Here are just a few of the dozens of reviews that are in every issue of Dirty Linen. These are from issue #66 [Oct/Nov '96].

Altan
Blackwater
Virgin 7243 8 41381 2 7 (1996)

After years of endless touring and six top-of-the-field recordings, this premier Irish group has hit the majors. Altan's newest release, Blackwater, on Virgin Records, is as fresh, innovative and musically intriguing as anything that's come before.

Altan has remained true to their roots and commitment to traditional music. The album begins with a set of rousing Donegal jigs and concludes eloquently with a slow jig composed for Frankie Kennedy, the band's late leader and continuing inspiration. In between, they prove ¾ through instrumental intricacy and impassioned singing - that traditional Irish music is a music for the future as well as the past. The tune arrangements are full, rich, and energetic. All members of the band - Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Ciaran Tourish on fiddles, Ciaran Curran on bouzouki, Mark Kelly and Dáithí Sproule on guitars, and Dermot Byrne on accordion - contribute their own considerable musical strengths. Ní Mhaonaigh's songs are alternately fervent and melodically catching. Three of the songs (" 'Stór, A Stór, A Ghrá," "Molly Na gCuach Ní Chuilleanáin" and "Ar Bhruach Na Carraige Báine") beguile with their imaginative use of multiple voices, percussion, harmonica, and bouzouki. The other two ("Tá Mé 'Mo Shuí" and "Blackwaterside") are remarkable for the emotion they convey.

While a number of guest artists appear on Blackwater, their work enhances and ornaments the core band. Remarkably, the high calibre, high profile musicians they have chosen add vocals and instrumentation that pushes Altan, rather than themselves, further into the spotlight. Guests include Dónal Lunny, Steve Cooney, harmonica-ace Brendan Power, Tríona and Maighréad Ní Dhomhnaill, percussionist Jimmy Higgins, Mairéad's sister Anna Ní Mhaonaigh, and a string quartet (on the title song) that includes Máire Breathnach.

Newest member Dermot Byrne has become a well-integrated part of the Altan sound. In places, like the hornpipe and reels set entitled "An Gasúr Mór/Bunker Hill/Dogs Among the Bushes" he steps out with his accordion and sets the pace for the rest of the group.

Blackwater is an album that is sure to attract new listeners. And with three NAIRD Indie awards already under their belt, this sounds like Grammy material.- Maureen Brennan (San Ramon, CA)

The SimonThoumire Three
March, Strathspey, & Surreal
Green Linnet GLCD 1171 (1996)

One of the most interesting albums of Scottish music to showcase a squeezebox is Simon Thoumire and Fergus MacKenzie's Exhibit A. Thoumire, who has been a member of the Scottish band Seannachie, as well as a solo performer and a member of various small ensembles, is a brilliant concertina player. MacKenzie is a multi-instrumentalist and techno-wizard; he has a studio where he programs drum machines and lays down synthesizer grooves for popular dance music. Exhibit A is essentially an album that blends traditional music with what your record shop calls "Dance Music," that is, hip-hop, house and other jumping synth, bass and drum-driven musical styles. With a sound that recalls previous such experiments, like the early Mouth Music albums, Talitha MacKenzie's work, and Scottish band Tonight at Noon, Thoumire and MacKenzie have produced quite an enjoyable mix of tunes. In addition to concertina, Thoumire plays whistle and digeridu, which both add to the atmosphere. But it's his concertina that carries most of the melodies. You can tell that Thoumire's playing had to adapt itself quite a bit to this new environment; it's a little less wild and more deliberate than his other work, probably because of the regularity of the beat laid down by MacKenzie. Though traditional tunes are at the base of several of these tracks, they are given new names to suit their new identities as dance hall numbers; others I presume were written by the creative pair of musicians themselves. All feature strong rhythms and interesting textures as well as good squeezebox playing, and most pack quite a wallop!

