The Dubliner's. "Further Along".
Lunar Records BAYCD 96. (55 mins). Dial-a-track-code 1201
News flash U2 kill the Dubliners. Well, okay, maybe that is a tilt too much towards tabloid territory, but few would deny that the success of rock bands over the past 15 years has deeply damaged indigenous Irish musicians such as the Dubliners, who must now depend on seemingly endless global tours to make a living. Not much fun, I imagine, particularly when you also release what is undoubtedly your most artistically focused and committed album in at least five years and the event is barely noted at home.
Yet that's exactly what this album is, folks, a return to roots in even the most subtle ways, with the title track, Further Along tipping its peaked cap in the direction of a source of inspiration of at least three of the Dubliners.
Elvis Presley, who recorded a more sedate reading of this gospel classic. Maybe they should go all the way and next time include Sean Cannon's authentic folk reading of I Forget To Remember To Forget, or Eamonn Campbell's positively ebullient version of That's All Right, Mama, which would be a return to their own, more neglected roots and the roots of contemporary Irish music, Dublin based, or otherwise.
Until then, Cannon's richly resonant voice is perfect for Paddy Kavanagh's If Ever You Go To Dublin Town, capturing all the joy of a knees up in a Baggot Street pub, plus the tears afterwards as the narrator realises that in 100 years people probably will say "he had never fully achieved his potential". Likewise, Barney McKenna's banjo lines on An Eireann Ni Neosfainn Ce Hi, as arranged by himself and Campbell, echo back through time further than loo years and could only be played in that way by a musician who has been breathing with his instrument for almost a half century.
As for the question all Dubliner fans must be asking is there a gap left by Ronnie Drew's recent departure from the group? Not really. New boy Paddy Reilly's role is simply to add a new colour to this ever consistent canvas, as he does, quite beautifully, in tracks like Dirty Old Town. It really is a disgrace that the Dubliners are not better appreciated in their homeland.
"Stonewall": Various Artists. Columbia 484154. (38 mins).
Dial-a-track-code:1311
"Now and Then": Various Artists. Columbia 48 1606. (41 mins).
Dial-a-track-code:1421
"Stealing Beauty": Various Artists. Capitol 8 37436. (52 mins.)
Dial-a-track-code:1531
"Heaven's Prisoners". Various Artists. Atlantic. 7567 82848. (51 mins).
Dial-a-track-code:1641
A spate of soundtrack albums that are all great Pretty unusual when you consider that such albums normally are comprised of three or four worthwhile songs, surrounded by fillers, and nothing more. But, obviously, since the phenomenal success of Pulp Fiction, record companies see the sense in applying some thought and even feeling to these compilations, though clearly Columbia won't be winning any medals for dishing out albums that run at roughly 40 minutes a piece.
Nevertheless, Stonewall deliciously gathers together all those girl groups, like the Shangri Las and the Shirelles, who sang coded songs of longing for gays in the early 1960s while, Now and Then, on the other hand, is a kitsch celebration of just one year, 1970, with hits like Knock Three Times and a criminally faded before it should end Band of Gold. Heaven's Prisoners is pure blues, all the way from Junior Wells through Buddy Guy to John Lee Hooker. And yet, maybe even more magnificent, and totally post modern, is the soundtrack for the Bernardo Bertolucci's new movie, Stealing Beauty which is a moody, atmospheric collection featuring, yeah, you guessed it, groups like Portishead.
