10 p.m. to Midnight Host: Steve Winters
Celtic accordionist John Whelan perhaps said it best when, as a guest on last week's Profiles in Folk, he quipped the days surrounding St. Patrick's Day can be considered "Holy Week' for Irish musicians. Our friends the Shamrogues at the Shamrock Traditional Irish Music Association term March "St. Patrick's Month."
To offer a new musical perspective, a special feature of this program is a "show within a show." I've packaged new Irish releases around a 60-minute show from the renowned Chieftains and Ry Cooder based on their latest collaboration, "San Patricio" (the Spanish name for St. Patrick). The new album, issued on Hear Records in the United States, tells the nearly forgotten story of the San Patricio battalion - a downtrodden group of Irish immigrant conscripts who deserted the U.S. Army in 1846 to fight on the American side against the invading Yankees in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).
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