Golden Bough brings Celtic tunes to Carson City’s Brewery Arts Center

With nearly 40 years of experience, Golden Bough brings Celtic tunes to Brewery Arts Center on Saturday, April 20. The Celtic Series continues with the trio traveling from Modesto, Calif., as they bring their large discography from all over the globe to Carson City.

Paul Espinoza and Margie Butler were original members of the band when it formed in 1980. The band has gone through changes over the years, but they’ve been a trio with the fiddle player Kathy Sierra since 2001.

“Once Kathy joined, she’s been committed the whole time,” Espinoza said.

And Espinoza said the band is still going strong as they celebrate 39 years.

“We’ve been playing together for so long now — it’s the tightest that we’ve ever been,” Espinoza said. “Playing music is still such a satisfying, exciting thing for us to do.”

Golden Bough travels to Europe often, and spent plenty of time in Ireland and the UK performing and connecting with other musicians. They travel to Europe annually and book shows for about three to five weeks while they’re there, but they stick to the main continent nowadays because of ease of travel. These trips always help give the band new material and new styles for old songs, Espinoza said.

“We picked up a lot of songs that we hadn’t heard anywhere else,” he said.

They often share songs with other friends they meet and musicians at festivals. They’re always discovering new songs this way.

“When you go to the different areas, you get a little different twist on the music,” Espinoza said. “We picked up a lot of ideas for research on music traveling to these countries because the Celtic culture expanded through most of Europe at one point. You find pockets of Celtic culture that exist today outside of Ireland and Scotland.”

Golden Bough came to Carson about 10 to 12 years ago to play at the BAC. Espinoza said he enjoys getting out of the bigger cities to play smaller towns like Carson. The band likes to bring an atmosphere that’s lively and fun.

“We want to have really quality music, but we want people to have fun,” Espinoza said. “We like to have a real uplifting type of atmosphere, so when it’s over and people leave they are in a better condition. They are happier and feel better.”

He said he loves when people come up to him and tell him they had a bad day but the concert had uplifted them.

As a band with such longevity, they’ve put out 30 recordings. Butler has done four solo CDs playing the harp and Sierra is currently working on a fiddle CD, Espinoza said.

“We try to have lots of projects,” he said.

Golden Bough sells a USB drive that looks like a cassette and it contains 11 CDs worth of music on there. The band wants to share the music with fans, and in this day and age, he likes to release recordings, as they’re ready. He said if you come to the concert with a USB drive, he’ll put the new stuff on there for you.