ROOTS

Recent CD releases reviewed

WOODY GUTHRIE
This Land Is Your Land/Proper Records
****

This collection is part of the new "Proper introduction series" in which the British budget label offers the most appetising collection of well-packaged single-CD compilations of key artists. And they don't come much more important than Woody Guthrie. Readers of Dylan's compelling new autobiography, Chronicles, will know how much he fell under the spell of this icon of the US folk movement. Certainly the early protest Dylan was cut out of Guthrie's angry recitation of the woes of the American working man and woman. All his most famous songs are here: This Land Is Your Land, Dust Bowl Blues, I Ain't Got No Home, Vigilante Man, Do Re Mi - songs that were born in the years of the Great Depression and grew as Guthrie's political consciousness matured before his death in 1967. This is music that - even at this remove and in its original unadorned form - holds great power.
www.propermusic.com
Joe Breen

PATSY O'BRIEN
What You Know/Tre Records
***

Like a good wine left to lie for a few years, guitarist and singer/songwriter Patsy O'Brien has let his musicianship flourish in the company of the unlikeliest of players, including Eileen Ivers and Paddy Keenan. His 1999 début whispered of things to come, and come they have. This is a body of work scaffolded by a spinal column of O'Brien's own material, with just one interloper cover lurking within: a startling reinvention of The Star Of The County Down, with throaty vocals, languid guitar and Paddy Keenan's sublime low whistle. Occasionally the guitar can sound just a touch bare-boned, but O'Brien's soundscape is overwhelmingly democratic, with Keenan's pipes and flute sharing space with mandolin, fiddle and the curious presence of Jef Wilson's instruments of choice: wall and pencil.
www.patsyobrien.com
Siobhán Long