I’m Irish and I love Irish music. That might seem obvious but most people my age aren’t all that into Irish folk and trad. I love Scottish folk too.
God knows that I’ve mentioned Counting Crows enough on this board, but for a bit, Adam Duritz had a bit of a crush on Monica Potter, who’s from your neck of Ohio, I surmise. On the CD This Desert Life, Duritz wrote two songs about her. One of them, Four Days, is kind of a tribute to the Buckeye State.
Cajun music. My fathers family has lived in Cajun Country for six generations. We’re not Cajun but some of our relatives married Cajuns.
My dad listened to it more than me because he knew a lot of Acadian French.
I enjoy all kinds of music, but the one that surprises me the most is bluegrass.
Then I remember I grew up in Kentucky and the sound of a banjo gets my toes a tappin!
Whereabouts in Kentucky? I lived in Louisville for several years, and have never lived more than 45 minutes or so away from there.
Pity that’s the case. As I’ve so often replied to people who’ve asked me where I learned to play and sing Irish music, it was in my family. Note that I have “branched out” into forms that come from the Irish tradition: American Appalachian, Australian, Newfoundlandian, Nova Scotian, and so on; but it is the Irish music that I learned first.
I wish more people knew and enjoyed it. There were many when I lived in eastern Canada, but here in Alberta, few do–and even fewer want to hear it. 
Louisville, until moving to TX. I don’t go back.
“Cancion Mixteca” is one of those songs–even if you aren’t Mexican. The homesickness is in the music; you really don’t need to understand the words. Here, it’s performed by Los Tigres Del Norte & The Chieftains–brought together by Ry Cooder.
My father’s parents came over from East Galway but my grandfather & father both died young. I have my father’s boxes of 45’s–Irish tunes & Stephen F Foster, sung by one of the less famous tenors. If he’d lived to the invention of the LP, I’m sure he would have loved The Clancy Brothers, the Dubliners & The Chieftains.
Anjelica Huston was raised in the same place my grandfather came from. I’ve linked this before. (And I’ve never been able to locate that recording.)
My grandfather did become a policeman–just not in New York.
I’m probably 1/32 Scottish, but their music stirs the soul. I’m more Swiss, but who’d ever march off to war because a band of alphorns and cowbells came through your village?
But even my saintly granny says a good bagpipe and she’d follow the kilts to go crack some heads with a claymore.
Even modern electric versions of classic Scottish tunes are moving, like The Fields of Athenry.
Electric bagpipes at 3:34!
Oh, just checked and the Dropkick Murphys do a version as well:
bagpipes. and irish music.
a while back i actually got to go to ireland. 5,000 miles from home i’m thinking wall-to-wall to native irish music, right? i get dolly parton and bing crosby. :rolleyes:
I don’t care for the Counting Crows and I had no idea Monica Potter was from NE Ohio. So I will check out that song. I may even return and report. Thanks for the tip!
If you feel so inspired, the other song he wrote about her is Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby. She’s from Cleveland, which I think is about as far NE as one can get in Ohio.
I’m from Kentucky (hi Superdude!) and though I grew up in a small town in a rural area, I don’t identify with country music at all. I don’t think I could identify Hank Williams singing. But I like mountain music. I have several albums put out by Appalahop rife with dulcimer and mandolin-fueled authentic old-timey music and I just love it.
Of course, my tastes are eclectic; though I mostly don’t care for country music, I have a giant soft spot for Loretta Lynn. I appreciate bluegrass and saw Bill Monroe perform at least twice back in the '80s. But the music you love best is the music when you were young, so naturally I gravitate to schlocky '70s pop songs like Billy Don’t Be a Hero and the '80s Tears for Fears Years. 
Yeah, we ended up in a sleepy little fishing village in Mexico for a week. Thought we’d hear some authentic mariachi music… nope, all Bob Marley, all day, all night.
Oh, and the town’s specialty dish was Chicago-style pizza.
Sands of Mexico is the one on that record that really breaks my heart.
Yep, that’s what I was saying in my post. I’m born and bred here, but outside families that hold the tradition, most pubs and almost all radio, play Anglo-American pop/rock as standard. It varies, like you’ll find more traditional pubs outside Dublin but still, if you don’t know where to look you’d be hard pressed to notice there was any traditional local music culture especially outside the West Coast. We tend to sing a lot of ballads at family parties. I dunno where you heard Bing Crosby though. 
That’s an Irish song, written by Pete St. John in the 1970s, although it’s also popular in Scotland.
Um, I suppose Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner would kinda count…
Almost all of my ancestors are from the country I live in, with lots of them from the city I live in, and the ones that aren’t I didn’t even know weren’t English until a couple of years ago (an African great-Grandmother and an Indian great-Grandfather), so they’re meaningless to me. My ethnic roots are the roots of where I live.
Alt-Country/Americana music for this Midwesterner (now exiled in South Texas). Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, Jayhawks, Ryan Bingham, etc… Makes me feel solidly Middle American. 
If anyone reading this could remind me of the name of an alt-country artist who was active in Wisconsin in the mid 90s with a song that had the refrain “They don’t play baseball anymore…”, I’d be eternally grateful.