Guitarist/Composer Grace McNally Debut Release 'Full Circle' - Africa-South America-Gullah-Charleston, SC

Full Circle is my debut album which explores the musical continuities between the American Southeast, Central America, West Africa and Northeast Brazil. It is a musical memoir featuring musical traditions that have impacted my journey and perspective as a musician. It is a love letter to Charleston, South Carolina and to all the places that I lived in and traveled to in my young adulthood. Places that have shaped me into the woman and musician that I am today. Places with beautiful people, culture and of course—music. Places that know both the dark and the light. Full Circle is a journey back home to a city that raised me and to a place of wholeness within myself. It’s about the thrill of exploring the new and unfamiliar and the grounding peace that comes with returning back to one’s roots. Full Circle is a collaboration, an effort in preservation and an ode to the beautiful world we call home.

Full Circle Album Release

Digital & Bandcamp Release—Thursday, May 4, 2023
Album Release Show—Sunday, May 7th at 7PM
First Baptist Church
Charleston, SC

Guests

The Plantation Singer (vocals & percussion)
Gino Castillo (vocals & percussion)
Jonathan Lovett (bass & organ)
Marcus Amaker (spoken word)
Ron Wiltrout (percussion)
Abdiel Iriarte (piano)
Brett Belanger (bass)
Tim Khayat (bass)

Track List

Asa Branca
Bells of Rio
All the Things You Are—arranged by Baden Powell
Give Me Water
Bahia
When the Saints Go Marching in
Me Done Done
Open Door

Full Circle explores the musical continuities between the American Southeast, Central America, West Africa, and Northeast Brazil. Appropriately titled, the album details the influential chapters from McNally’s travels through Central and South America before returning to Charleston, South Carolina.

McNally's classical guitar is her voice, as her arrangements weave together a musical narrative of rustic southern traditional music and folk songs-beautifully accompanied by call and response choruses, Gullah rhythms and spoken word. Her re-imagined fusion of Afro-Brazilian, Cuban, and southern music traditions create a uniquely quilted folk mosaic of The Americas.