{"id":6676,"date":"2014-08-11T08:57:52","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T14:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6676"},"modified":"2015-07-06T21:49:35","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T03:49:35","slug":"the-spanish-piper-at-the-ghost-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6676","title":{"rendered":"The Spanish Piper at the Ghost Town"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Carlos<\/a>

Carlos N\u00fa\u00f1ez in Galicia.<\/p><\/div>\n

I had long admired the music of the Galician piper Carlos N\u00fa\u00f1ez<\/a>. I bought a couple of his CDs\u2014one of the collaborations with The Chieftains<\/a> plus Os Amores Libres<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

But to hear him live, that would be a big-city proposition. Maybe I would need to attend some festival in Europe.<\/p>\n

Not true. It took just a drive through the mountains and then 25 miles of gravel road, ending at a Colorado ghost town that I never had visited (and me a native).<\/p>\n

Up at 9,000 feet, it is summer-home territory, and the audience tilted toward hearty retirees in cargo pants and fleece vests. The later summer rains are upon us \u2014 as we crossed the Huerfano Valley<\/a>, even that country looked as green as Gal-i-thia.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The former S-Curved Bar Tavern<\/p><\/div>\n

The venue is a ramshackle 1920s (?) dancehall and tavern \u2014 a little different from Kennedy Center, where the band will be playing later this month.<\/p>\n

“We are so happy to be in thees .<\/em> . . ghost . . . town<\/em>,” Carlos said, drawing out the vowels.<\/p>\n

And they \u2014 him, his brother Xurxo<\/span>, the drummer; guitarist Pancho \u00c1lvarez; and Ontario fiddler Stephanie Cadman<\/a> \u2014 launched into a hard-driving 90-minute set during which dancing in the aisles was not only encouraged, it was pretty near compulsory. (“E-stand-e up!<\/em>“)<\/p>\n

At times Xurxo’s miked bodhran was competing with a bigger drummer \u2014 thunder bouncing off the ridges of the Cumbres Range. And the wooden planks of the old dance hall bounced and thrummed.<\/p>\n

\"huefano<\/a>

Driving into the Huerfano Valley on the way home.<\/p><\/div>\n

Behind the group’s appearance were the organizers of the Spanish Peaks International Celtic Music Festival,<\/a> who for ten years have been bringing big names in Celtic music to southern Colorado to play in old movie theatres, ghost towns, and tiny schools.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had long admired the music of the Galician piper Carlos N\u00fa\u00f1ez. I bought a couple of his CDs\u2014one of the collaborations with The Chieftains plus Os Amores Libres. But to hear him live, that would be a big-city proposition. Maybe I would need to attend some festival in Europe. Not true. It took just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,23,34,224],"class_list":["post-6676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-canada","tag-colorado","tag-music","tag-spain"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1JG","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1239,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1239","url_meta":{"origin":6676,"position":0},"title":"Dining above the Dead","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I opened the Ca\u00f1on City Daily Record on Monday and learned that M. and I have been dining above the dead.One of our two favorite cafes in the nearby town of Florence, Colo., is the Aspen Leaf Bakery, which, it turns out, is the second-most haunted locale in that county.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0936564296","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13567,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13567","url_meta":{"origin":6676,"position":1},"title":"Imbolc on Ice","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 1, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Look south from Bennett Avenue, the bi-level main street of Cripple Creek, Colorado, across Poverty Gulch (once lined by the saloons and brothels of Myers Avenue), and there it sits, like the citadel of the Ice King. At 9,494 feet (2,894 m.), the early February winds are still cutting and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/DSCN0495-300x139.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/DSCN0495-300x139.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/DSCN0495-300x139.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":934,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=934","url_meta":{"origin":6676,"position":2},"title":"The Wind that Shakes the Pine Trees","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's a sunny day with a brisk wind blowing. Pine needles are in the air. M. and I both slept in a little last night after returning at midnight from one of the Spanish Peaks International Celtic Music Festival concerts.We went to one last year too, to hear Kim Robertson's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Celts\"","block_context":{"text":"Celts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=celts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6341,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6341","url_meta":{"origin":6676,"position":3},"title":"More Confirmation about Bigfoot","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I read this article in the Colorado Springs Independent and a paragraph jumped out at me: She learned about her [Nepalese] people\u2019s animistic prayer traditions, and had shamans explain to her that yeti aren\u2019t the silly abominable snowmen of cartoon legend, but actually shape-shifters and guardians of the mountains. At\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"fairies\"","block_context":{"text":"fairies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=fairies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6514,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6514","url_meta":{"origin":6676,"position":4},"title":"The Mind of the Native and the Mind of the Witch","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Typical Colorado foothills weather \u2014 from snow on the ground mid-May to temperatures in the 80s F. by the first of June. What is this \"spring\" people speak of? If you have hummingbirds and snow at the same time, that is our spring. Some links: \u2022 Rod Dreher posts on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11292,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11292","url_meta":{"origin":6676,"position":5},"title":"“The Witches of Manitou”\u2014More than an Urban Legend","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 18, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The old spa town of Manitou Springs, located in the foothills west of Colorado Springs. Photo by Mark Reis, ( a former newspaper co-worker of mine) from the Colorado Sun. Click to embiggen. The Colorado Sun, an online news site, dropped this into my inbox yesterday, giving M. and me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"The old spa town of Manitou Springs, west of Colorado Springs","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/manitou-springs.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/manitou-springs.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/manitou-springs.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/manitou-springs.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/manitou-springs.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/manitou-springs.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6676"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7325,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6676\/revisions\/7325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}