
>> Nancy Groce: Morning
edition and all.
>> Fiona Ritchie: And the brand
new outlet there in Charlotte.
And so like a sort of
hypnotized person that you see
in Hammer horror movies,
and such, like I kind of --
[ Laughter ]
Walked down and physically
presented myself there
that I might get involved
in some way.
And famously I was given an
appointment with the station manager
who was lovely and chatted
away to me about the ways
in which I might become involved.
I had a postgraduate
part-time job at the university
so I was just looking, happy to
volunteer get involved in any way.
And she gently told me that you
do realize that with an accent
like yours that you
won't ever be on the air.
[ Laughter ]
Which I was happy to accept.
But I got very excited about it
and it was very much an all-hands
on deck, a lot of young people
learning the tools of the trade
in this wonderful,
eclectic outlet for jazz,
which I didn't know
an awful lot about,
but became very interested in.
All kinds of American
musical traditions.
I hadn't heard Cajun music before
and a lot of American Ritz music.
Of course, classical music
[inaudible] public affairs
of all kinds, show
tunes, all of that.
So I became very involved, and it
was very much an all-hands on deck
which is the best possible training
anyone can have in any line of work.
And you just learn how to do
everything, on-air, off-air.
And well, they realized
that they needed promos made
for their BBC radio drama,
[inaudible], Sherlock Holmes,
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
So they asked me if I would make
these promos and could I put
on a sort of BBC English.
So I used to cut all these --
>> Nancy Groce: And can you?
I don't think I ever heard that.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Oh
yeah, quite happy to.
So I printed all these promos
and then gradually they realized,
you know, that people
weren't turning out in droves
and I was encouraged to
do a program of music
from wherever I was
from, which I did.
And that -- one thing
led to another.
But one lady did call in and
say, "I've heard your new program
of Celtic music hosted by that
woman, but can you please get her
to stop putting on
that stupid accent?"
[ Laughter ]
"She doesn't need to do that just
because she's presenting that show.
And I've been to Scotland and
they don't sound like that."
[ Laughter ]
>> Nancy Groce: Do you remember
who you put on the first show?
>> Fiona Ritchie: I do.
I do. I had to -- I tried to,
you know, I thought it was going
to be one show and one
show only, forever,
so I tried to make sure I had some
music from Scotland, from Wales,
from Ireland, from Britany.
I had Battlefield Band.
I had Christine Primrose.
I had Robin Williamson.
I had Alan Stivell.
I had the Boys of the
Lough, the Chieftains.
An eclectic assortment,
also some, you know,
singing in Irish, singing
in [inaudible].
It was rather a lot packed into one
very nervous-sounding young woman's
hour on the radio.
>> Nancy Groce: Do
you have a copy of it?
>> Fiona Ritchie: The very
first live show was --
and all you archivists in here,
your toes will curl and some
of you may pass out when I tell
you that someone recorded over it.
But I do have a copy of --
[ Laughter ]
Pass the smelling salts.
And I do have a copy of the
very first program that was sent
out as a pilot for
a national broadcast
and it's quite a hysterical
listen actually.
>> Nancy Groce: Well, just
briefly, I know there's a lot of,
but just simplify, how
did it go from a one-off
from the local station
to an international empire
that you oversee today.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Well they decided
to pilot the show locally
during a station fundraiser,
when presumably it was a time to do
all kinds of different programing
and get people to call
in and contribute
to this brand new public
radio station.
Public radio being new in Charlotte,
North Carolina, where I was,
they were also new to the idea
that you would also maybe support
with your contributions
such an on-air enterprise.
So we were feeling our way
into learning how to ask
for financial contributions.
So I was given this hour on the
radio and I also was asking people
to contribute to support.
And I had a strange -- a
little collection I'd brought
over of beer mats from
Scottish pubs.
They weren't all beer
stained, they were quite new.
>> Nancy Groce: How
did you collect those?
Well, we'll talk about
that some other time.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Talk
about it some other time.
But they were new, they weren't all
beer stained and so [inaudible].
So I thought it'd be quite
fun to send these to people
who contributed [inaudible] easy to
put in an envelope, cheap to post.
So, I was on the air and so
nervously proceeding through my --
you know, because I had to learn
to spin the disks and cue them up
and speak and I was
very concentrating this.
And no one wanted to come back
from the pledge room to tell me
that absolutely not a
single person had called.
And I think one or two people were
almost faking calls from the office
because they felt sort
of sorry for me.
And when I went down there
to see how I had done,
the fact that nobody had called
at all didn't really have any
impression on me whatsoever.
It sort of [inaudible] was I
to have survived this first
sort of on-air experience.
But what we didn't realize was
that a thunderstorm had
knocked out the phone lines.
[ Laughter ]
And when it was finally
discovered that this had happened
and the phones were fixed overnight,
the next day loads of people called
to say I was trying to get
through and we got a big rush
of support, which was very nice.
And then on the back of that
it became a weekly local show.
And from then we reached out to see
if there might have been interest
nationally in maybe 13 programs,
and continued on from there.
>> Nancy Groce: So, how do you
-- because you're on every week
and you often have topics.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yes.
