Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Simple Gifts/Lovely Love
2. Square Check Lane/When Cheer Fills the Hearts of My Friends
3. O Lord Protect Thy Chosen Flock/My Carnal Life I Will Lay Down
4. Back Manner Tunes
5. And Now My Dear Companions
6. My Robe Is New/Mother Ann's Song
7. Father James's Song/Treasures of the Gospel/I Will Bow and Be Simple
8. Mother Ann's Song
9. Come Dance and Sing/Quick Dance
10. Saviour's Universal Prayer/And Again Heavenly Fathyer - William Coulter
11. Hop up and Jump up/Simple Gifts (Reprise)

Disc 2:

1. I Will Walk With My Children/Welcome Gospel Kindred
2. Rolling Deep/Faithful Soldiers Travel On
3. Mother Has Come With Her Beautiful Song/Love Oh Love
4. I Want to Gather Down/The Earthquake
5. Voyage to Canaan/Bow Down O Zion
6. Living Souls/Good Believer's Life
7. Tree of Life
8. Holy Order Tune/How Beautiful O Zion/Shaker March
9. Humble Heart/I'm on My Way to Zion
10. Pleasant Walk/F.M.'s March/Star of Purity
11. Love Is Little
12. Welcome Gospel Kindred/I Will Walk With My Children (Reprise)

Disc 3:

1. O Little Children/By Freedom Invited
2. Shuffling Song
3. Cup of Rejoicing/Primitive Dance Tune
4. Like Pretty Birds/Come Life, Shaker Life
5. Music on the Mountains
6. 'Parting Glass Marech"
7. Canterbury Solemn Song
8. Burning Day
9. Heavy Cross/Mount Lebanon Solemn Song
10. South Union Marches
11. Savior's Watchword
12. Good Evening, My Friends/Mount Lebanon March
13. Ancients Song of Mourning
14. Step Tune/Who Will Bow and Bend Like the Willow
15. O Little Children (Reprise)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #239502 in Music
• Released on: 2001-08-14
• Number of discs: 3
• Format: Box set

Album Description
Gourd Music is proud to present a box set of its three critically acclaimed recordings of the music of the Shakers. The set is composed of Simple Gifts, Tree of Life and Music On The Mountain arranged and produced by guitarist William Coulter and Cellist Barry Phillips.

Exuberant dance tunes, lively marches and reverent hymns were part of the daily lives and worship of the Shakers, who flourished in mid-19th century America.

Like their highly-prized crafts, the Shakers’ music was an outward expression of their faith and celebrated their ideals of simplicity and love.

From the title track (made famous by Aaron Copland in Appalachian Spring) to little-known gems from the Shakers’ vast treasury of song, these are melodies born directly of the Shakers’ spiritual life, yet deeply rooted in the Anglo-American folk tradition - music to cheer the heart and lift the spirit.

About the Artist
Barry Pillips’ previous recordings include Gourd’s Shaker Trilogy (co-produced with William Coulter): Simple Gifts, Tree of Life, and Music on the Mountain. He also composed and produced The World Turned Upside Down in 1990, which was featured in the PBS production of Ken Burns’ Thomas Jefferson.

Guitarist William Coulter has been recording and performing traditional music since 1981. He has performed with the bands Isle of Skye, Orison and, currently, with the Coulter-Phillips Ensemble. He has recorded two solo albums–Celtic Sessions and Celtic Crossing–as well as three albums of traditional Shaker melodies with cellist Barry Phillips–Simple Gifts, Tree of Life and Music on the Mountain–all on the Gourd Music label. William has appeared on compilations produced on the Narada label, Windham Hill and Hearts of Space. Four of these recordings have appeared on Billboard magazine’s “top ten” lists.

In 1998 William produced Celtic Requiem for Windham Hill Records, which features vocalist Mary Mc Laughlin. He was recently featured on a sampler produced by the Columbia Record Club featuring violinist Hillary Hahn and Máire Ní Bhraonáin, the lead singer of Clannad.

As well as performing and recording, William works as a producer and recording engineer, and teaches guitar at the University of California, Santa Cruz. During the summer he teaches at a number of music camps including the National Guitar Summer Workshop and Alasdair Fraser’s Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School.

Customer Reviews

Relaxation at its best!
This is a collection I would like to have automatically turn on when I enter my house!!!