The Volunteers is South Florida’s only original Celtic rock band. In their electric rock’n’roll stage-show, they are a full-throttle, guitar-driven, runaway locomotive. As Miami’s New Times has put it: “From their first bottle-rattling gig … it’s been no secret that the Vols are a great party band … Put this crew and free-flowing alcohol in a club setting and you never know what will happen next … This is a band capable of raising the roof in the best Celtic tradition.”

In their kinder, gentler, acoustic show, seated on stage comfortably around a whisky-bottle-topped table, they lay down the electric guitars and drums in favor of the fiddle and the penny whistle, with lyrics and vocal harmonies to the fore. This is the best way to hear and enjoy the stories in what the band calls: “the 19th Century Scots-Irish folk songs that we wrote last week.”

The Volunteers have played every original music venue in Miami including the late, great Stephen Talkhouse on South Beach (where they shared bills with the Battlefield Band from Scotland and world-famous bluegrass fiddler, Vassar Clemens). The Volunteers have raucous nights to their credit at pubs as diverse as Molly Malone’s in North Miami and The Globe in Coral Gables. They regularly rock the packed-out upstairs main stage at Tobacco Road and sooth a folkie audience, unplugged, live, on National Public Radio, WLRN 91.3.

Track listing:

1. The Irish Rover
2. Star of the County Down
3. The Mountains of Mourne
4. I’ll Tell Me Ma
5. The Foggy Dew
6. Whiskey in the Jar
7. A Man You Don’t Meet Everyday
8. All Around My Hat
9. The Black Velvet Band
10. The Parting Glass

The Volunteers are: Henk Milne (acoustic guitar and lead vocals), Debbie Spring (fiddle), Barbara Drake (penny whistle), Homer Wills (bagpipes and harmonica), Jack Shawde (electric rhythm and lead guitars), Mitch Mistel (bass), Diane Ward (drums, percussion, and backing vocals)