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The Players' Bios
Joy Luther, singer-songwriter, has been playing guitar and singing since the early 1970s. Born in Belfast and raised in the County Down, Northern Ireland, Joy emigrated to the USA in 1968 and brings a folk and Celtic mix to her repertoire. Joy now lives in Austin, Texas, and performs regularly at coffee houses, house concerts, weddings, and churches. In 2003, she released her debut CD, A New Direction, consisting of nine cuts of original music. "Joy combines traditional Irish/Celtic melodies and contemporary adult music and lyrics with critical issues of today's complex world, and adds a very personal touch to many of the events in her life. Her voice is unique, her songs are hauntingly good and her ability to touch the spirits of listeners is in a word: "Amazing." (Ken Morgan, Wireline Studio.) Find Joy at www.mytexasmusic.com/joyluther or email her at SingJoysing@aol.com.
James Patrick Jones is Scots, Irish, and Welsh and has been immersed in Celtic culture from his infancy. An eighth-generation native Texan, his first Scottish Highland games experience was in Alma, Michigan, at the age of two weeks, while his father competed with the Windsor Police Pipes & Drums. He began learning the actual skills of playing the Great Highland Bagpipe from his father at the age of twelve and studied under piping great Jimmy McColl. He attended a two-week piping intensive at St. Thomas Episcopal School and eventually settled into the Scottish scene in Texas. James is active with Clan Donnachaidh, which his parents and grandparents helped to start, and plays at various times with the Houston Highlanders and the Black Bexar Pipe Band. He began adding instruments to his repertoire while teaching math and raising a family in Fort Worth. First it was the Irish whistles, and then came the Australian didgeridoo, the low whistle, the bodhrán, the Appalachian hammered dulcimer, and he is finally getting around to figuring out the guitar. He is also a member of the Clann a'Chalmain, the Celtic Christian organization he co-founded with other members of the Black Bexar Pipe Band.