Arcana
Posted July 30th, 2016 by Anna
Arcangelo and I at the July 4 2016 launch for Entre la jeunesse et la sagesse (French translation of Mountain City Girls by Rachel Martinez.) Photo by David Young.
Hillside Festival in Guelph, Ont. McGarrigle Sideshow starring The Trapped Family Singers as Jane is calling us.
Posted July 23rd, 2016 by Anna
Pronto Monto CD on Omnivore Label
Posted July 11th, 2016 by Anna
The long-lost 3rd recording for Warner Bros is now available on CD on the Omnivore label. The initial release of this recording co-incided with the birth of my daughter Lily in early 1979 and when Kate & I set off for Europe to do press and media to support it, 3 month-old Lily came along as did our sister Jane. Pronto Monto was a bit of a departure after our first two Warner recordings which tended to be more folky. It is richly-produced by David Nichtern of ‘Midnight at the Oasis’ fame and sounds quite beautiful, especially Kate’s stately ‘Stella by Artois’. ‘NaCl’ made its first appearance on this recording and it’s nice to hear Kate’s take on the romance between handsome Sodium and fun-loving Chlorine resulting in table salt. Lot was a pillar of the community, his wife a pillar of salt. ‘Bundle of Sorrow, Bundle of Joy’ written about son Sylvan’s arrival into the World sure brings back a lot of very sweet memories. By the end of 1979, Kate and I had split with Warners.
Entre la jeunesse et la sagesse
Posted July 11th, 2016 by Anna
La traduction par Rachel Martinez de ‘Mountain City Girls’ par Anna et Jane McGarrigle est maintenenant disponible chez Flammarion Québec.
Entre la jeunesse et la sagesse
Sylvain Cormier pour Le Devoir
Alain de Repentigny pour La Presse
2 Comments »memory march
Posted May 31st, 2016 by Anna
two things served to jog my memory today: may 31 is the 51st anniversary of my father’s death and a facebook friend posted a pic of her family at weirs beach, n.h.
in mid-june 1965, a couple of weeks after my father’s funeral, peter weldon and peter ryerson, both motorcycle enthusiasts, were going to laconia, n.h. to take in the annual motorcycle rally on beautiful lake winnapesaukee. did i want to go? i didn’t think it was proper for me to go off so soon after my father dying but my mother encouraged me to take the trip. life is short, enjoy yourself, she said. the three of us drove down in the weldon family car, maybe because i was along, and we pitched a tent in a campground on the outskirts of town. the following morning i was up early. as I remember I was sitting smoking a cigarette at a picnic table waiting for the two peters to wake when this big dude on a throaty harley rode up and asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. the early bird gets the worm. i didn’t hesitate for a moment and hopped on the seat behind him putting my arms around his foreign waist. we exchanged names before driving off through the fresh green countryside on well-paved american roads. the landscape is hilly around there and the ride was liberating. we must have been gone for a couple of hours because when we returned to the campground my friends who had naturally assumed that i’d been abducted were attempting to organize a search party. now they were aghast and just plain angry to see me astride the throbbing bike with a total stranger, and a menacing-looking one as i remember. i got a real talking-to, “are you crazy? what the hell were you thinking?’..something not very nice about strange men and much like a talking-to my father would have given me had he still been alive. later that day the motorcycle event and festivities on weirs beach degenerated into a full-on riot, at the time rumoured to be have been started by the hell’s angels (and later confirmed as such) and the national guard had to be called in. the two peters and i were caught in the melee down on weirs beach and had to take cover under a flatbed trailer to escape being hit by either rock salt, or tear gas, or bullets. what restraint the cops and guards showed. all of it was thrilling if a bit on the scary side. if that were to happen today, all sides would be armed and there’d be a bloodbath WEIRS BEACH MOTORCYCLE RIOT 1965
4 Comments »Sat april 23 7 pm Centretown United Church Ottawa Ont
Posted April 18th, 2016 by Anna
Jane and Anna read from MOUNTAIN CITY GIRLS and perform a couple of songs
1 Comment »Tonight, Sat. April 9 – 8 p.m. at the Morrin Centre, Quebec City
Posted April 9th, 2016 by Anna
We’re doing a reading here this evening along with a couple of Kate’s songs. See you there and vice versa. It won’t just be your imagination.
Jane and Anna at the Morrin Centre in beautiful Quebec City
Email from a fan. Warning: it involves cats.
Posted January 27th, 2016 by Anna
Subject: Heart Like a Wheel – cat siren song
Many years ago I attended one of your concerts in the Washington DC area. At home later that night I began singing ‘Heart Like a Wheel.’ My Siamese cat at the time, Esperanza, came running to me immediately and did so every time I sang it until the day she died. I’ve had three other cats since then, and each one has reacted the same way to the song. They’ve come running, sometimes it seems almost against their will. I believe it’s a sort of universal siren song for cats, and I’ve often wondered if anyone else has noticed this phenomenon.
Crazy cat lady in Asheville, NC.
Susan
(Anna: pic is of daughter Lily and my neighbour’s cat)
3 Comments »Jörn’s big haircut Feb 4 2016
Posted January 18th, 2016 by Anna
If you can give something, great. It will be much appreciated. We know times are tough.
To donate to Jörn’s fundraiser for cancer research at Princess Margaret Hospital Toronto
Kate
Posted January 18th, 2016 by Anna
Kate, McGill graduation 1970
Gone 6 years but to me it still feels like 1970 when you graduated from McGill and made Gaby so proud. I snapped you with the old Kodak 1-A bellows camera I’d bought in a junk store. Sorry I didn’t get all of the mitre board in the frame. Love you always.
6 Comments »