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MARTHA SCANLAN The West Was Burning Martha Scanlan, one of the leading lights of the resurgence of Appalachian music, undertakes her first UK tour this summer. Though she is city-born and bred, she is very much a champion of rural life and traditions and a few years ago she impulsively moved to East Tennessee to get closer to the Appalachian music she loved and, eventually, to help launch the Reeltime Travelers. It was with this old-timey group that Martha first gained recognition. Their first album made its way into the hands of the producers of the Down from The Mountain tour, T-Bone Burnett and Bob Neuwirth. The band was quickly asked to join several of the tour dates with major stars like Ralph Stanley and Alison Krauss. This led to Martha and the Reeltime Travelers being selected to perform a gospel tune for the Cold Mountain soundtrack and to join the subsequent Great High Mountain Tour. For six years, until they disbanded in early 2005, the Reeltime Travelers enjoyed critical respect and support from fans of traditional music. But it was Martha who caused a stir at the 2003 MerleFest by winning first and second prizes in the bluegrass and country division of the Chris Austin Songwriting Competition. Martha enjoyed quite an eclectic upbringing and her journey to a fulltime music career took many twists and turns. “My parents had a great music collection; Irish, folk, rock and classical music,” she explains. “It was all there, then I got into old time music after I started playing guitar in my twenties and fell in love with that. I had moved out west, spending my time in Idaho and Montana; mostly in Montana.” Read more at www.maverick-country.com
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