>> Nancy Groce: So how do you decide
on a topic and can you just walk us
through how you develop a show.
Because it's a lot of work.
And how many -- I don't mean
to pry too much into your setup
but you don't have dozens of
people working for you do you?
>> Fiona Ritchie: No, I
don't have dozens of people.
One dozen might be very nice,
although quite unmanageable.
So I find it best to work myself.
And it's --
>> Nancy Groce: and you have
one assistant [inaudible]?
>> Fiona Ritchie: That makes
sense because I did move back
to Scotland a good many years ago,
as most of you probably realize,
although some people
still think when they tune
into their radio station in Kansas
they think that's where I am
and call up and ask to chat with me.
But I moved back to Scotland in
1990 and split my time quite a bit,
but I really do all the
production of the show there,
which meant that it also made sense
if someone who lives here full-time
to be my main point of
contact for NPR, and listeners,
and all the individual stations,
and people can send music directly
to her rather than sending all the
way to Scotland, which they also do.
But as far as working out themes
and content, it's very much led --
well, it can be led by my own desire
to explore some notion of, you know,
the seasons, or landscape,
or workways and lifestyles.
Or it might be led by music
that drops into my lap
that I think is quite wonderful and
I might build something around that
with other artists who
explored similar themes.
Or it might be led by an interview
that I've done with somebody,
or an opportunity I've had to
record some live performance
and then I build a
program about that.
So they've got many
different colors.
And lately there's
been so much new music
that I feel often might not
fit into any of these roles
that I've made a much more concerted
effort just to have dedicated weeks
where I Just look through
and listen through a lot
of the new stuff that's
dropping onto my desk.
>> Nancy Groce: So you pick a topic
and then you write the script or --
>> Fiona Ritchie: Well, I --
>> Nancy Groce: That takes
an enormous amount of time.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Well, I
have to dedicate myself.
It's one of these things
that sort of,
you can kind of put
off, procrastinate.
So I have to come up with three
months worth of program ideas
and submit them to NPR, and then
I don't have to think about them,
they're forgotten effectively.
Some of them will be chosen because
I know I have access to material
or I know I have an interview
already done with that person.
It's a bit unsafe to schedule
a program with someone
who I will intend to
interview, just in case that,
for whatever reason doesn't happen.
So I rarely do that.
Sometimes I have interviews
ready to go and so they're kind
of in the pipeline
towards broadcast.
And then there are other themes that
as I come closer to the show I look
through and I go, "What
I said I'd do that?
A little bit."
Or I'll be thinking ahead of
what might be really fun to do
at Christmas time, or for
the varied seasonal changes
and I sort of put stuff away.
It's like a kind of hope chest.
Do you know that [inaudible]
hope chest.
It's like a little hope chest of
ideas for programs and things are
in various stages of
development from a number
of programs at any given time.
And then when I get closer to it
I start to chip away at the --
or look at that blank canvas
maybe is a better to put it,
and start to sketch it together.
>> Nancy Groce: And you very
often to interviews with people.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yes.
>> Nancy Groce: Well, and the
Celtic music world is interesting
because it's really -- certainly
when you were a child it was
probably much smaller tighter world.
You want to talk a little
bit about how it's expanding?
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yeah,
very much so.
I think when I started it
was probably almost possible
to own the entire collection
of vinyl
in that field, or very close to it.
When I first lived in Charlotte and
started out doing various things
with radio stations,
I remember going to --
back in the day remember we would
have quite huge record stores
with lots of vinyl and
you remember this action.
You know, and then a whole
lot would flop forward
and -- I loved to do that.
I probably have quite
strong fingers as a result.
I did a lot of that.
And so there were some
really big record stores.
We miss them, don't we?
It's the way independent
bookstores similarly have struggled.
So these big record stores
are [inaudible] to go to.
And I used to go to this one, there
was one called Grapevine I believe.
And masses of music and lots of
music that hadn't been exposed,
and of course my mind is opening
to many different strands of music
and I wanted to kind of check it
all out, in addition to what was
in our library at the radio station,
which was really quite huge.
And I remember going to see
what they might have in the way
of Celtic music, or I'm not sure
it was a term that was used really
by record labels or
even record stores.
>> Nancy Groce: You
mean Celtic, as it --
because it developed
later as a marketing word.
>> Fiona Ritchie: I think
it did, yeah, very much so.
So I thought I'll look
for Irish, Scottish,
or maybe under the band names.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Finally I find my way to
the international section
and I found an album by the
Scotch [inaudible] Guards,
it was a pipe band music.
And Black Watch was an
album under pipes and drums
of the [inaudible] pipe bands.
They had clearly kind of entered
into the vinyl collections.
And there was one other
album under international
and it was by the Chieftains.
And that was it.
That was it.
Nothing else at all.
And so clearly what was available
at home hadn't really managed
to penetrate the record
market over here,
the vinyl distribution
market over here.
So when I went home I would make
a point of collecting as much
as I could and physically
carrying over.
So I didn't really carry -- I wasn't
bringing back jars of marmalade
or any such thing, it
was cases of vinyl.
So much so that once or twice the
immigration people kind of got
to know me and they knew what
was, you know, in my case.
