Various Artists - Fiona Ritchie Presents the Best of Thistle & Shamrock, Vol. 1

One of the big reasons for the incredible popularity of Celtic music is Fiona Ritchie's hit radio show, The Thistle & Shamrock, as heard on NPR. After countless requests, here's Volume 1 of Fiona's personal 'best' - her favorites from the first 15 years of the show. I am just old enough to be able to claim to have grown up listening to radio. The pride of my Scottish childhood home was a wood-effect wireless set, with a metal grille, and a painted glass panel marking all the BBC and European frequencies. We'd click the dial, wait for the glow, the hum, the static whine as a station faded slowly in. We'd spin the weighty tuner, letting its pointer glide past every frequency on the glass, as each yielded snatches of exotic music, foreign speech and yet more static to our eager ears. We'd sit around the radio in the morning for 'Listen With Mother,' and dance with her in the evening to the fiddles and accordions of Scottish country dance music. Sitting quietly, listening to the radio sound-tracking my brother's birth in the next room, is one of my oldest, dearest memories. 

2-HOS-11110

 Credits

©® 1999 Hearts of Space, P.O. Box 31321,
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at Hearts of Space, Sausalito, California
Art Direction : Stephen Hill
Design : Jeanne Bradshaw & Stephen Hill
Photographs : Gordon Ross Thomson