During the 19th century pioneer days of America, immigrants brought traditional European folk music to their new homeland, influencing the audio mélange that became country & western music by the 1920s and '30s. Half a century later, mandolin player Dave Wilkie attempted to bring authentic Celtic melodies back to the cowboy music they had influenced, on his Celtic Cowboy LP. He first began playing the mandolin in 1970 near his home in Victoria, British Columbia. Wilkie's first album, 1977's The Mandolin Player, showed no traces of country/Celtic fusion, however; it was straigh...