Matthew Byrne finds traditional songs by 'three clicks of a mouse'

Matthew Byrne says being a traditional folksong singer and a member of the millennial generation makes perfect sense in the 21st-century digital age.  

"It's access to everything," said Byrne, who avidly scours the internet for folk songs and musical research.

Byrne notes that older folk musicians had to do a lot more legwork to find sources of traditional music, while he and his peers are more likely to take online journeys to find traditional Newfoundland, English and Irish songs.

"Digitized song collections that are online, old videos of folk festivals, stuff that would have never seen the light of day outside of an archive if it weren't for the internet,"  said Byrne.

MUN archives

Byrne said he found Nancy From London, a track from his third solo album, Horizon Lines, in online digitized archives from Memorial University.

"I learned that song from that collection that was available to me by three clicks of a mouse."

Have a listen to Matthew Byrne's conversation with Weekend AM host Heather Barrett.

Do you have a new album of music that Weekend AM should know about for First Listen? Email us [email protected] and tell us about it.

You can hear First Listen Sundays on Weekend AM from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. (5:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. in Labrador) on CBC Radio One.