Customer Reviews

Fisherman's Blues (Coll)

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

You could turn off the heat in your house in the middle of winter--just play this CD and you'll warm the place up. This album might not have the Waterboys' strongest singles, like "Church Not Made With Hands", "The Whole of the Moon" or "Life of Sundays" which are found on other albums, but this is perhaps their strongest, most cohesive effort. There is so much musical, lyrical and emotional depth and range in these songs, and they all fit together so well. Like all great artists, although you can detect the influences (folk, punk, rock, Irish Traditional, soul), the Waterboys don't slavishly imitate any of them--this is a really strong, unique, original interpretation, and the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. There's a dark edge to tracks like "We Will Not be Lovers", "World Party", and "When Will We Be Married?", a vibrant celebration of life in "Fisherman's Blues", a melancholy wistfulness in "When Ye Go Away" and "The Stolen Child", and a "having a few pints in the pub" sense of nostalgia and humor in "Has Anybody Here Seen Hank?" and "A Bang on the Ear". This album is just so rich--one of my all-time favorites.

I loved the original Fisherman's Blues. That album is one of my favorites from the eighties. I will not even classify it as an eighties album since it is timeless. This extended release is such a surprise, I am in awe. I believe the second disc alone is as good or even better than the original. It does not feel like outtakes or demos, it feels like a stand alone disc. The Waterboys need to release the disc that needs to be released.... The Fisherman's Blues Sessions. A four disc release consisting of all of the seesions recorded in the eighties for the Fisherman's Blues recordings. These recordings represent all that is right with music; The love of music, for music sake. There are no producers, music executives, cookie cutter money making agendas involved. We need more personal music produced today. This is so refreshing it is unbelievable. Buy this and discover music of the soul.

I don't know how I overlooked this gem when I compiled my Amazon list of the 25 best albums of the 1980's, because it was definitely one of my favorites of the decade, and it remains one of the favorites of my personal collection. It's the best album from Mike Scott and company, nearly perfect in every way, with an often bombastically big sound (one of the band's trademarks). Yet it's a very organic record, relying primarily on acoustic instruments, including some very capable fiddle work from Steve Wickham (especially on the hard-driving "We Will Not Be Lovers"). And it wears its Irishness on its sleeve. The engaging title track may be familiar, as it has been used more than once in movie soundtracks. And there's an awful lot more to like here, from a masterful cover of countryman Van Morrison's "Sweet Thing", to more traditional-sounding tunes like "When Will We Be Married?", to a heartbreakingly beautiful musical treatment of the Yeats poem, "The Stolen Child". This is one of those albums I revisit every once in a while to remind myself how wonderful it was. And it still is.

I first discovered this album in 1990 while I was in college and it is still a mainstay in my regular CD rotation. The Waterboys are one of the most underrated bands of the 1980's, and they produced some of the decade's most eclectic, interesting music. Fisherman's Blues is unlike any other album you will own. It has a little rock, a little soul and a little traditional Irish music. How many albums can you say have that combination? The album was recorded in Ireland and is chock full of top notch Irish instrumentalists. The band's main man, Mike Scott, is actually Scottish, but it is hard to believe it here. Songs like the title cut, When Ye Go Away and an almost note-perfect interpretation of Van Morrison's Sweet Thing are unforgettable. The album isn't totally flawless, but it has a special place in my heart, and if I get in my Irish music mood, I dig it out, mainly because a little Irish music goes a long way and there is just enough here.

I find it amusing that somebody would write a one star review for this album because it's not a blues album. One would think that it would go without saying that an album with a cover photo of a band with accordions and mandolins isn't going to be Lightning Hopkins or Robert Johnson. Then there is always a little bit of research that could be done before buying it. Google is your friend.

Anyway, this is a remarkable piece of work. I first bought it (on vinyl, no less) back in the fall of 1988 shortly after its release and wore it out (although I still own that copy) before replacing it on CD circa 1992. Over the past 17 years I seriously doubt that there has been a month go by when I haven't given this at least 2-3 spins, often more.

This is glorious stuff -- from the opening title track, to the exhilarating closer, "The Stolen Child" and all points in between (including a glorious cover of Van Morrison's "Sweet Thing" and luminous "And a Bang on the Ear") this is music that nourishes the soul and lets the spirit soar.

It has been said that at any given moment, somewhere in Dublin there is a busker singing a song from this album. I wouldn't be surprsied. It really is that good.