Then people started,
when I would come home,
people would send me a lot of stuff,
and they'd start shipping over here.
So it just took a while for
that to open and I suppose
by accident I kind of began
right at the beginning
of when this music was coming over,
which started to happen thanks
to the advent really of
affordable international travel.
So you could get bands like the Boys
of the Lough and the Chieftains,
who'd been great pioneers
in this respect.
Quickly behind them, bands like
Battlefield Band, who started coming
over and touring all
over the U.S. and Canada,
bringing their product with them.
And those independent record labels
over here started to
support their work.
>> Nancy Groce: So
it was like mid '70s?
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yes.
Yes. There were about four bands
from Ireland and four from Scotland,
and one or two others that
really started to go out
and create these touring
groups for traveling musicians.
They were pioneers really and like I
say, it was really the availability
of affordable travel
that made it possible.
And then that was all backed up by
the wonderful world of public radio
for playing their music
when they came to town.
>> Nancy Groce: So it opened
up American audiences.
>> Fiona Ritchie: I think so.
Yes. Yes, definitely.
>> Nancy Groce: At what point
did you start doing interviews
as well as playing records?
>> Fiona Ritchie: Right from
the very, very beginning.
As soon as they said I could --
well I did my one-hour program
from fundraising and it was okay.
And then I was going
home at Christmas
and the station manager said
when you come back why don't
you do a weekly program?
So, this was my chance to go
home, collect a bunch of vinyl,
because I probably had
about a dozen records.
When I came over I brought my
entire collection of Scottish
and Irish music, a couple
of really great bands
like a band called Finn McCool
that don't exist anymore.
Bands like [inaudible]
and others, Gaussian.
So when I went home I thought okay,
I'm going to have a radio program
I'll have to have an interview.
Because, again, growing up with
the BBC I was very much used
to hearing artists interviewed
with music woven through.
So, I interviewed Alan
Reed, a mutual friend.
>> Nancy Groce: And one of the
founders of the Battlefield Band.
>> Fiona Ritchie: He was, and
still very much involved in music.
We met up a couple of years ago
to remember those early days
and reminisce about how his
musical career has grown
and how the music has changed.
And I brought him some old
photographs to laugh about.
It was all very -- it was things
that it's kind of fun to do
on the radio because people kind of
wonder exactly what you're looking
at and requires him to
explain and describe.
So I interviewed him.
I had zero knowledge about
engineering such things
so I borrowed from my dad, an old,
a very early kind of cassette deck.
I thought, well you can
get a cassette in there
and you could interview
on the cassette.
And my dad had had an old
reel-to-reel tape recorder
on which he used to record
us as children talking.
But he also used to sit
the microphone in front
of the television set and if a
musical was on, like Oklahoma,
for example, Carousel,
these types of musicals,
he would record the whole thing
and we'd all just sit
in complete silence.
>> Nancy Groce: You mean
to avoid buying the record.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Possibly.
But all the dialogue as well
[inaudible] it was before --
yeah, we had lots of records
like, Gilbert and Sullivan.
We'd play a lot of that
kind of music at home.
The record deck, we had a really
nice record deck before we had color
television or anything.
It was lots of vinyl
played all the time.
But I knew my dad had some kit
so I asked him for his microphone
and not knowing anything
about it I just thought well,
you probably just plug
it in at the back.
So I took it and recorded in Alan's
living room, and took it back home
and went to find out
how to edit it for air.
And it was all recorded
in one channel.
It was all in the left channel.
So I had to learn then about stereo
and about just making
into mono and such like.
So it was a learning curve.
But yeah, right from the
very beginning I felt
that was I had an urge to do
and it's probably the
thing I most enjoyed
about my work actually
is interviewing.
I just come back from the
[inaudible] traditional song week
and through the years there.
I've really enjoyed sitting
with somebody as we are doing,
with their instrument, and chatting
to them in front of an audience
and having them perform
maybe half a dozen songs.
And people like Jean Ritchie
and others have been wonderful
to work with in that capacity.
That's kind of been a favorite
thing to do , is do an interview
but have the person guide them
towards some of their material
and enjoy that with a group of
people in similar size to yourself,
and share all that with listeners.
That's been a great fun thing to do.
>> Nancy Groce: I know you and Doug
Orr have recently released a book,
Wayfaring Strangers ,
that got rave reviews.
And we'll talk about
that in a minute.
Before we get off interviews though,
are there just a few interviews
[inaudible] that you thing back on,
or do they all merge together?
>> Fiona Ritchie: Certain
things jump out such as,
because I'm both interviewer
and editor and producer,
there's some people I
particularly appreciate.
I hate editing myself because
I try to put as little of me
as possible into the actual program.
I just don't want to hear me.
But sometimes my questions are
very [inaudible] and I think oh,
could you just not ask it in
a more straightforward way?
But one person who's wonderful
to edit is Brian McNeil.
He really requires no
editing except for time.
>> Nancy Groce: Yeah, Brian
McNeil is a fiddler and songwriter
who was another founder,
cofounder of Battlefield Band.
And he --
>> Fiona Ritchie: He's also
a novelist and he speaks --
he's incredibly articulate and very
engaging in his manner of speech.
