Long Time Courting

Artist Information

Biography

Boston-based band LONG TIME COURTING offers an extraordinary blend of neo-traditional music with Celtic and American roots. Exquisite vocal harmonies combine with the formidable instrumental prowess of Sarah Blair (fiddle), Ariel Friedman (cello), Shannon Heaton (flute), and Liz Simmons (guitar) to create music that is both playful and richly satisfying.

Long Time Courting's debut album “Alternate Routes” (August 2011) captures the band's varied influences: blistering reels, poignant songs with intimate harmonies, and innovative arrangements. Long Time Courting balances old and new, drawing from timeless traditional sources and composing original music.

“Traditional ballads, jigs and reels, and upbeat originals ... all played with fresh life, energy and vocal harmonies that are nothing short of sublime ... Their rendition of 'Barbara Allen' is beautiful enough to break your heart."
—Nashua Telegraph

“A showcase of the enchanting vocals, top-rank musicianship, and well-conceived, intelligent arrangements ... 'Alternate Routes' includes energetic, bravura tune sets, sprightly, smart versions of traditional songs like 'Maggie Dean' and 'The Miller and the Lass,' a soulful, sensitive rendering of Robbie O'Connell's 'Islander's Lament,' and the elegiac 'Barbara Allen.'”
—Boston Irish Reporter, August 2011

“This is not a 'girl band' for the sake of being so. These women are true masters of their craft ... Each woman sings beautifully, and when they all join together, the effect is tremendous … Long Time Courting delivers every time.”
—Aoife O'Donovan, vocalist and songwriter, Crooked Still

MEET THE MEMBERS:

LIZ SIMMONS (guitar, voice): "A honey-voiced singer ... Simmons sings with winsome ease and genuine feeling."
—Dirty Linen Magazine

Liz grew up in a family that makes music: the traditional songs from Ireland, Scotland, England, and Appalachia that her mother sings and the New Orleans brass music that her father plays. Since then, she has developed a unique vocal and guitar style that incorporates the sounds and sensibilities of traditional and contemporary music. She is the lead singer of Annalivia, a folk fusion string band that draws from Celtic and American musical styles. Among her other performing credits are North Cregg, The Sevens, and The John Whelan Band. Her singing will be featured in the soon-to-be-released film "Time and Charges", written and directed by Grammy and Emmy award-winner Ernest Thompson.

SHANNON HEATON (flute, voice): "Shannon's voice is the sun: remarkably light yet powerful ... flawless flute playing ..."
—OnMilwaukee.com

Shannon began her musical life at the age of three, with piano lessons from her mother. Four years later, she was living in Nigeria and learning flute and whistle from her Belgian neighbor. At 16 she was playing with a string band in Thailand. From these childhood musical endeavors, through her early music career in the Irish music hotbed of Chicago, to her current pursuits in Boston, Shannon has developed keen melodic and arranging sensibilities, a discerning ear, and an exquisite Irish flute style. Her compositions have been recorded by Siucra, The Battlefield Band, Childsplay, and Long Time Courting. When not performing, she is home in Boston where she teaches for the Hanafin-Cooley Branch of Comhaltas and sits on the Board of the Boston Celtic Music Festival.

SARAH BLAIR (fiddle, voice): “Sarah Blair is simply a great fiddler. Her combination of grit and control makes for music with drive, lift, and a compelling earthiness."
—Fiddler Magazine

Sarah began playing Irish music in Providence, Rhode Island's thriving traditional Irish music scene. Solo and with her band the Sevens and other ensembles, Sarah has played at festivals, concerts, and dance weeks from Alaska to Quebec to Florida. Her extensive experience playing for dancers has forged a fiddle style characterized by supple and powerful rhythm. She is included in "Handy with the Stick: Fiddler Magazine's Best of Irish Fiddling," a book profiling top Irish fiddlers. Sarah teaches fiddle at home in Montpelier, Vermont, and has been on the faculty of a variety of music camps.