Thoumire's quite busy making a name for himself in three or four different music fields, from hip-hop to bebop. Another of his recent projects is the Simon Thoumire Three, which combines traditional Celtic music with jazz. Formed back in 1993, this trio is made up of Thoumire on concertina, Kevin MacKenzie on guitars, and Simon Thorpe on double bass. Their second CD, March, Strathspey, & Surreal, is a beautiful set of music with the exploratory freedoms of jazz wedded to Celtic music's irrepressible lift and energy. At times, this can sound like Astor Piazzola meets Phil Cunningham, but mostly it sounds unusual enough to remind me of nothing else I've heard. Gloomy moods put in an appearance on such tunes as "Eddie Kelly's," which features eerie vocal and concertina drones under beautiful slow guitar work by MacKenzie. (Think of unusually high-pitched Tuvan throat singing backing a guitar and you'll have the idea.) Hardcore jazz gets its say on "Spare Parts," a tune with small melodic pieces that are repeated and varied like bebop, and, in MacKenzie's words, a "hard chord sequence that would confound Mr. Spock." But the predominant mood is fiery and fun; the spirited jigs and reels really cook on this disc, and I think Thoumire's concertina style, which is quick and a little wild, has a better opportunity to shine than it did on Exhibit A. In all, this is an album of great breadth and style, played by three terrifically talented musicians. - Steve Winick (Philadelphia, PA)

The Bill Frisell Quartet
The Bill Frisell Quartet
Nonesuch

Two distinctive composer/performers have spent a large part of the last decade looking for a "new Americana." Both Robin Holcomb and Bill Frisell have moved through jazz and experimental circles for many years, and always they have injected into their work, and the work of the musicians they associate with, a sense of history, of folkiness, almost, that has defined their work. In the last few years especially, they have gone headlong towards finding a new American music that isn't just a revival or assimilation, but a continuance of a trend that has included Copeland, Ives and many of the masters of jazz in the 40s and 50s.

Robin Holcomb's third Elektra release is Little Three, a moving, quiet companion to her more pop and rock orientations of the two previous song albums. Here she is alone, just her piano and sometimes her voice, telling starker tales that have an edge of melancholy and nostalgia tangled with a strange sort of new west optimism. Shamelessly derivative, as all folk processors are, Holcomb nearly quotes from every verse of the American canon, without ever actually playing a tune you know. Her song/stories evoke obvious ties to American classics like "Our Town" and "Rodeo," yet seem to move into a contemporary America ill-equipped to look back on its own history. Of the seven songs on the album, two alone feature lyrics, the moving "Graveyard Song" and the brief and romantic "The Window." The other songs are piano solos. Newfound Holcomb fans may be surprised by this, but since her career is primarily that of composer/ pianist, it is really an obvious path for her. The piano pieces still carry a lot of lyrical weight, and her playing and singing share a lot of the same faltering, breathy qualities. Little Three should be taken as a whole, a short novel about persons unseen and unnameable.

The Bill Frisell Quartet moves on a parallel course to Little Three, seeking some of the same inspirations, but moving them along in a far more aggressive fashion. If Holcomb plays the part of The Stage Manager, Frisell and his band play the roles of Kane and Kong, manipulating here, stomping there, taking their personal history of the American movement and hammering it like so many spikes into a rail siding passing ominous trash can fires and shady characters. Eyvind Kang provides a folky violin and a throbbing tuba. Ron Miles and Curtis Folkes plays the bandstand with trumpets and trombone, and Frisell's by now unmistakable guitar twanging provides the southern flavor needed, it seems, in every great American novella of the twentieth century. Jazz? Folk? The beauty of both Holcomb and Frisell is their inability to fit any of the general descriptions. - Cliff Furnald (New Haven, CT)

The Singing Campbells album represents the predecessor group to the famous and effectual Ian Campbell Folk Group of the 60s. This is truly a family group, including the future Folk Group members Ian and Lorna Campbell, plus senior members Winnie, Dave, and Betty Campbell and Bob Cooney. The lion's share of the recording is sung by the high, sometimes shrill, but always powerful voice of Betty Campbell, and the fine-grade sandpaper voice of satellite "family member" Bob Cooney.

One of the album's surprises is the singing of Winnie Campbell; having only two solo tracks on the album, her influence on Anne Briggs can be heard on her definitive versions of "Bogie's Bonnie Belle," and "Lady Eliza" (a more bloody Scottish variant on "Willie O Winsbury"). Lorna Campbell's voice is in a rich, pleasing, low register and both her solo tracks, as well as her duo tracks with brother Ian, are among the album's finest moments.

The ensemble's group singing was to influence the style of both the Fisher Family and the Watersons. Aside from serious folk material, there are a good deal of short, more whimsical, Aberdeen "street ditties" like "Fa, Fa, Fa, Wid Be a Bobby," "Skinny Malinky Lanlegs," "Foul Friday," and "McGinty's Meal-an' Ale."