So only in time do you have to --
you don't have to get in among
his speech to edit it in a way.
Because I always try to make
people sound as fantastic
as they can possibly sound.
A day at [inaudible] house
was a wonderful experience.
He was basically -- it was like
being with a young man in some ways.
He would just sit and close
his eyes and reminisce and then
as a tune would come to mind
he would [inaudible] for you
or even sing some very,
very generous [inaudible].
And then over the years meeting up
with Jean Redpath was always great
because she had such an
encyclopedic knowledge of song
and things would come to mind.
Again, just a great person for
illustrating what she was saying
with little bits of song.
But there have been many
people over the years
that have been really a
delight and a privilege
to share that sort of time with.
>> Nancy Groce: Now how did --
and you've written a number of
books over the years, right?
>> Fiona Ritchie: Most of my writing
early on was [inaudible] for CD's
and such like and then I was asked
to contribute to the series of books
that NPR released called NPR
Curious Listener's Guide .
They had one on Oprah, jazz,
classical music, show
tunes, et cetera.
So I always said to people,
yes I was asked to contribute
to the NPR's Curious Listener's
Guide but now I've been asked
to do the one on blues.
>> Nancy Groce: Did you do
that or are you doing that?
>> Fiona Ritchie: It was of
course the one on Celtic music.
But I just thought I would
throw people a loop there.
But, no there was one on blues.
>> Nancy Groce: Which you didn't do.
You did do the liner notes
for the Smithsonian compilation
album Scotland, the real --
they came out with
the 2003 festival.
[Inaudible] for that.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Together
on that, Nancy,
which was great fun
on that compilation.
Which was really a
lovely collection.
>> Nancy Groce: On
contemporary Scottish songwriters.
Yeah.
>> Fiona Ritchie: And the
title, you may recall,
was given to us by Brian McNeil.
>> Nancy Groce: Yeah, because
we were stuck on a title.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yeah.
>> Nancy Groce: I was
complaining to him
about this one-day [inaudible]
call it "Scot on the Reel."
>> Fiona Ritchie: And we did.
We did. [Inaudible] on
public radio no this one.
And if there's any here from
NPR or public radio stations,
you'll probably enjoy this,
The6 people who made these
suggestions no longer work for NPR.
Not for this reason or
any other that I know of.
But I thought you might
kind of find it fun,
is that [Inaudible] a really great
original piece of art for the cover
by a painter who really specialized
in some really quite authentic
looking scenes in [inaudible] also
with some fanciful notions
in some of the detail.
>> Nancy Groce: He's a street
painter, folk street painter
who was out in all weathers.
Yeah.
>> Fiona Ritchie: And Nancy found
this painter and he had done a scene
in a pub in [inaudible]
called the "Fiddler's Arms,"
which is down at the Grass Market
for those of you who know the city
and it was a place where the
session scene travels very much
from pub to pub to pub.
When it gets too busy or maybe too
discovered by tourists they tend
to move off to another pub.
But for a while they did play in the
Fiddler's Arms, as you may expect.
And there was a great painting
by this street painter.
I don't even know if I filled
you in on all this Nancy.
But there's a great painter --
they done a great scene
in the Fiddler's Arms,
and there were [inaudible]
playing, and there were beer glasses
on the bar as you might imagine
on the tables, and [inaudible].
A couple of them looked like maybe
they could have used a shave.
You know, looked a little
bit like they were, you know,
not brushed up particularly well.
And the designer -- and actually
we wanted NPR to be involved
in helping us promote this important
collection, and they didn't
like the presence of these
beer glasses everywhere.
And one of them said, "Could we not
sort of airbrush this and change it
and make it into a coffee cup?"
[ Laughter ]
I said, "How about a
sort of machachino?"
I said, "No, sorry,"
we'd be laughed,
nobody would take this series
serious at all if they looked
like we'd airbrushed out all the
alcohol from a pub in Scotland
and cleaned up this
guy's afternoon shadow .
And there was someone else looking
through the window that looked
like he might have been, you know,
a homeless, a tramp or something
and he just looked -- she felt he
was like a little scary looking
so wanted him rubbed off.
I said, "No, sorry, this is
actually what it's like."
Anyway, digression.
But it was a great collection
and really fun to make.
>> Nancy Groce: Yeah.
Yeah.
>> Fiona Ritchie: And NPR
[inaudible] to music, well,
to me it quickly becomes dated.
There was a particular form I had to
follow and some of it is timeless,
about the sort of history
of the music
and then there'd be a big
section on the musicians and a lot
of them are people who
would be in this collection.
But there are others
since then that I would
like to have added
into that catalog.
By its nature it can
become a little dated
but it stands well
enough for what it is.
>> Nancy Groce: It was nicely done.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Well
it was lovely to think
that within this collection,
these volumes on [inaudible]
classical music, jazz,
American popular song,
blues, world music,
that where would be a whole
-- a volume on Celtic music.
So I really wanted to
make sure that, you know,
that I got that in there.
So.
>> Nancy Groce: But tell us
about your current book,
Wayfaring Strangers .
You have a copy here.
It has notes but there
are copies outside.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yeah, I
carry it around with me.
>> Nancy Groce: What
inspired you to write this.
