Customer Reviews

There Were Roses

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

 

 

I had forgotten how wonderful this recording was when I recently came across it in a long-disused cassette case. (It was on CASSETTE for pete's sake--does anyone remember what that is?) I popped it into my dusty old player and the rolling cadences of "I Will Leave This Town" washed over me for the first time in perhaps 15 years. For a short while, I was back to my folk song-singing days again.

"There Were Roses" has become a standard on the Irish ballad scene, but this is the recording that made this song popular, and if it doesn't move you, you are made of wood.

This CD is a rare recording for me to enjoy in one important sense: it features the accordion as a lead instrument. Keane's virtuosity on the instrument is (a) why he's playing with two of the best in the business in the first place and (b) why the instrumentals on the CD don't remind me of someone strangling a cat at the bottom of a garbage can. This is how accordion is supposed to sound.

O'Connell and Moloney's voices aren't an intuitive match. You have to listen for a bit before you "get it." But their harmonies appeal to something primal in me, the thing that draws me to this music in the first place. The sound is rough and smooth at the same time, and the vocals do not usually disappoint.

I say not usually. The harmonies on "Here I Am From Donegal" are the glaring exception to this otherwise faultless recording. They sound dashed off, unrehearsed, maybe even improvised on the spot, a fact made all the more disappointing since they seem to be rather uncomplicated. The song itself is good enough that it doesn't matter, but it's what keeps me from giving this disc 5 stars.

I'll have to buy the CD of "There Were Roses, I guess. I can afford it now. Back in 1986 when I bought this cassette, I was nearly broke, single and working as a musician. For just a brief while, listening to this, I was back there again. And it's better the second time around.

A masterpiece of Irish Folk music, but little less can be expected from a master such as Mick Moloney. These songs will move you, energize you, and leave you humming them happily all day long. This will quickly become a favorite in any collection of Irish Folk Music.

I don't know how I ever built up such a large collection of Celtic music, but this disk is one of my favorites. The songs are perhaps a bit sentimental even for Irish folk music, but they are superbly sung. "There Were Roses" is of course deeply moving. Moloney is one of the best Irish tenors. I had the pleasure to hear these artists live at a folk music festival in Gambier, Ohio, back in the 1980s, when I purchased this disk.