Two Old Friends

A Two Old Friends performance will give you plaintive ballads and footstomping shout tunes; soaring instrumental solos, traditional Irish tunes, and story-telling. There is truly something for everyone.

'Portsmouth' is the title of the new CD release from Two Old Friends. It features wonderful vocals and crisp instrumental tunes. The music includes Vintage American country songs mixed with Irish and Scotish music.

Two Old Friends, Jim Prendergast and Emery Hutchins, are musicians who play and sing a unique combination of CeItic and American country music, and in their performances seek to show the connection between the two genres. Emery is a well known performer of a variety of different styles of acoustic music; ranging from traditional Irish tunes to vintage American country music songs. Jim worked for thirty years in the recording studios and orchestra pits of Nashville TN. Jim now resides in NH and is an active participant in New England’s thriving Celtic/Folk music scene.

A Two Old Friends performance represents the American experience in a real and vibrant way. It demonstrates how American music is really an amalgamation of musical styles. There are American blues pieces juxtaposed with Irish jigs and reels. There, are "shout tunes" and plaintive ballads. Original melodies, songs and stories by the artists are part of a performance that tells the story in music of loss and renewal, despair and hope, anguish and joy that is the story of the Irish and of every other group of people who have traveled to America -- and within America. It is a performance that is informative and entertaining and above all, seeks to show that to understand the music of a culture is to understand the heart of a culture.

Hutch and Jim will be singing and playing the banjo, guitar, mandolin, concertina, bodran and the octave mandolin.