Details
Track Listing
1. Loving Hannah
2. Lea Boy's Lassie
3. School Days Over
4. Men of Worth
5. Both Sides the Tweed
6. Colcannon - (with The Black Family)
7. Shadow, The
8. My Donald
9. Ellis Island
10. Holy Ground, The
11. Song For Ireland
Album Notes
Personnel: Mary Black (vocals, bodhran); Declan Sinnot (guitar, synthesizer, background vocals); Patrick Armstrong (guitar); Brendan O Regan, Donal Lunny (bouzouki); Kevin Glackin (fiddle); Caroline Lavelle (cello); Peter Browne (pipes); Patrick Crowley (accordion, acoutstic & electric pianos, synthesizer); Noel Bridgeman (accordion, drums, percussion); Mairtin O Connor (accordion); Maire Breatnach, Phillip Begley (synthesizer); Garvan Gallagher (acoustic bass); Eoghan O Neill (bass); Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh, Frances Black, Shay Black, Michael Black, Martin Black, Mandy Murphy, Honor Hefernon, Pat Armstrong (background vocals).
Engineers include: Billy Robinson, Dan Fitzgerald, Phillip Begley.
SONG FOR IRELAND, a best-of collection of Mary Black's Irish-themed songs, begins with her crystalline a capella live recording, "Loving Hannah," immediately endearing the listener to this 11-song love letter to Ireland. Primarily traditional material played with fiddles, pipes, and accordions, each composition is a complex and dramatic rendering of the trials and tribulations of Black's homeland and its people.
"Colcannon" (a dish of curly kale and mashed potatoes that children would be enticed to eat in the hopes of finding a prize of a threepenny bit) is performed as a rousing pub singalong. Black is joined here by her singing clan, The Black Family, whose hearty harmonies become infectious as the song gains boot-stomping momentum. "Men of Worth" examines one man's desire to earn his money working for a large Scottish oil company at the possible peril to his own self-esteem and self-worth. Also included is "The Shadow," a song about rebel leader Michael Collins that Black recorded for an RTE Television production. The album ends with the meditative title song about love and family, where Black's voice sweeps from soothing to soul stirring. SONG FOR IRELAND's incendiary power is a treasure worth savoring.
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