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Get Onboard For CeltCruise Alaska 2019 Jed Marum Memorial

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Get ready to set sail on the CeltCruise Alaska 2019 Jed Marum Memorial this coming September 2019!

The CeltCruise Alaska 2019 Jed Marum Memorial features a week-long journey into Alaska from Seattle, discovering some of the most beautiful wilderness in the world. Along the way you will enjoy live world-class Celtic entertainment from Red McWilliams, Linda Relph, Peter Daldry, The Kilt Lifters and Piper Patrick Regan. Attend the nightly ceilidhs with impromptu music sessions, open to all musicians who wish to participate. Bring your instruments!

Enjoy a private formal dinner a la Robert Burns, complete with Burns readings and songs, and the address to a haggis as only champion piper, Patrick Regan can do. Plus, meet and make good friends all along the way!

I chatted with veteran Celtic & Folk entertainer and CeltCruise organizer Red McWilliams all about this very special event honoring the late Jed Marum:

67: It’s called the “Jed Marum Memorial” CeltCruise. I’ve not had the pleasure of knowing Jed but I do know he was well-known and dearly loved. Can you tell us a bit about him?
Red: Jed Marum was on our first Celtic Caribbean cruise and was to be a part of our Alaskan adventure. Jed was an integral part of our first cruise and without his help, it would have never happened, as I was laid up in the hospital with open heart surgery. Jed took the reins and helped make it happen. His untimely passing in April, 2018 threw us all for a loop. This cruise is dedicated to the memory of more than a fellow musician, singer, songwriter, actor. This cruise is dedicated to my friend.

Jed Marum

Jed & Red

Jed was an uncommon individual who would give you the shirt off his back. I enjoyed the time that I spent with this incredibly talented man, the roads and stories we shared, the festivals and pubs where we performed, the talent that he shared with me and the world.  I had the distinct pleasure and honor of meeting Jed Marum for the first time while he was getting established in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Jed was originally from Fall River, MA (home of the legendary Lizzie Borden). He had worked for many years in various jobs including working for the late Herb Kelleher for Southwest Airlines, where he traveled extensively during this time and ended up in the DFW area. He joined with a local group called Eamon’s Kitchen and we met while I was recording them. Jed came in to finish the recording when the original guitar/banjo player left the group. He stayed with them for about a year and then left to follow a solo career.
It was there where he shined as a guitarist/banjo player, singer and songwriter. Jed did the Irish and Scottish tunes we all know and love and did them with a passion that was shown in his performances. What he could not express in the old songs, he took his time and knowledge and created new songs. His background was New England Irish but as time went along, his job brought him to Dallas, TX, where his interests changed a bit.
The songs that he wrote were from either his own experiences or from the multitude of historical books he read. His first musical passion was for the Celtic, but in his songs he reflected a new love for American history and especially the Civil War. Jed was an avid reader and studied stories about and also wrote songs of the American Civil War, both of the North and South. He found ancestors who fought on both sides and found an affinity in creating and writing songs primarily of the South. His writings and recordings brought him notice by PBS and he wrote and performed as an actor/guitarist in the PBS produced mini-series call “Road to Valhalla” in which his songs were used and where he performed along with Michael Martin Murphy.
Jed traveled extensively throughout the year to both Irish and Scottish festivals across the country as well as Civil War and Indian reenactments, from New England, New Jersey, through Pennsylvania and further into the south at some of the Civil War monuments and sites. He played coast to coast, into Seattle, WA and everywhere in between. I caught Jed with his sidekick Rickey Pittman at a show in Okeechobee, FL in February, 2018 doing the Christmas Day 1837 Battle of Okeechobee reenactment. It was a few weeks before the Scottish-Irish Faire in Midland, TX in March, 2018 which was the last I ever saw or played with my friend. It was always a great time to be with such a talented man as Jed. He made me so much better for his being there.
Jed recorded for Boston Road Recordings (his recording label), USA International Recordings (my recording label) and did some of his recordings at Fogerty’s Cove Studios in Ontario, Canada, home base of the late Canadian singer/songwriter Stan Rogers, worked with Stan’s producer Paul Mills and had recorded with Celtic performers such as Brian McNeil, Linda Relph (who will be on the cruise) and many others.  His list of recordings goes on like a novel, way too many to list. Just take a look on You Tube and enter his name. You will find MANY videos and recordings.
But to show how much of a friend Jed was to me, here’s a small remembrance for you. I was in the hospital in December, 2015. The doctors had found a virus called endocarditis in my heart. They could not get it to clear through antibiotics, so they had to operate and fix a valve. I was in the hospital for about 6 weeks, waiting, wondering and worrying. A few friends showed up and Jed was one of them. As a matter of fact, he came more often than anyone. We talked as usual and visited and told stories, like friends do. He was concerned for me and I knew it. When Christmas came that year, I received only one gift, a Leatherman tool and who gave this to me? Jed Marum! I have it in my toolbox and use it to this day. Thank you, my brother!
So here I am, trying to write a memorial bio for one of the best friends I ever had, and he is no longer. My heart is broken as I miss Jed greatly. He will always be with me, beside me, encouraging me, being an inspiration to me. I hope that he is well received in heaven and that his music never stops. And when God calls for a tune, play Him a good one, Jed! But find out if He likes banjo first! LOL
I truly miss you and love you, Jed Marum. God Bless You!

