Salut! Live

Fox, Mitch and the beach ball: great music, great crack

Bob Fox is one of the greats of English folk music. Billy Mitchell is a classy former member of Lindisfarne. If you hate football, skip the next paragraph or four ...

Sharon Shannon: the greedy reviewer

Sharon Shannon (plus lots of friends) ... Saints and Scoundrels (Independent Records)

It is now an established feature of Irish music that any new Sharon Shannon album will feature not only the wonderful Co Clare accordion player and fiddler, but whichever other artists she has roped in for the session.

Potted Sharon Shannon

The last part of Salut! Live's interview with Sharon Shannon was necessarily brief. Others were waiting to speak to her. But it didn't matter since all that remained for our purposes was to pepper her with one-line questions and prompts and collect her one-line replies. Sharon has always been, in public, a woman of relatively few words (that immense, beaming smile more than making up for the vocal reticence), and that suits the tradition Salut! Live quickfire questionnaire. Here is how it went (and a review of Saints and Scoundrels is still to come) ...

Your most powerful musical memory?

Hearing Tommy Peoples playing the fiddle for the first time

Who are you listening to just now?

The Cartoon Thieves (They appear on two tracks on the album)

If you have time for books and films, any current or all time favourites?

I want to see The Hangover

Best gig?

Too many to single out one

And worst?

Plenty of them too!

Champagne or Guinness?

I don't like either

Describe Ireland after the era of the Celtic Tiger

To be honest, I don't see much of a difference among the people I hang out with

Name your favourite place in the world

Home

What is the best gadget you possess?

My mobile phone

Roy Keane or Niall Quinn?

I don't really follow football. That must make me seem very boring (Not at all - the question says more about the questioner! - ed)

And finally, what does Sharon Shannon want to be doing 10 years from now?

Relaxing at home

* Sharon photographer - again - by Pete Shaughnessy in Dolans, Dublin (use courtesy of Sharon's representatives)

Sharon Shannon: the Salut! Live interview

Abject apologies, more than before, to Roy Bailey, Debra Cowan and others whose albums should by now have been reviewed here. It will happen when time permits, and I don't mind in the least that the reviews will look on the late side. For now, though, please allow Salut! Live to reintroduce you to a giant of traditional music, a woman whose technical authority is matched, surpassed even, by her extraordinary inventiveness and thirst for experiment, but who remains steadfast in her assessment of Irish music as for ever the essence of her art ...

The telephone rings. Sharon Shannon is fashionably late, but the County Clare brogue is instantly recognisable. And she's in a chatty mood, covering much ground from details of her new album Saints and Scoundrels (Independent Records, out now) to the difficult territory of her long-term partner Leo Healy's sudden death last year.

Come back in a day or so for Potted Sharon, her quickfire answers to Salut! Live's quickfire questions - something of a tradition when this site conducts the big interview - and for a review of the album.

Salut! Live: Hearty congratulations on your Lifetime Achievement award at the Irish Meteors. It is hard to believe the young woman I saw billed as a teenage accordion sensation when she was in Arcady has now put 22 years into the industry.

Yeah, it's great. I am really, really amazed at how well and how long it has all gone. Delighted - and absolutely honoured by the award. I couldn't believe it.

A recent article in the Evening Herald, Dublin starts with the assertion that everyone thinks the world of Sharon Shannon. I certainly haven't come a cross anything other than admiration. Are you aware of the fund of goodwill and does it carry certain responsibilities for you as a performer?

I suppose I have rarely seen anything negative, which is brilliant. So far, so good. It really helps when your work is well received and yes I do appreciate people saying nice things. I find performing really enjoyable anyway, especially if the audience are enjoying themselves. I don't feel obligated or under pressure as a result but that does make it very easy for us. Vice versa: if they aren't having a good time, it won't be an easy gig.