I've been listening to four CDs lately that play to our hearts here at the CRA. They are The Crossing by Tim O'Brien and various Irish and American bluegrass musicians, TransAtlantic Sessions by various Nashville and Irish musicians, Common Ground by various Irish musicians not necessarily traditional, and Celtic Passion -- The Songs of Roy Orbison by various traditional musicians. Three of these CDs, Common Ground being the exception, explore the link between Irish (and to some degree Scottish) traditional music and American country/bluesgrass/old time music. Three of the CDs, Celtic Passion being the exception, share some of the same musicians.
The Crossing, perhaps, explores the links most consciously all the way through in music and in the stories the songs tell. Traditional songs on the CD include "Ireland's Green Shore," "Down in the Willow Garden" (known in Britain and Ireland as "Down in the Sally Garden"), "Yew Piney Mountain," a "crooked (uneven bar lines) West Virginia old-time tune." There are two really fine instrumentals. One is "Lord McDonald (which became "Leather Britches" in the US)/Cumberland Gap" with Frankie Gavin on fiddle and Earl Scruggs on banjo. The other is "The Kid on the Mountain," which uses three dueling mandolins to drive this traditional tune. Musicians on CD include Seamus Eagan on whistles, Jerry Douglas on Hawaiian guitar, Edgar Meyer on bass, Dermot Byrne on accordion, Ronan Browne on uilleann pipes, and a host of others. Del McCoury, Paul Brady, and Kathy Mattea help out on vocals. This CD is on Alula Records (PO Box 62043, Durham, NC 27715-2043) and was recorded mostly in Franklin, Tennessee.
TransAtlantic Sessions is a bit more Nashville and slick than The Crossing. The CD cover shows a night-time Nashville skyline sitting on the western coast of Ireland. Musicians on this CD include Ricky Skaggs, Aly Bain, Paul Brady, Jerry Douglas (on Dobro here), Tommy Hayes (bodhran beater extraordinaire), Maura O'Connell, Russ Barenberg, Sharon Shannon, and many others. There are two songs on the CD that give great examples of how a tune might shift from Irish or Scottish traditional music to bluegrass. One is "Waiting for the Federals" with Aly McBain on fiddle. The tune begins slow and Irish and shifts into a fast bluegrass shuffle. The other tune that makes the leap is "Puirt A Beul", which begins with Iain MacDonald playing the pipes and soon finding himself in that "progressive" acoustic territory that Douglas, Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, and Tony Rice explore so well. The most country tune on the CD is Radney Foster doing "Nobody Wins." The most Celtic is perhaps Sanseptique, which consists of fast Gaelic singing with Tommy Hayes on percussion. Michael Doucet adds some Cajun spice ("La Danse de la Vie"). The CD was produced by Jerry Douglas on Ricky Skaggs' Ceili Music (PO Box 2478, Hendersonville, TN 37077).
Common Ground has modern Irish musicians moving across time to do traditional songs with contemporary instruments and beats, and new songs with traditional spins, rather than across the Atlantic to indulge in Americana. The musicians include Elvis Costello, Christy Moore, Sinead O'Connor, Sharon Shannon, Bono and Adam Clayton of U2, Davy Spillane, Donal Lunny, Andy Irvine, Paul Brady, Maire Brennan, Tim and Neil Finn, Brian Kennedy, Kate Bush, and Liam O Maonlai. Some of the songs on the CD are really fine. In my opinion these include the lightly jazzy (and I'm really not a fan of light jazz) "Cavan Potholes" written by Donal Lunny and featuring Sharon Shannon, the solos are done by accordion and tenor sax; "As I Roved Out" sung by Brian Kennedy in an incredibly pure high tenor; and "Mna na h-Eireann" ("Women of Ireland") by Kate Bush. "Caithin", sung by Liam O Maonlai, is a wild, tribal song sung in Irish; if you close your eyes when you listen to this, you might think you've wandered into an Iron Age dun on Beltane. Common Ground was produced by Donal Lunny and is on Premier/EMI Records. The CD was recorded in Dublin and London.
This album may be the odd-man-out in this collection. The musicians are not well-known (at least to me) and the songs are all rock and roll or country songs written by Roy Orbison. But the musicians are good and some of Orbison's songs fit well in traditional arrangements. You will be surprised how "Oh, Pretty Woman" rocks along with uilleann pipes and bodhran. Same for "Working for the Man" with whistles and bodhran. There's a nice slow arrangement of "You Got It." The musicians who play on this CD include David Coe (fiddle), Hunter Lee (uilleann pipes), Ryan Murphey (guitar), Michael Snow (banjo), John Mock (bodhran), and Danny O'Lannerghty (bass). The CD was produced by Bobby Blazier and Barbara Orbison for Orby Records. It was recorded in Nashville.