J.P
CORMIER WINS CONCERT OF THE YEAR
January
always brings The Livies, and this year is no exception.
2006 was a great year for the music, and you heard it all
on LiveIreland.
As usual, it is time to hand out the Awards for the best
of the best. There are three really huge Awards in trad
music, The TG4's, The Livies and The Irish Music Magazine
Readers Poll. These are the only true worldwide, big- time
Awards, bringing major world-wide recognition to these deserving
winners.
Concert
of the Year
We were sitting at Irish Fest in Milwaukee, waiting to hear
the legendary, J.P. Cormier. We had never seen him. We had
never heard him solo. We HAD heard about him, all right.
A successful Nashville studio musician, originally out of
Cape Breton. He had left all that to return to his Cape
Breton base, and pursue his own creative deal. Thank God
he did. To say he is a stunning musician is to totally understate
the fact. Uh, how about genius? You hear a Cormier album
with all these unbelievable guitar players, mandolin pickers,
bass accompanists, banjo players, keyboarders---then you
learn the facts. They are ALL Cormier! One of the best bands
we ever heard is J.P. Cormier. So, there we are, sitting
and waiting for The Man. He strides out on stage and does
a couple numbers that just blow us away. We are loving it.
Then, he begins what can only be described as, "The
Moment". He slowly and quietly starts a set of Irish
tunes, solo on the guitar. The set keeps going. It is turning
into this THING. The audience is captured. It keeps morphing
into something else. All Irish, to be sure, but unlike any
Irish set we have ever heard---or ever imagined. Around
10 minutes into "The Moment", we knew it was getting
real serious. A couple times the audience had already started
to applaud---couldn't help themselves, we suppose. Wait
a minute, we were applauding, too! >>
MORE
