Album Notes

Deep in the woods of Northern California lives an eccentric old fiddler named Jessie - me! I teach at a rural school where the kids are sometimes so rowdy that I finally started telling them stories with music, to keep their attention. Some stories they ask for again and again, so I decided to record them - and those CDs have been greeted with critical acclaim! The stories are about magic tunes, magic fiddles, magic songs...quirky stories, funny stories, and all interwoven with beautiful music I love to play - Celtic, classical, Balkan, oldtime, and more. The CDs are filled out with children's songs from the British Isles to the USA, accompanied by fiddles, harp, bodhran (Irish drum), flute, guitar, and children's voices. "Magical Tales", my second children's CD, won many national awards, including a Parent's Choice award in 2002, several awards from Childrens Music Web, a NAPPA honors award, awards from Parents Guide to Childrens Media, and more! Yay! Recognition! That CD has the story of "The Fiddler and the Fairies," where Jeannie the Fiddler plays music one night with the fairies , and gets into a fix... In "Hawk Story," singing children are lost in the woods, but get help from a magic hawk feather and a song. Lots of kid's voices on that one. "Magical Tales" also features rollicking Irish and American children's songs, as well as fiddletunes and harp airs.