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Our guides and hosts are experienced with tours, but that is only a small part of what they bring to each journey. Guides with passion, depth and wisdom
make your travel unforgettable.
Tour Hosts
Chuck Brodsky is a storyteller, a songwriter, a troubadour, a modern day bard and has led 19 music tours to Ireland. Over the past 25 years, he has performed at festivals and in concerts all across the USA, Canada, Ireland, Denmark, England, Israel, Lithuania, Latvia, Wales, and the Shetland Islands of Scotland. Chuck has performed three times at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and 22 of his Baseball story songs have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame’s sound recording library. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Chuck hitchhiked to San Francisco as a young man and sang weekly at the Tattoo Rose Cafe’s open mic. He spent a few years singing for tips on the streets of Europe, and worked as a fruit picker back in the USA. In the late 1980’s, he began performing in small coffeehouses around the San Francisco Bay Area.
Chuck and his songs have appeared in several films and on tv. Having received worldwide acclaim for his previous albums, Chuck’s 11th release “Tell Tale Heart” was among the top ten most played CDs on folk radio for all of 2015. His 12th and most recent album, "Them And Us" was released in 2018 and was the 3rd most played CD on folk radio nationwide for May 2018.
Visit ChuckBrodsky.com
Jonathan Byrd is a preacher’s kid, Gulf War veteran, and award-winning songwriter with a near-cult following. With twenty plus years of touring and over a dozen albums, Byrd’s deceptively simple, working-class songs have become campfire standards and crowd favorites for artists like Sam Bush and Tim O’Brien. A Jonathan Byrd show will take audiences on a journey from hell-raising sing-alongs to heart-wrenching ballads and back across the backroads of his native North Carolina.
A lifelong collaborator and innovator, Jonathan Byrd’s latest project is Song Miners, a project to not only write and release new songs, but also to teach others how it’s done. Leading powerful online songwriting workshops and creating free songwriting education for social media, Byrd seems on a mission to fill the world with great songs- not least, his own. Not to be missed.
"...one of the top 50 songwriters of the past 50 years."—Rich Warren, Chicago Tribune
“...a folk singer with the heart of a rock 'n' roll band.” — K. Oliver, Free Times
Visit JonathanByrd.com
"My goal as an artist is to leave the audience knowing their connection to others, happier than when they entered, inspired by songs and stories to warm the heart, and send them home wanting to be kinder."
Dave Carroll is a Canadian storyteller; a songwriter, author, professional speaker, social media pioneer and the creator of a one-in-a-billion viral video, United Breaks Guitars. His $150.00 YouTube music video about his broken instrument and the airline that failed to right their wrong, is said to have changed the world and became “one of the most important videos in Googles history”. It empowered consumers and sent ripples across the global business community resulting in invitations to over 30 countries to speak about his adventure. It also introduced Dave's back catalogue of original songs to a global audience.
He has remained most passionate about music and his 30+ year career in the music industry. His work with his brother Don in the award winning band, Sons of Maxwell, along with his solo work has been fertile ground for a lifetime of stories and characters that he has woven into the music he loves to share.
Dave has a history of writing deeply impactful songs and the 11 new original cuts on his 2022 recording, Until One Day, were intentionally penned as an alternative to the prevailing sentiment of polarization in society.
2022 also marked the release of his first illustrated story called Tom The Tomato Plant which was shortlisted by the Whistler International Book Competition. The book was written with young readers in mind but the themes and messages make for a useful business parable in Dave's storytelling workshops for brands and aspiring storytellers.
His songwriting, a down-to-earth sense of humour and insightful experience have made him a masterful teller of stories that unite, motivate, and start movements. Mostly though, Dave’s own motivation has always come from the simple pleasure of writing songs and stories for people who are willing to listen.
DaveCarrollMusic.com
Melinda Wood Allen is an Interfaith/Interspiritual minister, currently serving Church of One Love in Dallas, TX, an independent spiritual center “teaching only love.”
A sought-after speaker, teacher, workshop and retreat leader, as well as a multi-award-winning singer/songwriter/actor & recording artist, she has traveled around the US and beyond presenting at spiritual centers, community action groups, recovery conferences, and spiritual retreats.
Musically, she defies categorization, as her songs (and 4-octave rang) span genres from classical to rock to gospel to folk. Melinda’s passion is in combining her inspiring music with her knowledge and experience of Spiritual Principles to present programs that are heart-opening and life-changing.
Scotland is sacred to Melinda--actually is her favorite place, and has been since she first stepped off the train in Edinburgh with her husband Bob 15 years ago, and immediately felt like she was “home.” Adopted as an infant, she recently verified over 70% of her DNA is from Ireland and Scotland. Tha gaol agam ort!
Melindawoodallen.com
Tom Kimmel is a singer-writer-poet extraordinaire. Soulful, inspiring and funny, he’s as vibrant and creative as ever in his sixth decade of music-making. He’s released seven solo albums, three trio records, published a book of poems and toured widely across the US, Canada and Europe.
A singer’s singer and writer’s writer, Tom’s songs have been covered by a host of top artists, including Johnny Cash, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, and Randy Travis—and they’ve been featured in many films and TV shows. Fans and critics agree, however, that he remains his own best interpreter.