It's hard to express what an album can mean to you. Although I have stacks of CD's, this is among the most cherished because it strikes a raw emotional chord in me that remains undiminished after years of listening. It ranks up there with Joni Mitchell's "Blue", Fleetwood Mac "Rumours", Cat Steven's "Tea for the Tillerman" and Van Morrison's "Moondance".
Why? Because there are very few albums that retain their artistic value over time; a truly great album weaves a tapestry, that goes beyond a quick hit and a bunch of filler.

"Sweet Thing" is the best remake of a cover song I've ever heard - it soars. All of the songs leave you feeeling as if you've been on a journey.
I have decided that when I die, I want "When Ye Go Away" to be played at my funeral. It evokes an image of the sea, poignant farewells, and the haunting fiddle that is just slightly buried in the mix stirs something in me that nearly makes me weep, despite having heard it hundreds of times. This CD is so precious.

It seems that everyone that writes a review can recall THE moment when they "discovered" the Waterboys. Mine was in the winter of 1985 in the basement of pizza bar. It was just the music video for "The Whole of The Moon" but I remember it as clearly as the day I first heard my future wife's voice outside my window. It was one of those moments when everything around you stops and all of your senses, all of your imagination is captured by one thing.

Then I remember when I thought I had outgrown The Waterboys. I remember thinking I was no longer interested in the moody, lyrical, depressing 80's alternatives. I was ready for more improvisation. More musicianship. A more human range of feelings. Then I heard Fisherman's Blues and I realized that I hadn't outgrown them; they were growing up in front of me. Musically, they were showing me the way.

This is unquestionably the best live band I've ever experienced, and it was when they were touring in support of Fisherman's Blues that I first saw them. Back then I was with Phish (remember when they needed a little help loading the van)? I was with Blues Traveler the night Bill Graham died. I've remember meeting Carter Beauford (Dave Matthews Band) and Santana and others back in those days. There was Big Head Todd. There was Greg Brown. There was U2. There was Widespread Panic. They were all great musicians and great shows.

But you must mark my words. This band tops them. It is the only band that allows the music to overcome the salesmanship. The experience transcends the commercial machine. It is true, human, funny, tragic, folk, rock, blues, improv, and polished showmanship in a single show.

I hope you are able to experience it for yourself.

I really can't believe someone wrote a one star review for this album because they thought it was a "blues" album. My faith in humanity is only salvaged by albums such as this one. This is the kind of album that can truly change your life. I bought Fisherman's Blues when it came out and have not stopped listening to it yet. It is an album that seemed to capture a moment in the lives of truly impressive and talented people as they were going through life changes. Truly transcendent.

If magic lives anywhere in the world, it must live in music like this.

The original Fisherman's Blues is one of my 10 most played CDs and has been since I first heard it in 1990. The blend of Celtic, English, country, blues, and rock influences intertwine flawlessly. It is hard to categorize, but its power and brilliance are evident in every song. It is a timeless recording of vision, subtlety, and energy, on a par with Van Morrison's Astral Weeks. It touches me in a way that few CDs do and I keep coming back to it as some sort of musical touchstone. The new release has so many wonderful additional tracks, all of which add to the original. I understand that there is a lot of additional material from these recording session. If they release the 4 CD box set of Fisherman's Blues, I will grab that as well.

It is no small wonder that a song as raw and charming as this album's brilliant title track was recorded in the 80s, a decade of such excess and tasteless production as to have permanently altered the landscape of the music industry. Yet, for all the sideshows that passed for "music" throughout those years of awful haircuts and clown makeup, this album sounds conspicuously like the real thing: a festival of acoustic guitars, accordions, organs, fiddles and slide-mandolins lifted to the heavens on the glories of Mike Scott's unmistakable vocals. No one can say "whooo-hooo!" with as much conviction as that man, hooting, hollering and scraping his way through the beautifully bombastic "We Will Not Be Lovers" and the piano-hysterical "World Party." Opening as it does with four consecutive masterpieces, this album joins another Irish triumph, U2's "The Joshua Tree," as one of the most perfectly sequenced albums in rock history -- up there with Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" or Lou Reed's "New York." Though the album's momentum slows gradually with the progessively bland "Sweet Thing" and "Has Anybody Here Seen Hank," it never loses sight of its muse. Tunes like "The Stolen Child" or "Strange Boat," while hardly the album's most interesting compositions, still command a clarity and urgency almost unheard of throughout the decade from which they so improbably emerged. "Fisherman's Blues" is that rare thing: an album that smacks of as much relevance and power today as it did the day it was released.