ARIEL FRIEDMAN (cello, voice): "... adventurous and lyrical ... a unique style and approach ..."
—Dirty Linen Magazine

Ariel is a classically-trained cellist from the Boston area, and is one of few musicians challenging the boundaries of cello-playing. She graduated from Northwestern University in 2008, where she studied cello performance with Hans Jorgen Jensen, and received a masters of music in Contemporary Improvisation from New England Conservatory in 2011. A winner of ASTA's 2009 Alternative Styles Award, she is currently exploring American roots traditions and early jazz and standards, and is composing songs and tunes influenced by her diverse musical tastes. She tours internationally with Scottish National Fiddle champion Hanneke Cassel and plays with New England's highly acclaimed fiddle band Childsplay. She teaches privately and at a variety of fiddle camps.

WORKSHOPS:

The members of Long Time Courting are inspiring and seasoned teachers, and enjoy working with musicians of all levels.

Fiddle with Sarah
• Traditional Irish fiddle, emphasis on bowing and ornamentation
• Irish Session Tunes for fiddle
• Irish fiddle for violinists

Cello with Ariel
• Tunes for cello
• Accompanying traditional tunes
• Chopping & grooving for cello or fiddle

Flute with Shannon
• Traditional Irish Flute
• Basic Irish Tin Whistle

Guitar with Liz
• Accompanying traditional tunes (drop D tuning)
• Accompanying folk singing (drop D & standard tuning)

ALL Instruments
• Band Coaching, emphasis on balance, stage presence (LTC)
• Irish session repertoire (Sarah)
• Music for dancing (Sarah)

Singing with Liz
• Folk singing (general)
• Traditional ballad singing (general)

Singing with Shannon
• Adapting traditional songs for American singers
• Composing songs in a traditional style

Singing with Ariel
• Shape-note singing
• American/English 3-part harmony singing

Singing with Liz/Shannon Co-Teaching
• Trad-style warm-ups
• Traditional Irish ballad singing

Singing with LTC
• Performance Masterclass (honing ensemble/stage skills)
• Harmony singing

Instrumentation

Sarah Blair - Fiddle
Ariel Friedman - Cello
Liz Simmons - Guitar
Shannon Heaton - irish flute

Discography

Alternate Routes 2011 release

Links

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Audio

• Maggie Dean
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• Alternate Routes
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• My Johnny Was a Shoemaker
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• Polka Efter Elias Tallari
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• Barbara Allen
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Video

Photo Gallery

Press

• Long Time Courting [+ Show ]
  

  Montpelier’s Sarah Blair, a nationally recognized Irish fiddle star, is a member of the Boston-based...Montpelier’s Sarah Blair, a nationally recognized Irish fiddle star, is a member of the Boston-based Long Time Courting, and their first CD “Alternate Routes” has just been released. It is an exceptionally good album that puts this four-woman band in the spotlight as one of the best new groups playing in the Celtic genre.
  
  Blair, who has previously recorded with The Sevens, and released her own solo CD two years ago, has found her musical soul mates in Ariel Friedman on cello, Liz Simmons on guitar and Shannon Heaton on flute. Each sings, although Simmons delivers most of the leads on this 11-track album.
  
  While the best-known all-female Irish/Celtic group is Cherish the Ladies, Long Time Courting shows that an all-woman band is not a gimmick. The singing here is sweet and interesting and the instrumentals flow like the smoothest Irish whiskey. The vocal harmonies reminded me of the clarity that the Anonymous Four brought to its American folk music album. LTC’s vocals blend well resulting in a full-bodied listening experience.
  
  Cello is not a traditional Celtic instrument although it has been used effectively in Scottish music, but Friedman’s harmony lines here help give the arrangements a “bottom” that is often lacking in the Irish harmonic landscape.
  
  Simmons is a very good guitarist, with a solid understanding of the rhythmic role the instrument plays. Heaton is a leading flute/whistle player with many years’ experience in the Boston Irish music scene.
  
  Blair’s fiddle prowess is well known, but over the years she’s kept a somewhat low profile, devoting most of her time to teaching and playing locally with many different musicians and bands. LTC might require her to step out more and it would be good for audiences to hear her stylish approach to the fiddle.
  