Tom’s hosted music tours in Ireland since 2011, and he looks forward to new adventures in Scotland, where he has deep family roots. He and his wife Kat reside in the great music city of Memphis, Tennessee... with a very feisty eight-pound barking dog.
Visit TomKimmel.com
Sara Hickman, 2010 Official Texas State Musician, has been recording, performing and touring since 1977. With over 20 albums, two appearances on the Tonight Show and multiple awards for her songwriting and philanthropy, Sara is internationally known for her Grammy nominated and award winning pop/folk music. Through her music, Sara has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for a multitude of non-profits including Habitat for Humanity, SAFE, SPCA, the Ugandan Fistula Fund, House the Homeless, Sanford Community Center, Hill Country Youth Ranch and many others.
Sara graduated with a BA from the University of North Texas in painting, and teaches classes on songwriting, creativity, the music industry, and enjoys being an inspirational speaker. As a teenager, Sara became a volunteer performing music for youth in psych units. This led to her working as a professional music and art therapist, receiving a lifetime achievement award from The National Association of Music Therapists.
Since 2019, Sara has donated over $62,000 in proceeds from the sales of her hand drawn Texas Musicians Coloring Book to non-profits. Volume 2 of her musicians coloring book series will arrive before October 2023. Lastly, Sara is the booking agent for a yearly family music festival called MossFest in Austin, TX and is a proud mom to two amazing kids, and has an adorable scruffy dog named Twig.
Visit SaraHickman.com
As one DJ puts it, Rebecca Loebe “has an almost supernatural ability to get the crowd singing along.” Over the past decade, the Austin-based singer-songwriter has taken her fans along for the ride, touring nonstop across the United States, Canada, Japan, Europe, and the UK. If you love lyric driven, full-throated modern troubadours like Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, and Carole King, then Rebecca Loebe is a must-listen.
After she performed her own arrangement of Nirvana's 'Come As You Are' on the first season of NBC’s The Voice, Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera fought for the chance to work with her. Adam professed, “I just love listening to you sing.” That experience led to her first Top 10 iTunes single and her first - but not last - Billboard chart appearance.
Loebe's original songs have also earned recognition from critics, fans, and songwriting competitions around the world, including the prestigious Kerrville New Folk Award. She is perhaps best known for her trademark effervescent, irreverent optimism. Her live performances sparkle with jaw-dropping vocals, quirky humor, and engrossing stories about life on the road.
When she’s not on tour, you can find her snuggling her puppy Lola, watering her vegetable garden, curled up with a good book, or in her home studio putting her audio engineering degree to work.
https://rebeccaloebe.com/
David LaMotte is a songwriter, speaker and author. He has performed over 3000 concerts and released thirteen full-length CDs of primarily original music, touring in all of the fifty states, as well as five of the seven continents. The Boston Globe writes that his music “pushes the envelope with challenging lyrics and unusual tunings, but he also pays homage to folk tradition,” while BBC Radio Belfast lauds his “charm, stories, humour, insightful songs, sweet voice and dazzling guitar ability.” His most recent album, Still, features the number one song on Folk Radio in September, 2022 (September Me), and the album remained in the top twenty for six months.
LaMotte suspended his music career for two years, beginning in 2008, to pursue his other primary vocation by accepting a Rotary World Peace Fellowship to study International Relations, Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. As part of that master’s degree, he also spent time in rural Andhra Pradesh, India, working with a Gandhian development organization.
In 2004, David and his wife founded a non-profit organization, PEG Partners, that supports local Guatemalan leaders who are working to provide access to education, arts, and mentoring in their own communities. The author of three books, his most recent is “You Are Changing the World Whether You Like It Or Not,” released by Chalice Press in 2023.
DavidLaMotte.com
Tour Guides
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Raven is the founder of Traceless Tours and takes care of all the logistics and itinerary and joins as many tours as she can. She is an intuitive counselor and facilitator of ancient wisdom teachings with an ancestral and heart connection to Scotland. She has been involved with tours for over two decades and also teaches deep introspective processes related to Hermetic Principles and speaks internationally on topics of conscious change and evolution, working with the laws of Nature.
Raven is the mother of three grown children and two stepsons and is heavily involved as a volunteer for FurEver Friends Cat Rescue. She lives in Western North Carolina with her husband, Steve, and their five kitties and a rotating door of foster cats. She is currently working on her Master's in Scottish History at the University of Dundee.
Visit RavenSinclaire.com
James Barrowman lights up our tours with his energy and knowledge. He is a full-time PhD student and tutor in the English department at the University of Dundee. His own research interests are in Scottish literature and history, specifically Scots language writing from the sixteenth-century and his project seeks to reimagine the lost plays of James Wedderburn, who wrote both a comedy and a tragedy before being exiled to France for 'counterfooting the conjuring of a ghaist' in mockery of King James V.
James has a theatre background, having acted and written for the JOOT theatre company in Dundee, including in work adapted from the great makars Henryson and Dunbar. He's also a member of the Dundee Burns Club, which still has its own premises right in the heart of the city. He has run various events over the years that saught to celebrate Dundonian writing, both historical and contemporary. James edited an anthology of new writing from the city a few years ago, and co-created a pop-up Poet's Box shop for a local literary festival.
He is originally from Cumbernauld, just outside of Glasgow and, though he describes himself as too tone deaf to have success with an instrument, Scottish folk music is a great love. James is also a barista, so you can count on him to remember your coffee order!
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