Firecracker Day: Named for the explosive job of my grandfather Fred ‘Pop’ McNulty, who returned from the trenches of World War One to work for a fireworks company setting off rockets and comets throughout the fairs and exhibitions of southern Ontario.

Crow Down The Chimney: A classic five-piece bluegrass band lineup tackles the true saga of a baby crow that fell down the chimney of my house in North Vancouver, then flew out the fireplace the next day. Saved!

Emigrants Waltz: My paternal great-grandparents emigrated from Ireland’s Donegal and Tyrone in 1882/83; my maternal grandparents from Bristol, England in 1911/12. Inspired by the powerful minor-key, twin-fiddle waltzes of Andy Statman.

La Chuparossa: A mando-family duet translating as ‘the rose sipper,’ one of the Spanish nicknames for hummingbird. I have a good many rose sippers in the backyard, even though, technically, they don’t sip roses.

River City Ramble: In the early ’80s I was in a bluegrass band, the River City Ramblers, with two fellow reporters from the Edmonton Journal and a teenage Craig Korth, who would go on to reign as one of Canada’s top banjo players.

Moose In The Meadow: A stately twin-fiddle waltz befitting the magnificent moose I came across one day, driving past a meadow near the Kettle River in southern British Columbia.

Colquitz Creek: This twisty number is named for a Coho salmon-and Cutthroat trout-bearing creek winding through the Douglas fir forest at the end of my street in Victoria, an urban oasis.

Spanish Banks: Mandola meets fiddle on this tune inspired by the Latin jazz playing of John Reischman and John Miller.  Named for the best beach in Vancouver, one of many locations in British Columbia frequented by Spanish explorers in the 1700s.

Turtle On The Highway: Garry steps up to twin his guitar to the mandolin, and twin fiddles carry another true tale, that of a Western Painted Turtle rescued from the road on my way to a bluegrass music camp near Shuswap Lake in the B.C. Interior.

Tyrone: An Irish air, played on an ancient Gibson mandolin, named for the county in Northern Ireland where my great-grandfather James McNulty was raised before sailing to a new home in Canada and settling in Hamilton.

Down Through The Years: The first tune I put together, the night after I last shook the hand of the ‘Father of Bluegrass,’ Bill Monroe, at the Wintergrass Festival in Tacoma in 1994.  The title was one of his favourite expressions.

Nootka St. Mazurkas: Two different tunes played together, named for the street in East Vancouver where I first learned these numbers had the sound of a quick Polish mazurka.

Steeltown: A hard bluegrasser to close in honour of my old home place, Hamilton, where I spent a year in the steel mills fresh out of high school before moving into the blast furnace of the newsroom.