 

67: How many CeltCruises have there been?
Red: There has only been one before this. It was in February, 2016. We called it “Robert Burns Celtic Caribbean Cruise”, naturally themed around Celtic and Robert Burns. A 7 day cruise that went out of Galveston, TX and made stops in Jamaica, Grand Caymans and Cozumel, Mexico. The musicians on this cruise were myself, Jed, Linda Relph, Patrick Regan (bagpiper) and Colin Grant-Adams. I had wanted to recreate this ambiance and was trying to include most of the original group. This time it will be myself, Red McWilliams (Mobile, AL), Linda Relph, 4 time California fiddle champion (Dallas, TX) and Patrick Regan, champion bagpiper and bagpiping judge (Dallas, TX) from the first cruise along with Peter Daldry (Mountain View, CA) and The Kilt Lifters (Volcano, HI).  You can’t find this lineup at ANY festival, so catch it here.

Red McWilliams

The Kilt Lifters

Peter Daldry

Linda Relph

 

Patrick Regan


67: Are there spaces still available for this fall’s cruise?
Red: At this time, our travel agent has had to release the remaining cabins back to Royal Caribbean, but they can and will be available for anyone wanting to come on at this late date. It probably will be a slightly higher price, but it will include a gift package (not available to the public, only exclusive to our group) consisting of our official CeltCruise Alaska T-shirt, sampler CD of all performers plus selections from Jed Marum, official cruise program (exclusively dedicated to our group) and many other items yet to be determined. Included also will be admission to all of our group functions that will be exclusive to our group (for the most part), plus a formal Robert Burn’s themed dinner, complete with haggis. Yummy! Oh, and nightly informal ceilidhs, played by our musicians and anyone in our group wishing to participate. Along with workshops of Irish dance and bagpipes for those wishing it.

67: Alaska is quite a hotbed for Celtic music. I’ve noted many artists head that way lately for gigs. Was Alaska and the inside passage the first choice or were other destinations on the table?
Red: We were hoping to do a concert in one of our stops in Alaska. Unfortunately, the destinations did not allow for it. We were approached by folks from the Celtic community in Alaska hoping that we would port with them and to do this concert, but it just didn’t happen, possibly sometime in the future. As for the choice of destinations, there were several suggestions (Caribbean for one), but it was decided to change things around from the first one and do Alaska. By the way, for those wishing to be on this cruise, bring some warmer clothes, it IS Alaska, you know, which is MUCH different than our quite warm Caribbean cruise.

67: There’s a lot of fun activities on board over the course of the cruise- live music, Irish dancing, bagpipes, ceilis and dinners. Is there any part of it you look forward to the most?
Red: I know that all will love every aspect of this cruise. To single out one event is rather difficult, but if pushed to it, I would say the formal dinner a la Robert Burns would be a good choice, but the nightly ceilidhs were the absolute hit of the first cruise and I do believe that it will be on this one also. This is where all of our musicians break the bonds of strictly Celtic music and go beyond, doing a variety of music outside of Celtic. The folks were thrilled to see all of us performing some of the songs that we like and help make up our positions as musicians and entertainers.

67: If folks miss out on the cruise this year, will there be another chance for them?
Red: You never know. After the first one, I said that I had a great time but I would never do another, due to the intense planning and drain on my time and resources. But like a lot of other performers, I was pulled (kicking and screaming, I might add) out of my “cruise retirement” and we have put this one together. This has been in the planning for about 1 ¼ years. The ride has been fun but quite exhausting. So this question will be in limbo until we do another cruise (wow, did I actually SAY that?)
Learn more about CeltCruise Alaska 2019 Jed Marum Memorial on the official website celtcruise.com
Also follow along with the fun on Facebook at www.facebook.com/groups/CeltCruiseAlaska 

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