Are you familiar with any of these artists...

[mad dawg]

I just did a search at MusicScotland.com on keyword "mandolin", and among the many hits were a few groups with at least one musician that appeared to play mandolin as a primary instrument. Are any of you out there familiar with the following bands enough to ellaborate on how predominent the mandolin is on their CDs, and which of their CDs you particularly enjoy?

Flook

Pipedown

Ca' Canny

Hullion

Anna Massie

Flatfish

[Dagger Gordon]

I can help you a bit there.

Flook are a great group, but not mando. Main line-up is 2 flutes, guitar and bodhran. First rate though. Albums Flatfish and Rubai are worth getting.

Anna Massey is a young girl I have seen grow up. She is a virtuoso player on guitar, fiddle and mandolin. She can play reels on guitar amazingly well. Funnily enough we were listening to her CD a couple of nights ago thinking how good it was.

Pipedown I really only know from one track that used to get played on the radio a lot, but it was quite good. They feature mostly Scottish small pipes.

Ca Canny are local folk singer guys from near Inverness. I think their emphasis is mostly singing, but they have a guy called Jeff who's quite a good mandolin player. He's actually better at ragtime guitar. I didn't know they had an album out.

Hullion are from Orkney. I'm not very familiar with them as a group, but I know some of them. Micky Austin was actually about the first person I knew who played mandolin. He spends some of the summer near me. Andy Cant is a very good fiddler.

[craigtoo]

I gotta chime in on Flook. They are a blast to listen to....! Real talent..

craig

[mad dawg]

Thank you for the tips guys; I think I have some CDs to buy.

-jim

[mancmando]

I know a couple of the guys in Flook, and whilst the mandolin doesn't really feature, both the guitarist (Ed Boyd) and the percussionist (Jonjo Kelly) play mandolin pretty well, and I think there is some mandolin/octave mandolin on their last couple of albums.