The Na-Mara Podcast

In this episode of NAMARAMUSICAST we discuss the background to one of our own songs ‘Sisters & Brothers’, the title track for our album of the same name, released in 2019. We tell how the theme for the song came about, the research behind it, the decisions we made on its arrangement, where the song fits in the folk tradition, and how audiences have reacted to it over the years.

In this episode of NAMARAMUSICAST we talk about the tunes and melodies we have played and recorded on our various albums over the years. We discuss where the tunes come from, how we found them, and how we arranged and taught them at various workshops and sessions.

In this episode of NAMARAMUSICAST we talk about our arrangement of a traditional song called ‘Nancy From London’ from our 2023 EP, ‘Clear Purling Stream’. We discuss where we found the song, the instrumentation used, how we arranged it, and the reaction we had when we played it at a guitar festival in Madrid.

In this episode of NAMARAMUSICAST we talk about one of our songs translated from the original French, Compagnons de la Marjolaine. It was recorded on our 2019 album, Sisters & Brothers. We discuss our abiding love of French and Breton folk music, how we find and select songs from that musical tradition, how we go about the translation process, and how UK audiences have reacted to the French and Quebecois material we put before them.

In this episode of NAMARAMUSICAST we are going to talk about our best-known and most requested song, ‘Only For Three Months’, recorded on our 2010 album, The Bite. We will show how the song links to Rob’s family history, its modern resonances, where we got the tune from, how and why we arranged the song the way we did, discuss audience reactions to the song and how it appeared on a BBC Radio 4 programme.

In this episode of NAMARAMUSICAST we talk through the background to our song ‘Nellie Torrence and Jeannie Waldie’, from our 2010 album, ‘The Bite’. We also outline the story behind the song, why we think it makes such a good subject, how we structured and recorded the song, and how audiences have engaged and reacted to it, with a few funny stories thrown in for good measure.