Everything leaves us, everything stays.
Sometimes I look back at my own teenage years, tangled and tempestuous as they were, and wonder if I knew how lucky I was, musically speaking. The Counting Crows still played at the U.C. Berkeley on-campus club; Heather Alexander was both local and frequently touring; Celtic rock was having a resurgence, with Avalon Rising and Four Shillings Short playing somewhere almost every weekend.
And there was Annwn.
They were weirdos. They were wonderful. They were everything I wanted to be when I grew up. The idea of making Elton or Leigh Anne proud of me was enough to motivate me to do almost anything. I got to have a relationship with them, to know them as humans and artists and creators and people who let their freak flags fly proudly and without fear. I am the adult I am because they were there to be an example for the confused child I was.
Leigh Anne died in 2006. I still miss her. I will always miss her. Annwn died with her. Even if the band had wanted to continue, there was no replacing Leigh Anne. She was absolutely one of a kind.
For a long time, their music has been unavailable. Now, that's changing, and one of their best albums, Come Away to the Hills has been made available for purchase, as has the one album she recorded with Daoine Sidhe, Now and Then, which you can access here.
If you love Celtic rock and folk music, please give a listen.
This is one of the voices that made me.
And there was Annwn.
They were weirdos. They were wonderful. They were everything I wanted to be when I grew up. The idea of making Elton or Leigh Anne proud of me was enough to motivate me to do almost anything. I got to have a relationship with them, to know them as humans and artists and creators and people who let their freak flags fly proudly and without fear. I am the adult I am because they were there to be an example for the confused child I was.
Leigh Anne died in 2006. I still miss her. I will always miss her. Annwn died with her. Even if the band had wanted to continue, there was no replacing Leigh Anne. She was absolutely one of a kind.
For a long time, their music has been unavailable. Now, that's changing, and one of their best albums, Come Away to the Hills has been made available for purchase, as has the one album she recorded with Daoine Sidhe, Now and Then, which you can access here.
If you love Celtic rock and folk music, please give a listen.
This is one of the voices that made me.