>> Fiona Ritchie: This really grew
out of many, many conversations
with friends, with
musicians, with people.
When I first came over
as a student --
well really it was probably when
I returned, people would say oh,
you got to go up to the mountains
of North Carolina, there's people
up there that speak in a dialect
connected to old ways like speaking
in the UK, [inaudible]
song up there.
I very quickly heard -- could hear
that there were definitely
musical connections
with music from where I was from.
And this intrigued me beyond
belief because what I could hear,
it wasn't like a sort of time
capsule of preserved music
but it was something that had
shifted and changed and moved
in a different direction.
It was clearly sharing
this strong root.
And I just found this
quite intoxicating.
So I like to learn about that and
talk to different people about that
and visit friends in the mountains
who were immersed in this culture.
And I got very interested in playing
back porch music, old-time music,
playing, you know,
[inaudible] a few chords
around on a guitar [inaudible].
Doug Orr and I realized --
Doug worked at the University
of North Carolina Charlotte
as a Chancellor.
>> Nancy Groce: Right,
and then he was president
of Warren Wilson College.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yeah.
For many years.
And he and I maintained
our friendship connection
because he was also very interested
in these musical roots but we were
on different trajectories.
I was from Scotland becoming very
interested in old-time fiddle
and banjo music, Appalachian
balladry, bluegrass, and the like,
and he was from North Carolina and
became very interested in the roots
of his forebears' music, Scotch,
Irish and others who had come
over so were both kind
of going cross current.
And really, what happened was
there was such a spark moment
which Nancy had something
to do with.
At the time of the Smithsonian
Folklife Festival one year,
the two countries of focus were
Scotland and the West African nation
of Mali, this was in 2003.
And we're thinking that some
of you possibly attended.
And then the region, as
you know, [inaudible] state
of the U.S. that's also selected,
in this case it was Appalachia.
So we had Scotland,
Mali, and Appalachia.
Now, Appalachia music,
as I came to understand,
one of the wonderful things
about Appalachia music was
when the European tradition
came over and met
up with the African tradition
and we have a banjo coming in
and the bluesy and
more syncopated rhythms
that came into Appalachian music.
And it's a very much
under-sung contributor
to the Appalachian sound.
So Doug Orr and Darcy Orr came up
from [inaudible] College at the time
to attend the festival, and
I was there on the mall.
And we sat down and had a little
picnic together and said, you know,
we've got to work on
a book about this.
So, sort of being surrounded by
all that music it seemed very clear
to us that there was
an opportunity there.
There had been many
scholarly works written
about the Scottish-Irish migration,
and many also about Appalachia music
and its Scotch Irish roots,
as well as the other roots
in that tapestry of sound.
But we felt we should try
and do something together.
As we went along over the
years we didn't work full tilt
on it all those years ago,
but it was bubbling away
and information was being collected.
I started to become aware that
I had interviewed many people
on my radio show that had
something to say about that subject
and that there were many
other people that I would
like to interview that would have
something, you know, a lot of wisdom
to share about the subject.
So I started to think about
people I wanted to reach out to,
people I wanted to interview
at Traditional Song Week
at [inaudible], like Jean Ritchie
and others, who could share
and shed light on this
musical migration, if you like,
this meandering musical migration.
Part of what we call the
carrying stream of music.
It's not linear, it's not as a
music that went from there to there
and ended up there in some
linear journey as a time capsule.
Not at all.
In fact, much more interesting
because of all the tributaries
that flow into the stream and the
ways in which the stream then flows
out into other music,
and mixes, and blends,
and creates what we think
of as tapestry of music.
So, it really was a long
project, but grew arms and legs
and various other limbs
and ended up also
with a CD in the back of the book.
We were very grateful that UNC
Press, University of North Carolina
in Chapel Hill, came onboard
as a partner and were willing
to help us realize a
substantial volume with a CD
and many, many illustrations.
Some of which I hope you
enjoyed on the screens there.
So it's been a long
project and rather a labor
of love over these years.
>> Nancy Groce: It has.
Actually, we have a copy --
the picture that's up now is,
maybe we can change the
picture of the book.
Or not, the books outside.
Would you be willing to take a
few questions from the audience?
>> Fiona Ritchie: Certainly.
Yes. Yes. Should I
-- I was going to.
>> Nancy Groce: We're going to
have a microphone come around.
Does anybody have questions?
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yeah,
as you think about them,
may I read you just a nice
quote from Jean Ritchie,
which sums up a lot of --
as we go into the book.
>> Nancy Groce: Okay.
>> Fiona Ritchie: The old songs
were in our heads and hearts
like breathing and were handed
down through the generations
in a living tradition as if
they'd been carried along
in a migration stream
from across the sea.
I think if we extracted all of
Jean Ritchie's quotes and comments
from the book it would
be more of a pamphlet.
There's a lot of Jean in here,
because she was a notable
collector herself.
She got a [inaudible] scholarship
as quite a young woman and traveled
over to Scotland, England, and
Ireland seeking the origins
of her family's incredible
storehouse of songs and ballads.
And there is some great pictures.
Her husband, the late George
Pickow was a fine photographer
and she documented a lot of this.
