Jean Ritchie and Sons "Mountain Born"
Greenhays, GR 7075, distributed by Rounder (46 mins)
Dial a track code 1531
Born in the Appalachian mountain country of Kentucky, Jean Ritchie is one of the very few American singers singing traditional material "on cliabhain". This album marks her fiftieth year as a professional performer, singer and dulcimer player, and on it she is joined by her two sons Jonathan and Peter Pickow, singers and players both. Their vocal and instrumental accompaniment on banjo, guitars, and synthesisers are of a very high order.
From the title track to the final notes of the old baptist hymn on the last track, family and a spiritual attachment to place animate the performances and dictate the choice of material. Some, like The Cuckoo sung a cappella, its full modal resonances beautifully realised are as old as the hills others, like the hymn When Sorrows Encompass Me Round, draw the listener back through the glorious "lined out" cadences to an ancient form of religious unison singing in which the embryonic form of the "white" or "mountain blues" can be detected. On the charming Barley Bright the plaintive voice of the Appalachian dulcimer accompaniment evokes a child's play world.
Come All You Fair And Tender Ladies, sung unaccompanied, is a spellbinding rendition, high and lone some. Many of these songs ar& her own compositions, the best known perhaps being My Dear Companion, now firmly ensconced in the country categories much as Loving Hannah has slipped into traditional singing mostly unacknowledged. The upbeat One More Mile, with its hillbilly harmonies and sparkling string accompaniment, has a promising future as a country standard.
Kevin Mitchell "I Sang That Sweet Refrain"
Greentrax, CDTRAX108 (67 mins) Dial-a-track code 1641
This is a welcome second album from the Glasgow based, Derry born singer Kevin Mitchell, after a recording silence of several years. It is rooted in the vigorous and variegated Ulster song tradition, with but a nod in the direction of accompaniment (six out of 16 tracks) and a whole hearted embracing of the local and the particular in style and repertoire. Most of the material evokes, in the liner notes, a roll call of singing supremos, from Sarah Ann O'Neill to Davey Hammond, Cathal McConnell, Liam Weldon and Mitchell's early mentor? Corny McDaid from Buncrana. This last singer was the source for False Lover John, a remarkable and lyrically strange ballad, with its many voices and its exotic details here it is impeccably delivered by Mitchell, its internal rhythm sustained for its six minutes duration. He is equally at ease with the nonsensical comic song The Rangy Ribs I Bought From Micky Doo, dependent for much of its effect on the local elements of accent, place names, dialect and so on, all of which are his to command. Similarly The Maid Of Ballydoo, much associated, with Davey Hammond, and The Banks Of Brandy wine, emerge fully formed and dressed in their original clothes, the lofty English of well read 19th century autodidacts singing in the melodious accents of their native Ulster.
John Brosnan "The Cook In The Kitchen"
Reedblock Records, JBCD01 (41 mins)
Dial-a-track code 1751
The accordion player John Brosnan was born in North Kerry, but now resides in Kilcummin, the Kerry end of the Sliabh Luachra axis. A tuner and repairer of "boxes", he is also a highly acclaimed musician and is a regular player on his own local circuit where, on the evidence of this recording, particularly the splendid live tracks, dance music is at full throttle. Subtitled "traditional music from Kerry and other places" it is, not surprisingly, the irrepressible Kerry influence specifically the punchy rhythmic bass and attacking style which characterises all the material, even that sourced in "other places". One such is the selection of reels attributed to Philippe Bruneau, two fine showpiece tunes bristling with triplets and verve. The four live tracks are, typically, barn dances, slides and polkas and very good they are, too, played with an ensemble of fiddles, flute, banjo and guitar.
