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www.cellarscene.co.uk
Issue
6 May/June 2000
Carolyn
Johnston
The
most versatile musicians
Take
a virtual trip around Russell's house at www.russellshouse.co.uk
and you are invited to enter the rooms of some of the most versatile
musicians on the Edinburgh session circuit. On fiddle, Simon Bradley
of the Asturian band LIan de Cubel; on banjo, Dublin's Éamonn Coyne;
singing his own songs and adding a touch of jazz to the guitar, Sandy
Wright; and completing the line-up, the North-East's very own tinkler
of the ivories, Russell Hunter.
Familiar
tunes
What makes this CD unusual
in the present climate of Folk releases is that most of the tunes are
very well known to sessioners and some have even passed into the repertoire
of football crowds ("Up Tyrone and down Armagh, doo dah, doo dah ).
There is the odd American number and a Scottish set, but the bias is
towards common Irish traditional tunes such as "The Gold Ring" and "Cooley's".
This means that the interest for the listener lies not in learning new
tunes, but in appreciating every nuance and variation to the familiar
that Simon Bradley's fiddle and Éamonn Coyne's banjo can provide - and
this really is a treat. The pace is relaxed and the impression is that
you are eavesdropping on a quiet tune in Russell's house, where all
notions of impressing the contemporary folk scene have been left at
the doorstep.
Elegant
accompaniment and what songs!
If I said that Russell Hunter
recently did a stint as a cocktail pianist at the Nile Hilton in Cairo,
and that Sandy Wright's guitar style has been influenced by Django Reinhardt
and Peerie Willie, you can imagine the elegant accompaniment which the
tunes receive. But what makes the album for me is the songs. Sandy can
make 'Blue Moon of Kentucky' sound personal and John McCarthy's misfortunes
become his own in 'Wild Hurricane' ('My life has been broken like an
old windowpane/I must have been born in a wild hurricane'). If you live
for that late-night session lull when the tunes stop, conversation dies
away and everyone gives the singer a melodic pat on the back - get this
CD.
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