So there's some lovely
photographs of Jean
with a big tape deck recording
the Irish Piper [inaudible]
and meeting with others.
And like the best collector's
of songs, she would visit people
in their cottages with her
Appalachian dossimer in her lap
and share a song or two, and this
opened up the wonderful exchange
that allowed her to
collect many songs.
But I'm happy to --
>> Nancy Groce: You know, we're
very honored that her collection,
George Pickow's collection has come
to the American Folklife Center
and is being processed as we
speak and will be available
to researchers for years to come.
And I should ask you,
are you any relation?
>> Fiona Ritchie: Well, I was -- I
first met Jean when I was in my 20's
in Charlotte when she
came to perform there.
And I met her periodically
through the years.
Now, when I first met her she
gave me a copy of her book,
Singing Family of
the Cumberland's ,
and she signed it, "To my cousin."
And I read it and I
remember enjoying it.
But then many years later when I
was going to be interviewing her
for [inaudible] I re-read her book
and it affected me
much more powerfully
and I find myself rather
choked up reading something --
it's just a much more, as a callow
youth I couldn't possibly appreciate
all that she had put into
the book when I was younger.
But we met up through the years and
Jean decided that we were related.
She said we're definitely
cousins, at least.
[ Laughter ]
And her Ritchie forebears
had immigrated
and boarded a ship in Liverpool.
She has a wonderful family
tree in the Singing Family
of the Cumberland's
, and headed over.
So I think there were four Ritchie
brothers had traveled over together
and then ended up traveling down,
presumably the migration route
of the Great Philadelphia Wagon
Road and then that spurred --
that the Wilderness Road into
Kentucky where they settled.
So yeah, we were cousins, at least.
>> Nancy Groce: Questions?
Perhaps start here.
>> Is it working?
Are you going to be doing anymore
of your musical tours of Scotland?
>> Fiona Ritchie: No
plans at the moment.
I'll tell you one reason why.
I have a family now, it's
more difficult for me to kind
of get up and go like that.
But also there are other people
who do that really, really well
and I would recommend to
you Ed Miller and Jack Beck,
both singers soaked in
traditional music themselves.
Steeped I should say.
Soaked is more what happens when
they take their songs into the pub.
But they do these wonderful
musical tours around Scotland
where they'll take people.
They'll be [inaudible] by the songs
and by the material, and take people
to hear and sing songs in the
locations where the songs came from
or were inspired by and also
meet musicians along the way.
And I've met with both Jack and
Ed's groups at different times.
Cathie Ryan does similar work,
as does Mick Maloney in Ireland.
So I would recommend you to these
if you want to do a song-based
or music-based tour of
Scotland have a real look online
for their initiatives.
Thank you.
>> Nancy Groce: Question over here.
>> Can you tell us about the
studio that you broadcast from?
I'd like to be able to envision
when I listen to you where you are.
>> Fiona Ritchie: It's a beautiful
glass tower and I have people
that come and pour me jugs
of water and mop my brow.
>> Nancy Groce: Occasionally
people have asked to visit
and I often almost feel I almost
want to talk them out of it
in case they are disappointed
because it's a very small premises.
It's probably about 250-year
old building on a street
in a small pasture village.
And the downstairs are shops.
And like a lot of Scottish
traditional buildings,
then you go upstairs and there's
a flat, and maybe another flat.
So I'm above a shop.
It's a tiny little flat with
a small studio, really perfect
for one person, although I can set
up to interview one
or two people as well.
It's about enough room for that.
You've been up to see
my little studio.
>> Nancy Groce: I have, yes.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yeah.
It's perfect for me
and it's a nice --
>> Nancy Groce: And
you don't live there,
this is just your working premises.
>> Fiona Ritchie: I
don't live there.
I live about a mile away.
But it's a perfect
place for me to work.
It's actually a very -- it
feels like a very creative space
because I can work away and
when I want I can look out
and see like busy street scene.
Oh a fish and chips shop has
opened, look who's going in.
And it's kind of cheery.
>> Nancy Groce: It's
that small a village.
>> Fiona Ritchie: And I can look
down and go out and [inaudible]
and bump into people at the post
office, but I can work away myself.
And it's very sound --
very quiet place to work.
And it's also a place where I can
put up things that do inspire me
and remind me why I do what
I do, why I enjoy what I do.
So, for example, a lovely picture
of me and Jean Ritchie together,
or various other photographs of
some of these nice encounters
and fun times that the July
4th concerts and the mall here
in Washington, DC, or wherever.
So just, although I'm
away and perhaps working
on my own I can easily enough
look around and remind myself
of the different things I've been
doing and why it's been so much fun.
>> Hi. You've done so much to
spread knowledge and appreciation
of Celtic music in this
country, do you broadcast at all
in Scotland, Ireland, et cetera?
>> Fiona Ritchie: Well when I
first went back over I started
to do quite a lot of work with the
BBC and I had this similar kind
of missionary zeal that had
originally fueled my desire
to share Celtic music here.
When I went back over there I
realized how little authentic
American music they were hearing,
other than commercial country music,
which is very popular
over there, that I started
to want to share some of that.
So I did quite a lot
of programs for BBC.