  The songs on this album, “Maggie Dean,” “My Johnny Was a Shoemaker,” “Barbara Allen,” “Islander’s Lament” and “The Miller and the Lass,” highlight this group’s ability to take material that is either obscure (“Maggie Dean”) or seemingly overplayed (“Barbara Allen”) and breathe new life into it.
  
  The instrumentals are also chosen well, with new tunes for the listener to contemplate.
  
  Overall, this is a very satisfying album that should bring Long Time Courting lots of concert work, and listeners many pleasurable hours.

• Long Time Courting: Alternate Routes [+ Show ]
  

  Alternate Routes: that is the name of a tune, a set, and a new album from the band Long Time Courtin...Alternate Routes: that is the name of a tune, a set, and a new album from the band Long Time Courting. It also works to give a hint of the music within, and the routes the four women of the band took to get to it.
  
  The story of Maggie Dean starts things off. Maggie disguises herself as a man to sail away on a ship bound for America, not, as is common in such songs, to follow her man, but rather to seek a trade. She ends up making a life on the sea, not, as is also common in such tales, rescued by becoming the captain’s wife, but rather learning the seafaring trade herself and marrying a fellow sailor. A traditional melody carries this turn on the familiar story in words composed by Shannon Heaton. Heaton plays flutes and whistles with Long Time Courting. Sarah Blair is on fiddle, Liz Simmons plays guitar, and Ariel Friedman plays cello. All four of the women sing. The New England based musicians also have other commitments from teaching to touring to playing in duos, trios, and other bands, and among them they have worked with artists ranging from the Eagles to the Clancy Legacy.
  
  What they have created with Long Time Courting is not so much a blend of talents as it is a tapestry, with bright threads of voice and instrument weaving in and out, coming to the fore and supporting in the background through a series of musical conversations that comprise both song and tune. LTC is rooted in Irish music, but they bring in American roots and on occasion other threads of music as well. The song Barbara Allen is well known on both sides of the Atlantic and in many different styles. LTC offers it in slowed down form, almost as a lament, with a nod to Johnny Cash as as well as to tradition. It is also a very fine instance of how the women’s singing creates a whole that is more than the sum of its parts.
  
  Their collaboration through their instruments is equally strong. The Alternates Routes set, which bookends Heaton’s original title track with two traditional pieces, finds the meeting of rhythm from Simmons guitar, breath of Heaton’s flute and dialogue between the bright sound of Blair's fiddle and the darker tone of Friedman’s cello all carrying the story with no words needed. The York Street Stepper set is another place to note this, as the title tune from LTC founding member Ellery Klein kicks off the journey and weaves in to two pieces from the tradition.
  
  Each of the songs -- there are five of them, including My Johnny Was a Shoemaker, from the tradition, and Islander’s Lament, a contemporary song written by Robbie O’Connell -- offer strong story, engaging voice, great harmony, and thoughtful playing. The six tune sets deliver as well, and all show greater depth which each listening. A well woven tapestry, this, and a thoughtful musical journey, one which reveals more color and depth with each listening.

• Making Music Happily [+ Show ]
  

