Eddie Delahunt’s CD Original Sing Reviewed
So I was reading the summer 2007 issue of Sing Out! at the weekend, the folk magazine co-founded by Pete Seeger for song swapping purposes, and there inside I read a review of Eddie Delahunt’s CD Original Sing.
If the idea of an Irishman in Kansas City strikes you as odder than barbeque ribs on a Gaeltacht pub menu, give a listen to Eddie Delahunt and you’ll change your mind.
That’s the introduction to a big overall thumbs up that Delahunt’s Original Sing gets, “a delightful collection of folk songs done well, hold the glitz”.
The reviewer is especially impressed with Weather The Storm - saying it would make a fabulous companion piece to Dougie MacLean’s classic Ready for the Storm, both tracks taking us inside the mind of sailors lost in thought as the gale rages.
Delahunt is also MacLean-like on “Forget Me Not My Love”, a song of simple and honest emotion.
High praise indeed, but then even higher, arguably, is that we are told “songs such as Caherconree and Love is Pleasin’ evoke Eric Bogle’s rural laced arrangements, an effect enhanced by the grit in Delahunt’s voice”.
Brett Gibson’s accordion playing gets highlighted (his “snappy accordion notes pop” through Delahunt’s “rolling guitar strums”), as do the songs Travelin’, Tradition, and I Wish I Was In Ireland.
I’ve always struggled to describe Eddie’s voice but here R. Weir has a good stab it by calling it warm, “gravelly around the edges, big and open as the prairie” a voice that “manages to exude the comfort of an Irish peat fire and the homespun qualities of mid-America”.
For me Sister Sheila should have been highlighted, and most of all, Brand New Song, but then Original Sing is such a powerhouse of original folk songs that singling certain tracks out is probably unnecessary
Weir’s overall impression? “A beautifully done project that deserves a wide audience” - which I believe is exactly what I’ve been telling you every time on Irish KC that I mention the name of Eddie Delahunt
A great review by a prestigious quarterly journal of folk music then.
And a Big Week for Eddie:
• 1st Anniversary of Delahunt’s Cafe &
• Bloomsday Celebration at Crestwood
• 120th Anniversary Street Fair at Browne’s
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