RAN PACIFICA TRIBUNE   Pacifica California
November 16, 2005

Music making fire on a cold November night

Heart tales by Willson and McKee

By Jean Bartlett

Arts Correspondent

The Mormond Braes are hills in Scotland, three miles north-east of Strichen in Aberdeenshire. Here, many a lass has mourned her lost lad. With extraordinary singer, multi instrumentalist and composer Kim McKee on graphite guitar and that fine tenor singing man, Ken Willson (also husband to McKee) on Irish bouzouki, they stole their audience right out of Pacifica to remind that though remembered broken love be sad, there is always an up tempo tune from Scotland and most likely a better love around the corner! In the middle of their song Kim changed to hammered dulcimer and Ken to traditional acoustic guitar – and who didn’t see the cherubs in square dance?

Saturday night Willson and McKee played Pacifica’s Sanchez Concert Hall. The music they played was full of earth and ancestors, hearth and home and their string and percussion tales traveled the Celtic nations of Ireland and Scotland and on across the great divide to the settlement corridors of Appalachia then out West and inland to Rocky Mountain pride. The couple, extremely gifted musically, is able to send the chill from the night with the warmth of their song and the depth of their joy.

Next up the fireplace swirler “Tortilla Flats” penned by McKee and named after a childhood favorite restaurant of the same name. Scottish folk music legend Davy Steele wrote “The Last Trip Home” a gently sweet dedication to the many years of service of the Clydesdale horse in Scotland. Willson sang this with a quiet beauty of diction and his wife’s soprano was poetry strong. Kim wrote the next soft slow air which she played on mountain dulcimer and Ken played on graphite guitar and it was of pillowed heart and fairy dust and meant for halls of kings. But should we be lulled too much by magic, they ended the song on foot stomping string swing.

Though it hardly seems possible that the horrors of $20,000 of dry rot in the floors of one’s home could inspire an incredibly great song, that’s just what happened in the Kim written: “A Floor To Dance Upon.” This song, full of texture and dance, is meant for squishing each toe into the thrill of new flooring.

Once known for its wild ways, the Irish town of Garryowen in County Limerick, inspired the great Irish quickstep dance tune of the same name. Later it was used by a certain 7th Calvary Regimental Band as they rode out towards Little Big Horn. Willson and McKee played “Garryowen” but they brought it back where it came from, full of life and merriment and high spirited clinks.

“Away Ye Merry Lassies” (Georje Holper) was a lively wind snapper about a broom rider and it’s a song every woman should know when toasting the freedom of being. Bravo! It was once believed that the rowan tree of Ireland held the power to restore lost youth and that it was guarded by serpents and dragons. As lone trees, these were planted in Ireland over the body of a lost soul – one that was not deemed fit, by law, for a proper burial. Kim McKee wrote “One Lone Rowan Tree” to honor these souls and their families, and the music and Ms. McKee’s soprano soothed and cradled those who will not be forgotten.

With Kim on bodhran and Ken on guitar they ended their first set with a kick your heels and hearty your laugh, crowd pleasing rouser called the “Bodhran Song.”

In set two, among other instruments, Kim played accordion and Celtic harp and Ken played blues cardboard guitar. They talked about their old van “Gracie.” They talked, in brief, about a gig at a nudist camp. We heard about Jamie McPherson, the Scottish ne’er-do-well fiddler wrongly felled by the noose. Later he penned his opinion with the song “McPherson’s Rant.” We heard about New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon through the magnificently written and sung “Night Hymn” (McKee). A lover’s embrace melted hearts in the Ken sung: “Night Visitor.” There were lessons Kim learned and shared from the Blackfeet Medicine Man and there was always, always beautiful music.

Inspired, inspiring, offering music to warm body and soul, Ken Willson and Kim McKee should be on your list of must hear’s (http://www.jigheads.com).