  There is no one formula or blueprint for forming a band. Sometimes it's by conscious design, sometim...There is no one formula or blueprint for forming a band. Sometimes it's by conscious design, sometimes it's a matter of happenstance, a confluence of the right factors at the right time.
  And then there's Long Time Courting, which combines all that and more.
  The all-female Boston-based Celtic music quartet is celebrating its third birthday with the release of its debut CD, "Alternate Routes," a showcase of the enchanting vocals, top-rank musicianship, and well-conceived, intelligent arrangements that have charmed and impressed audiences throughout the Northeast, and elsewhere. The anniversary also has served as an opportunity for reflection among the "LTC" members: Liz Simmons (lead vocals, guitar); Shannon Heaton (flute, whistle, lead vocals); Ariel Friedman (cello, vocals); and newest member Sarah Blair (fiddle, vocals), who handily filled the void left by the departure of original co-founder Ellery Klein last year.
  As the four explain it, Long Time Courting represents that elusive, coveted blend of talent and temperament, an ideal union of musical backgrounds and experiences that spur collective creativity and individual growth. In LTC, for example, a classically trained cellist gets to devise an arrangement for a centuries-old folk ballad that came from a Johnny Cash record, a fiddler finds that her voice can be an equally important instrument, and concert sound-checks become a laboratory for cobbling together what is arguably their CD's highlight track.
  Most of all, LTC is four people who get a clearly obvious kick out of being with each other, even if those times do not come all that often, given their copious musical activities and family considerations.
  "I just feel blessed to play with them," says Simmons, who shares lead vocal duties with Heaton. "Musically, I've grown so much. Working in a band is such a great education anyhow, but I feel I am always learning things from the girls I never knew about music, or myself."
  "When I talk about Long Time Courting as a 'work in progress,' I mean it in a totally positive way," says Heaton. "In this band, there is so much room to grow and develop a bond. It's a wonderful place where we can all bring ideas and know they'll be treated fairly, honestly, and with respect."
  Fairly, honestly, and with respect also describes how LTC treats the music they play, as is evident on "Alternate Routes," which includes energetic, bravura tune sets, sprightly, smart versions of traditional songs like "Maggie Dean" and "The Miller and the Lass," a soulful, sensitive rendering of Robbie O'Connell's "Islander's Lament" and the elegiac "Barbara Allen," that timeless ballad of love ruined by toxic jealousy -- although there have been countless recordings of it throughout folkdom, the band was inspired by Johnny Cash's version.
  That the band exists at all is a testament to the penchant and eagerness for exploration on the part of its members, who are already part of some very rewarding musical partnerships. Simmons is a co-founder of the alt-trad band Annalivia, and performs occasionally with guitarist and vocalist Hannah Sanders; Heaton is half of a highly popular Irish/Irish-American music duo with husband Matt; Friedman frequently plays as part of a trio with American Scottish fiddler Hanneke Cassel, and has recorded two CDs with her sister Mia – she and Heaton also perform with the ensemble Childsplay; and Blair is a member of The Sevens and a regular on the contra dance circuit (Klein played for several years with Gaelic Storm, although she had left that band by the time she joined LTC).
  "Ellery and I had done some brainstorming, and played a few times; same thing with Liz and me," recalls Heaton. "It was just a natural grouping, and we felt very excited about doing something together as musicians and as friends. I thought there was really something compelling about an all-female project, after having played primarily with men.
  "That's not to say that I mind playing with men; at the end of the day, I really don't care if I'm playing with men or women, as long as they are good musicians. But there is a different chemistry to playing with women, and I loved the idea of a band of all women, who could sing as well as play instruments together, and with interesting, fun arrangements. The key for me in being in Long Time Courting, though, is that they're great musicians."
  The trio felt they needed a fourth instrument, says Simmons, and a cello "seemed like a perfect fit" – and Friedman, they believed, was the right person to play it. In some ways, it was an unlikely choice, given that the classically trained Friedman (who studied cello performance from Northwestern) had only been playing folk and traditional music for a few years, in contrast to the far lengthier experience of Heaton, Simmons, and Klein. But Friedman's skills as a musician and singer were without question, says Simmons.
  "What I also appreciated was that Ariel is interested in other kinds of music, namely Appalachian and old-timey, which I also like," she says. "So we were able to add that to the Irish/Celtic repertoire we had, which was very exciting. And Ariel is great at improvising, just as Shannon is wonderful at arranging – you're always happy to find an additional element that helps your band have a distinctive sound."
  "I don't know a lot about Irish traditional music," says Friedman, "but as we're exploring other genres now, including those which are more familiar to me, I can contribute my knowledge. We all share and learn from one another, and that's why I love playing with Long Time Courting."
