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The liner notes are extensive, full of interesting details, easy to read and thoroughly researched. Planxty Stackallan is so jaunty it almost segues into a mazurka (now there’s a thought for a live show). The duo doesn’t hold the sombre button down for too long as the tune picks up once the guitar joins in. The duo does however, keep the melancholy in check and with the addition of the guitar slow tunes take on a happy countenance, such as on An Buachaill Dreoite. There are passages where the dark moody viola comes into its own, doing what a fiddle could hardy ever achieve, such as on An Buachaill Caol Dubh. The viola is a perfect instrument for slow airs and melancholy melodies we hear it played solo on the Napoleonic lament The Bonny Bunch of Roses. I was instantly hooked by the rich tone of the viola and the pendulous guitar swaying its way to the luscious lyrical playing from Séamus. The album features the viola, the big sister of the fiddle, tuned a fifth below and capable of the most dreamlike passages when in the hands of a master like Séamus McGuire.Ĭase in point The Dreamers Reel, how languid, how lovely. Having heard the media review version I can tell you it is a jewel of an album from two gentlemen, who I am sure won’t be offended, when I tell you they are veterans of traditional music. The notes on Séamus McGuire’s website say this recording, “will be the first album of Irish traditional music featuring the viola as the main instrument”. It is deeply embossed with the hallmarks of a Christy Moore classic. And then on the final track he creates a masterpiece from Dylan’s Pity The Poor Emigrant, a reworking of the song he first did with Planxty, On Words and Music nearly forty years ago.Ĭhristy was one of the busiest musicians in Ireland until the lockdown thankfully for us, he took the enforced time out to make what is arguably his finest work this century. He cocks a wry smile to the live folk music business in the Zozimus & Zimmerman, the leading ballad makers of their day. There is also a chilling reflection on humanity’s organised cruelty in Christy’s version of Ricky Lynch’s December 1942. He is up to the zeitgeist in Jimmy Page’s Clock Winds Down (timed to perfection, the album being released while the noise from COP26 was still ringing in our ears). This is Christy as we’ve come to love him, with his trademark talking Kildare blues, his humour in songs such as The Bord Na Mona Man, Myra’s Caboose, and the title track. His long sojourn in England in the 1960s where he learned the folk singer’s trade is recalled by a rendition of Van Diemen’s Land which he first had from Mike Waterson of the influential family of singers from Yorkshireįor over five decades Christy has been taking other people’s songs and making them his own, and he also brings out the best in his accompanists Seamie O’Dowd (guitar, harmonica, bouzouki, mandolin, fiddle, banjo, bass & vocals), Gavin Murphy (keyboards & orchestral arrangements), Andy Moore (vocals), Mark Redmond (uilleann pipes), Jim Higgins (percussion & organ), and James Blennerhassett (double bass). There is an acoustic version of Mick Hanly’s All I Remember, which is just as powerful as the Moving Heart’s original. This is singing with wisdom, earned from a lifetime performing. Want to see earlier releases? Visit the archive.Ĭhristy is relaxed and mellow on the opening track Johnny Boy his deep resonance fills out many of the slow songs.