They do Scotland and
also radio, too.
I did a program called
"Bluegrass Comes Home,"
which explored the British
[inaudible] of bluegrass.
And then I started a program
on Radio Scotland called
"Celtic Connections," which went
on to be -- this wasn't my name,
it was the producer's name,
but it became a big festival.
It's now the biggest winter
music festival in the world
which takes place annually
in Glasgow
and I started the radio program
that was sort of a partner to that.
So I did do quite a
lot of radio work
with Radio Scotland
particularly and with --
in Ireland it's been more being
a guest on someone else's show.
Now I find that as I've been
more involved really with being
out with my family, it suited me
better to focus on what I supply
over here and do occasional
work for these outlets.
But you know, I wasn't really
that interested in trying
to get Celtic music on
the air in Scotland.
It was more about old-time music
or exploring the connections.
And really, a lot of what --
I started out naively wanting
to share some of my petite,
vinyl record collection, but
it quickly grew over the years,
I suppose, into just
wanting to make connections.
And the book is very
much about that.
Wanting to make connections
for people to music
that they would care about, to music
that they would want to know about,
or that might resonate with them
because of their heritage or just
because they wanted to hear
authentic music played by people
who were passionate about it
regardless of their own background.
And it continued to be about wanting
make connections so whatever I do,
whether it's over there or here,
I feel I want to link things
up for people, if you like.
And radio has been the great
outlet for that, but now of course,
it's a multi-platform world and
it's about putting things online.
As well that can allow
people to explore and really,
really I suppose we -- Nancy
and I are curators in a way,
in that it used to be that people
have to go through the radio,
make time to listen
to a radio program
at a particular time of the week.
And now there are so many other
ways for people to hear the music
that I almost feel I could fade away
and it wouldn't make any difference
because it's all out there now
and there are many ways
for it to be out there.
But I still like to do my bit to,
you know, curate that listener-ship.
>> Nancy Groce: Next question.
>> I used to love to go to
Cafe [inaudible] and listen
to Jean Redpath there, and
I was wondering would --
how much contact you had
with her in your show.
>> Fiona Ritchie: I
was very fond of Jean.
She was -- she encouraged me
hugely right at the very beginning
when I first started working
in radio in Charlotte.
She came to do a couple
of concerts early on
and she just really
encouraged me to --
she gave me confidence that even
though I was kind of learning
on the job and learning about the
music on the job, that I was doing,
as she put it, a sterling job.
"You're doing a sterling job, Fiona.
Keep doing it."
And she felt it was important.
And so, you know, it meant a lot to
me as a young woman in my early 20's
to be encouraged by
someone like Jean,
and to felt I was on
the right track.
So we met up periodically
through the years
and sometimes the phone would
just go and it'd be Jean.
She'd be over in Scotland.
She kept a house in [inaudible]
where she [inaudible] spent time.
And she called me before she
headed back to the U.S. to be cared
for in her final illness and
she -- we had a great exchange.
She was a very generous person and
really shared a lot of herself.
And I sometimes feel like I want
more people to know about her.
People hear about her through your
work and [inaudible] companion,
but at home she was known,
but I wanted more people
to realize what a resource she was.
Lately she was brought as a sort of
artist and [inaudible] to the School
of Scottish Studies, which was a
really smart move on their part,
and she came and shared
her work with students.
Jean had famously dropped
out and gone
to the states following
her musical passions.
So she said to me, you know,
when she went back to the School
of Scottish Studies, she felt it'd
taken her over 50 years to graduate.
She received honor degrees
from Glasgow University
and they had a lovely tribute to
her at the University of Glasgow,
you know, a memorial concert
and celebration really
of her contribution.
But yet she was a generous person.
She would reach out to
people that she felt --
where shared her passions and
she said, "I got your email
but I couldn't bother
sitting down doing an email,
I just thought I'd pick up
the phone and call you."
And she was that way.
A warm person.
So, I saw her occasionally
but it was always --
every visit was memorable.
A great baker as well.
>> Nancy Groce: Maybe
a few more questions.
>> I'd like to know if they're
ever going to broadcast Thistle
and Shamrock around here again.
It used to be on a lot.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yes,
I think they moved it
to their digital stream
called Bluegrass Country.
And I'm not sure the
current status of it.
And these arrangements of
course, as you will appreciate,
are very much beyond my
reach, and we only really know
when there have been changes
because listeners usually call
and let us know if they're annoyed
with the local arrangements,
or if they're happy if something's
suddenly appeared or changed.
>> WAMU has it at 6:30 on Saturdays.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Who does?
>> WAMU, W-A-M-U.
>> Fiona Ritchie: To --
>> The digital stream.
>> Fiona Ritchie: The
digital stream.
Radio has changed massively
in the period of time
that I've been working in radio with
digital streams, satellite streams,
of course online streaming.
So on our website you can
listen the 10 most recent shows
on a constant stream.
Broadcasting downloadables.
There are lots of ways for
the music to get out there.
I always just love being
able to put my radio on
and hear something wonderful, and
I'm a great radio listener at home,
to live radio as much as
I am to anything streamed.