  The loss of a founding member can be a traumatizing experience for a close-knit band, but LTC was able to weather the departure of Klein – who moved to Israel with her husband and children in 2010 – with grace. "The transition was organic and positive, a real testament to the bond we have," says Heaton. "We talked through it, and while we were sad to lose a musician of Ellery's stature, we were very happy for her and her family to have such an incredible opportunity. We brainstormed as to who could be our new member, and Sarah was our first choice; it was Ellery's idea, too."
  "They were all really good players, and a very congenial group of women," recalls Blair, who knew Klein and Simmons and was somewhat acquainted with Heaton. "I thought it would be a good experience to be in all-female band, especially one with such beautiful arrangements, particularly for their songs – I hadn't had a lot of opportunities to play with singers. My only disappointment was that Ellery and I couldn't be in the band together."
  As the other LTC members aver, Blair did more than step into the space formerly occupied by Klein; she transformed the band through the addition of her contra dance-influenced repertoire and ability, as well as overall approach to music. It's not that she made LTC "better," per se, but rather enhanced its existing qualities while enlarging the dimensions within which the band works – one example of her impact is the "Polska efter Elias Tallari" track on the CD, which marries a strikingly beautiful Scandinavian tune to two Irish polkas.
  LTC also provides a fascinating case study for what might be called the "my other band" effect. All four members were already accomplished musicians, who thoroughly enjoyed their respective ongoing bands and collaborations, when they came together in Long Time Courting. But over the past three years, with mutual encouragement and support, they've found new facets to their music.
  "I think, at the beginning, to some degree we saw this band in terms of how it differed from our other bands, rather than appreciating it for its own sake," notes Simmons. "But that’s changed. We're more selective now about what songs and tunes we decide to play, and how we arrange them."
  Adds Heaton, "I love playing in a duo with my husband, of course, but I also have found it liberating and instructive to share tasks with three other people. I've learned to listen more, to be more patient, and I have an incentive to work on stuff geared for a quartet instead of a duo, and all that has definitely helped me to grow musically. My solo project, 'The Blue Dress' [which she released on CD last year], was partly inspired by being in LTC."
  Blair, for her part, hadn't had much opportunity, or much of a predilection, to consider her vocal talents. "I have the No. 4 voice," she laughs, "but it's great to learn how to sing with other people, and to hear how we harmonize."
  Friedman feels she has strengthened her grasp of traditional music through her LTC association, yet she also has been able to contribute her own expertise. The arrangement for "Barbara Allen" is one example of her influence, as is the "Alternate Routes" set – when the band transitions from the set's opening tune, "The Morning Dew," to "Alternate Routes" (a Heaton original), Friedman and Blair combine cello and fiddle to produce an exquisitely harmonized, slowly shifting counterpoint to the agile melody of Heaton's flute.
  "With 'Alternate Routes' and 'Barbara Allen,' we went for a 'stringier' kind of sound than what we had done in the past," says Friedman. "As you continue to settle into a band, you start seeing more and more different possibilities, and with this band there is a lot of freedom to explore those possibilities."
  The "Alternate Routes" set stands out for another reason, as Heaton reveals. "We don't always have a lot of time for rehearsal, so we've used the sound checks at our gigs to arrange some of our material. We worked out the set when we were preparing for a concert in Binghamton, and although we were tired and hungry we were able to do it all, and it came out beautifully. It's a case of making the best possible use of your time, whether you're with family, or with friends, or working on a project – you seize the moment."
  Another, even more recent measure of Long Time Courting's evolution is an as-yet-unrecorded song the four collaborated on. "It was such a refreshing experience," says Heaton. "We all had ideas for it, but there was not one dominant person who took command; it was literally a group effort."
  Musical rapport is one thing, and perhaps ultimately the key thing, for a band, but interpersonal dynamics go a long way to making it seem more like a gathering of friends than a labor of love. Long Time Courting excels in this respect, too, say the four members. Friedman may not match the demographic profile of the other three, who are married with children, but she doesn't feel the odd one out in the group: "They live vicariously through me because I'm younger and single," she quips.
  "We do live vicariously through Ariel," laughs Simmons. "We talk about kids and marriage, but we also talk with Ariel about her life, and we offer our insights. And we end up giggling our heads off and staying up way too late."
  Heaton notes, "A band is approximately 25 percent rehearsing and performing, 75 percent scheduling, driving around, and hanging out, so it really does help if you get along. I think we're fortunate in that we have a diversity of stories to tell, and we enjoy listening to one another."

Setlist

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