MARIONA & THE BONDS SESSIONS: CELEBRATING LIFE

Bruce Springsteen with The Sessions Band

Today is Mariona Bond's birthday and The Bonds are ready to celebrate it. The family is spending some days in Ireland with Corto Maltese. The Grandma, who is recovering from some injuries caused by fire, and Bruce Springsteen are arriving for joining to the family who has prepared a great Irish party to its beloved member. 

Folk music is one of the most beautiful elements of the Irish folk. Irish people are proud of their roots and culture and they demonstrate they're Irish wherever they are. Ireland is the craddle of incredible singers and composers like Van Morrison, Enya, Damian Rice, Sinead O'Connor and groups like Clannad, The Corrs, The Cranberries and U2. 

In 2006, Bruce Springsteen created a big band folk music to tribute Pete Seeger, one of the best American folk singers and composers. American folk music has its roots mainly in  Irish and African cultures. Meanwhile Country Music has its origins in Ireland and was expanded by the American Irish communities; Gospel and Blues appeared in the US thanks to the Afroamerican people.

More information: Bruce Springsteen 

The Bruce Springsteen with The Seeger Sessions Band Tour, afterward sometimes referred to simply as the Sessions Band Tour, was a 2006 concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and The Sessions Band playing what was billed as An all-new evening of gospel, folk, and blues, otherwise seen as a form of big band folk music. The tour was an outgrowth of the approach taken on Springsteen's We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions album, which featured folk music songs written or made popular by activist folk musician Pete Seeger, but taken to an even greater extent. 

Bruce Springsteen & Pete Seeger

The tour began on April 20, 2006, with the first of four rehearsal shows at Asbury Park Convention Hall as well as a promotional appearance there on ABC's Good Morning America. Then came a successful performance before a non-Springsteen crowd at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on April 30, in a city still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina; Springsteen voiced discontent over government handling of the aftermath of Katrina, much to the satisfaction of the handkerchief-waving audience. 

The tour's first proper leg then began in May with 10 regular concerts and one special television concert in Western Europe; the first was at The Point Depot in Dublin on May 5. On May 14, the tour arrived to Badalona in Barcelona. The Grandma remembers that concert with great emotion. It was an incredible folk music party. A return to the United States for the second leg saw 18 concerts from late May to late June, ending at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey on June 25. 

Springsteen said in various languages during the latter stages of the European leg of the tour, See you in the fall! Accordingly, the tour's third leg consisted of 27 shows in Europe again, during October and November. This leg was sometimes dubbed The American Land Tour 2006, after a new Springsteen song that was being played as well as the We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions – American Land Edition reissue of the album. It began on October 1 at the PalaMalaguti in Bologna, Italy, and concluded on November 21, 2006 at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland. No further American shows took place.

More information: Lyrics Training

 I don't believe the world will survive with the rich 

getting richer and the poor getting poorer. 

Pete Seeger