Customer Reviews

Hands Across the Water-Benefit for the Children of

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This collaboration brings together nearly a hundred American roots musicians and their Celtic counterparts in service of fundraising for the victims of the December, 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. Between two dozen studios on either side of the big pond, overflowing computer networks, telephone lines and email streams ferried ideas and material that were knit into these sixteen tracks. What's truly amazing, given the patchwork nature of the album's assembly, is how smoothly the players integrate within and across tracks. The material flows smoothly from track to track, and though these aren't typically live-in-the-studio performances, the musicians are pulled together by both purpose and shared musical roots. Highlights include Darrell Scott's "This Beggar's Heart," a demo that was movingly overdubbed by the band Danu with fiddle, banjo, whistle and a harmony vocal, Tim O'Brien's reading of the traditional "Fair & Tender Ladies" with Lunasa providing the backing, the high harmonies of The Brock McGuire Band with John Cowan for "Cumberland Plateau," and the closing duet of Jerry Douglas' dobro and Ciaran Tourish's whistle. This is a tremendously thoughtful album in support of a tremendously worthy cause. [©2006 hyperbolium dot com]

This is an outstanding musical salve to the pain of the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami. Overwhelmed by the devastation Nashville bluegrass fiddler Andrea Zonn suggested to Irish music producer-player John Cutliffe that they draw on their musical acquaintances to do something to help. A year later, this music, the Anglo-Celtic source of America's Appalachian stream, represents hope for healing: in Zonn's words, ''Profound moments in time to help rebuild the lives of children we may never meet.'' Indeed, it deserves the accolade ''prayer in voice and instrument''. If the statistics of the tsunami were

staggering, noteworthy too are figures involved in bringing to fruition this transnational project: 27 recording studios, 29 studio engineers and more than 100 musicians from Nashville to Glasgow to Sydney (on tour in Australia, Michael McGoldrick and Donald Shaw recorded flute and accordion

respectively for Beth Nielsen Chapman's "Be Still My Soul", from a theme by Sibelius). This is typical of the methodology: on "Fair and Tender Ladies" Tim O'Brien is in Nashville, Lunasa are in Dublin; the effect is seamless. This alluring collection closes on a note of surpassing beauty, "In the Sweet By and

By", where the aching tones of Jerry Douglas' dobro blend with the ethereal

whistling of Ciaran Tourish, fiddler with Irish traditional band Altan. (This is an edited version of my review which appeared in The Age newspaper, Melbourne, Australia.)

A rare collection of soul-centering songs by multiple artists; all the more remarkable since it was thrown together and engineered in hurried response to the tsunami. Includes the most sublime renditions I've heard of "Ae Fond Kiss" and "Fair and Tender Ladies", the latter also being the best by Tim O'Brien I've heard.

The CD that I was sent was scratched. When I informed the seller, he responded immediately. He replaced the used CD with another CD. He did this quickly.

The seller took responsibility and corrected the problem in a timely manner.