The Nashville Celts at City Winery Nashville
Wed Mar 15, 8:00 PM - Wed Mar 15, 9:30 PM

In 2010, Blair produced the national PBS show Christmas with The Celts which was filmed in front of a sold out audience at the original Grand Ole Opry, (voted top venue by Pollstar) the world famous Ryman Auditorium. The show aired on 222 PBS channels across the U.S., Canada and on the BBC in Ireland for three years. This successful TV show was the initial spark, which created a huge demand for the group, bringing them into major venues.

Today, The Nashville Celts pack concert halls around the world including The Grand Ole Opry, The Ryman Auditorium, The Lincoln Center, and many other Performing Arts Centers, Theaters and large Casinos. The Nashville Celts have shared the stage with a diverse range of specials guests and artists including Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh of Altan, Vince Gill, Irish singer Cathy Jordan of Dervish, Ricky Skaggs, Riverdance piper Ivan Goff from Dublin, Patty Loveless, Braveheart/Titanic piper Eric Rigler, and Tim O’Brien just to name a few.

The Nashville Celts lineup features founder Ric Blair on vocals, guitars, bodhran, and piano, Laura McGhee from Dundee, Scotland on vocals and fiddle plus an ensemble of world class musicians playing uilleann pipes, Irish whistles, banjo, mandolin, bass, drums and always crowd pleasing Irish step dancers.

The music of The Nashville Celts is uniquely original. When asked about their musicial style Blair says, "I’m proud of my Irish/Scottish roots, but I am equally proud of my American music roots. So, our music has become a product of blending the two." Blair credits the group’s popularity to their melding of modern American hit songs and sounds with organic Celtic instruments as well as the success of their PBS-TV specials.

That hybrid sound and historical evolutionary process from the roots of Celtic-American immigrants to today’s most popular music is also fully depicted in the band’s new production entitled Roots of Great American Music. This high energy production demonstrates how Irish music influenced the development of American bluegrass,