Folk Alliance International’s Folk DJ Hall of Fame honors those radio disc jockeys around the globe who preserve, promote and present folk music. One of this year’s inductees is Scotland’s Fiona Ritchie, who’s radio show The Thistle & Shamrock has proved to be a favored standard for National Public Radio (NPR) listeners.
Ms. Ritchie started out at the NPR station WFAE in Charlotte, North Carolina working in fundraising and promotion before finding herself hosting a music show showcasing everything from classical to Big Band music, as well as producing and presenting live concerts. With this in, Ms. Ritchie broached the idea of a weekly hour of Celtic music and in 1981 The Thistle & Shamrock was launched. Becoming one of the most popular NPR music shows and cementing her audience base, Ms. Ritchie would return to Scotland to recreate the show from her Scottish home. She has been a presenter on BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio 2, launched the series Celtic Connections on Radio Scotland and launched the web-based music channel ThistleRadio, as well as produced music compilations and authored the Celtic Music section of the NPR Curious Listener’s Guide Book.
Recordings, playlists, newsletters and materials from The Thistle & Shamrock are now part of the archive at the Scottish Heritage Center at St. Andrews University in North Carolina. Ms. Ritchie also was honored by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and earned the Hamish Henderson Award for Services to Traditional Music.
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow.
Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931.
Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.
