Left: Mac McHale on Guitar, Mandolins, Banjo & Vocals

Right: Emery Hutchins on Banjo, Guitar, Concertina, Bodran & Vocals

Two Old Friends, Mac McHale and Emery Hutchins, are musicians who play and sing a unique combination of CeItic and American country music, and in their performances seek to show the connection between the two genres. Mac has been well known in Bluegrass music for decades. In fact, he has been inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Museum as a Pioneer of Bluegrass music. Emery is a well known performer of a variety of different styles of acoustic music; ranging from traditional Irish tunes to vintage American country music songs.

Over the centuries, immigrants from the British Isles have come to the Americas, bringing with them their musical styles and tastes as well as their instruments. With the concertina, bodhran, mandolin, octave mandolin, guitar, and banjo, Two Old Friends sing and play this traditional Celtic music, but they also perform American country music in the way it was conceived in the early twentieth century. Through stories, songs and instrumental melodies, they demonstrate how old time American mountain tunes, are often derived directly from the songs of the Irish, yet influenced by other culture groups to create a new American sound.

Many of the rhythms found in American country music originated in the British IsIes; and early American performers such as Uncle Dave Macon, the Carter family and Jimmy Rogers were strongly influenced by this music. The lyrics also are fashioned after or taken directly from the music of the British Isles. Many songs are sung in both English ballad tradition and in American country music.

A Two Old Friends performance represents the American experience in a real and vibrant way. It demonstrates how American music is really an amalgamation of musical styles. There are American blues piceces juxtaposed with Irish jigs and reels. There, are "shout tunes" and plaintive ballads. Original melodies, songs and stories by the artists are part of a performance that tells the story in music of loss and renewal, despair and hope, anguish and joy that is the story of the Irish and of every other group of people who have traveled to America and -- and within America. It is a performance that is informative and entertaining and above all, seeks to show that to understand the music of a culture is to understand the heart of a culture.