This is the fourth part of Salut! Live's series of selected Irish music, and the second collection of YouTube clips featuring my own favourite female performers from Ireland north and south. Please feel free to suggest clips you feel I ought to have included, or to applaud or criticise my choices. The first six YouTube clips in this exercise appeared in the Salut! Live posting "Irish music at its best? (3)". As mentioned in that item, clicking on to each clip also opens a gateway to much more by the same artists. Explore and enjoy...
Mary Black's lovely version of Raglan Road nearly made it into the list, until I saw - and found myself endorsing - comments at YouTube suggesting that no one could touch the late Luke Kelly's interpretation. But room had to be found for Mary's exquisite vocal charms, and I have always liked her singing of The Thorn Upon The Rose. One "jonhedge" at YouTube added this interesting anecdote: " This is Julie Matthews song, I know because I was 1 of 4 people at her house when she played it for the first time, & She told us M B had taken an option on it, The Best Version of it is by Pat Shaw on the Lies & Alibis Album (Fat Cat Records FATCD001)Pat & Julie were a Duo at the time. Mary black is Brilliant though."Cara Dillon is not to everyone's taste. Once I had grown to appreciate her voice - which didn't happen in a flash - I came to regard her as an accomplished and highly appealing singer, and The Lark in the Clean Air provides a fine platform for her strengths....
Salut! Live has been I competition mode of late, but there are no prizes for guessing which song associated with Niamh Parsons I would sooner have added to any list of best Irish female performances. I have sent out a search party for The Tinkerman's Daughter, which has so far eluded me; in the meantime, settling for The People of Tremuir is scarcely any hardship...
Salut! Live is a staunch champion of Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, solo or in her band Danu. Slán le Máigh is a delightful evocation of a great singer's powers of expression......
Eleanor McEvoy, I always thought, got a slightly rough deal, at least in terms of public perception, with Woman's Heart. The song that spawned the extraordinary phenomenon was hers, and her voice suited it better than anyone's. Most people, however, probably associate that song, Only a Woman's Heart, with Mary Black and - much as I adore Mary - that is plainly unjust. Here, to redress the balance a little, is Eleanor....
That concludes the second part of this little exercise, or the fourth of the grander Best of Irish series. Is there scope for a third/fifth? Time will tell....but I somehow think so.
Just to let you know, you can find 'The Tinkerman's Daughter' on the 1992 Greentrax CD 'Loosely Connected' with Niamh Parsons and the Loose Connections.
Posted by: NP | February 16, 2009 at 10:13 PM