But it's been interesting for
me to have gone from working
within a radio station and then in
a bigger format with NPR and BBC
and working with loads and loads
of people, and then it kind
of shrinking down to where
you're working yourself
and providing programing.
And by the same token the
[inaudible] radio program has
changed so dramatically
over the years,
how you reach the audience
from, you know,
vinyl mixed down onto big
reels of tape, to CD's,
down onto digital tape,
and now a lot
of it isn't even [inaudible] touch.
The music might be sent to me
as a music file from someone,
and of course I'm creating
the programs on music files.
There is no physical
radio program anymore,
and that's uploaded
into a server NPR.
So it's been an interesting,
drastic period of change.
As far as I'm concerned, though,
there are still people out there
who want to hear music and just
because there are so many more ways
for us to get music doesn't mean
we can actually find what we want,
or know what we'd like to hear.
So it feels that it's still
important to, you know,
share things with people
and send people
in the right direction even
though there are so many ways now
for them to access music.
But thank goodness they're still --
public radio stations
doing what they do.
>> Nancy Groce: Okay, one
more question and then --
>> I was just recently in
[inaudible] and my first time I fell
in love with Scotland and I was
hearing about Scottish nationalism.
And I was wondering what
your friends and fans think
about Scottish independence and
what music is perhaps carrying it.
>> Fiona Ritchie: I think
that there's no doubt
that with devolution --
when Scotland received a
devolved government and set
up its new Parliament, or
reconvened it's Parliament,
as we like to say after
300 years of rest.
>> Nancy Groce: That was 1999.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yeah, 1999.
But that really had been partly
driven by the creative industries
and by the traditional arts
and it certainly absolutely
fueled an explosion
of activity in the traditional arts.
Because when you devolve many
aspects of your social life,
social fabric if you
like, communities,
you devolve a lot of
funding as well.
And so I think what happened
was that there was an awful lot
of investment into the traditional
arts and people didn't have to go
through boards and end up
asking someone in London
who maybe didn't have
much connection
with what they were doing, it was
all happening on the doorstep.
But also it inspired people,
so it inspired [inaudible]
songs, et cetera.
And another thing that happened was,
a couple of things have actually
happened that have really,
really fueled the traditional arts.
One has been the growth in education
programs that focus on this.
The Rock Conservatory of Scotland,
which is our Academy of Music
and Drama in Glasgow
where, you know,
you can learn ballet and drama.
Many famous actors
and actresses came
through there in classical music.
You can also do, of course,
in Scottish traditional
music to the highest degree.
And then there are schools such
as the Center for Excellence
in traditional music
up in [inaudible].
>> Nancy Groce: Which
is a high school.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Yeah, run
by Dougie Pincock who used
to be with Battlefield Band.
And there are many places to
learn [inaudible] movement
which is a place [inaudible] where
young people can learn music,
very much adopting the Irish model.
All of these things have been great.
And what you see in Scotland now is
so many young people
involved in traditional music.
Its incredible how many young
people play all these instruments,
that's there's a great sense
of vibrancy and health.
No one's worried about
the future for this music.
As for the independence movement
I would say that a great majority
of people involved in the
traditional arts were probably
for Scottish independence,
seeing how much it can
create this great climate
for music and traditional.
But then again that referendum did
not result in Scottish independence,
but that doesn't mean it damages
the traditional arts in any way
because they are so vibrant
and we do have control
over our own purse strings when it
comes to that type of investment.
But you know, we've
got a very energized
and very connected young --
generation of young people who
are very politically aware.
Sixteen year olds were
given the vote
in this Scottish Independence
Referendum
because they felt it was really
important for young people
to have a say in what was
going to happen for them.
And I've never encountered
such a politically aware,
and that was all they were talking
about for weeks, and
weeks, and weeks.
So that's naturally, you would
imagine, going to fuel songwriting
and writing in general, and all
kinds of the outlets for the arts.
Yeah, it'll be very
interesting to see how politics
and the political climate
is expressed,
particularly in contemporary
songwriting.
Healthy stuff, it's
all healthy stuff.
>> Nancy Groce: Well, we could
go on for long periods of time
but I think probably we do need to
give the room back to the library.
And you're going to stay for a
little while and sign books outside
if people would like
to [inaudible] books.
But I want to thank
you so much for coming.
It's been lovely having you here.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Oh,
you're very welcome.
I've very much enjoyed it.
[ Applause ]
I'm sure. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
I'm sure we can sit here,
Nancy and I, tomorrow,
and have a completely
different conversation
that would at least interest us.
>> Nancy Groce: Next
time you're through.
>> Fiona Ritchie: I
also want to say,
don't feel obligated to buy a book.
If you want to come up and
say hello I'd love to meet you
and thank you for coming.
>> Nancy Groce: Yes.
Oh, and one more thing.
We're doing a survey,
because we're trying
to broaden how we reach audiences,
and there are survey forms
in the back if you'd be kind enough
to fill one out just to let --
yes, back at the table there.
Just to let us know
how you heard about it.
It's very quick, but it
would help us tremendously.
Thank you.
Thank you for coming and the next
Botkin Lecture is August 20th,
Steven Zeitland on his
career as a folklorist.
Thank you.
>> Fiona Ritchie: Thank
you very much.
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.