How does one go about describing a cd that offers a new blend of music to someone who hasn’t had the pleasure of hearing it yet? Highland Echoes is a wonderful pairing which blends two traditional acoustic instruments from different genres played by two great musicians, Scottish harpist Sharon Knowles with her nephew Joe Trudeau on clawhammer banjo. They say family makes the best music, and Highland Echoes provides yet more evidence of that thought... This unique and perhaps unlikely pairing really works! Joe’s banjo playing provides a clean crisp foundation and backdrop for the tunes, and Sharon’s harp provides both a solid yet subtle rhythmic backdrop as it also weaves in and out of the tunes with those lilting musical fills only a harp can provide. The combination takes the best qualities of traditional Celtic music mixed with our American Appalachian banjo and the result is one of those cds which you won’t easily tire of. Glenn Carson---------------------------------------When excellent musicians, well grounded in different styles of music, meet, surprising things happen! Highland Echoes features the clawhammer banjo playing of Joe Trudeau and Celtic Harper Sharon Knowles. Knowles’ fiddling husband John was the musical matchmaker for this nephew/aunt family duo, first by introducing Joe to Appalachian traditional music (often referred to as “Old Timey”). Then through family gatherings, Sharon and Joe found themselves playing together.You may think you know what a banjo sounds like with the prevalence of Bluegrass players using metal fingerpicks and in Irish music with the popularity of tenor banjos played with a pick (“plectrum”), but clawhammer style sounds nothing like those steady streams of rapid picked notes. Clawhammer banjo is another brilliant merging of musicians and styles. The 5 string banjo and that unusual style of playing was brought over with the African slaves who were sometimes used in America to play for dances in the south, with music brought over by the Irish and Scottish settlers, yet still adding their own musical accents. The distinctive sound is made with the back of a fingernail on the downbeats and the off -beats are played with the thumb, often just playing the shorter 5th string as a drone/repeated note. To do that the right hand is curved and resembles a “claw”, thus the name “clawhammer.” It sounds like a band in a box minus the bass. Assorted hammer-ons, pull-offs, brushes and slides are incorporated into creating melody and accompaniment and amazingly complex rhythms which result in a fantastic jumble of pops, clucks and chords with the melody coming out of this mish mash of sounds. Scottish musician Sharon Knowles has decades of experience in the Celtic harp world, but also lived in North Carolina for several years when her American husband was stationed there, in the heart of Appalachia.From these influences and roots comes this mesmerizing combination!Trudeau has learned his style of banjo well, listening to and playing with folks who play in the Round Peak, Virginia style popularized by Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham and West Virginia players like Dwight Diller and David Bing. I once heard Mike Seeger interviewing Jarrell at the National Folk Festival, asking him “What do you like the banjo to sound like? What makes a good banjo player?” Jarrell’s answer was “I like a GOOD banjo player!” If he was still alive, Jarrell would certainly approve of Trudeau’s playing!Knowle’s rock-solid rhythm harp accompaniment enhances the natural drive of the banjo. With her Celtic harmonies and sensibilities, she adds interesting bass lines, chords and occasional counter melodies that always tastefully blend and are cleanly executed. One does not normally hear the Celtic harp used this way – harp players take note on creative ways to expand your style!The duo includes a few Irish reels. As part of the Scots-Irish Diaspora, Irish and Appalachian music share certain types of scales (or “modes”) in common. More than one clawhammer player has been drawn to playing modal Irish reels. The American- Irish group Touchstone is probably the best-known group to successfully use the banjo this way. With the distinctive sound of clawhammer, the tunes still sound Old Timey yet feel like a natural fit.So put any preconceived notions aside. Lovers of both Celtic and Old Timey, harp and banjo music will find this recording a satisfying and refreshing listen! Karen Ashbrook