The Stewarts of Blair album, first issued in 1965, represents one of the most popular showcases of Scottish traditional music of the time. Singer Belle Stewart was one of the tradition's finest and her unaccompanied renditions of "Dowie Den O' Yarrow," "Queen Amang the Heather," "In London's Fair City," "Caroline of Edinburgh Town," and "Huntingtower" all show an organic understanding of the material. Cathie Stewart possesses a higher and less craggy voice than Belle, and her rendition of "The Lakes O' Shillin" is breathtaking. Sheila Stewart's high, almost bird-like voice rounds out the trio of singers and is a perfect vehicle for "The Corncrake Amang The Whinny." Piper Alex Stewart accompanies sister Cathie on one tune and also plays on one solo track. The influence of his father, master piper John Stewart (one time piper to the Duke of Atholl) is very evident in his engaging playing. - Lahri Bond (Hadley, MA)

Kentucky-born mandolinist and fiddler Sam Bush has made a career out of taking bluegrass music on adventurous detours through places like Jamaica, Ireland and Motown, crossing paths along the way with good-time rock and country blues. After his years with the groundbreaking fusion band New Grass Revival and then with Emmylou Harris's Nash Ramblers, the always enthusiastic Bush seems to be focussing again on a solo career. With his state-of-the-art instrumental skills in both traditional and modern modes, his friendly country voice, and his imagination in arranging music both old and new, Bush has generally sounded great in any context. Glamour & Grits is no exception.

This disk isn't officially billed as a New Grass reunion, but it comes close in personnel and spirit as fellow alumni Béla Fleck (acoustic and electric banjo) and John Cowan (bass and harmony vocals) join Bush on many numbers, along with guitarist Jon Randall and drummer Larry Atamanuik from the Nash Ramblers. The two Bush/Fleck instrumental compositions that open and close the CD - the minor-key mandolin/banjo spin called "Whayasay" and the expanding fiddle jig called "(One Night in Old) Galway" - bring back the complex lick-trading interplay that was their old hallmark. What comes through on almost every one of the six instrumental and six vocal tracks is the underlying spirit of fun in Bush's music, whether he's chopping reggae mandolin riffs on a cover of Bob Marley's "Is This Love," leading a gospel harmony chorus on "The Lord Came Unto Me," or just country-rocking on "All Night Radio." It's fine stuff all around from one of the masters of modern bluegrass. - Tom Nelligan (Waltham, MA)

With its roots in West African music, plena ("the sung newspaper") is a style born in Puerto Rico a century ago which comments on the history of the Puerto Rican people. Since 1983 this incredible group of musicians has been playing together in this style, and the skill and expression they bring to it makes this a record that is simply a lot of fun to listen to.

Plena is a music greatly dependent on percussion. Hand-held drums are played in sets of three or more, and their melodic-rhythmic quality is the signature of this disc. Also, a call-and-response vocal technique lends a jubilant and lively layer over the heavy percussion.

With piano, stand-up bass and cuatro, a small 10-stringed guitar, there is plenty of melody to go along with all the drumming. Like its musical cousin calypso, Plena plays both the role of being a means of passing along history and luring your feet to the dance floor. Somos Boricuas is successful on all fronts. - John R. Bobey Jr. (New York, NY)

This is a reissue of two trail-blazing albums recorded by Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard in the mid 1960s, originally issued on Folkways Records in 1965 [Who's That Knocking?, 31055] and 1973 [Won't You Come Sing for Me, 31034]. Up to that point, women performers of bluegrass music were few and far between in a male-dominated field. If present at all, women usually played the bass and sang infrequently.

Hazel Dickens, from West Virginia's coal mining region and surrounded with old-time and bluegrass music as she grew up, and middle-class Californian Alice Gerrard, who discovered the music while attending Antioch College, met at music parties in the late 1950s in Baltimore. By 1962 they were working together with increasing regularity. They were approached to make a recording, Dickens says, and "...when we knew they were serious we got defensive and said we wouldn't compromise our music. We wanted to do the songs the way we wanted to do them. We were fiercely protective... To my knowledge, it was the first time that two women... picked out a bunch of songs and had guts enough to stand behind what they picked out and say, 'We're not changing anything; you have to do it or else.' " They got their way, and on a minuscule budget recorded the 26 spine-tingling cuts on this disc at two 1965 studio dates.

The ladies sing all the bluegrass parts together, Gerrard doing the lower part and Dickens taking the high tenor. The results are as memorable as they are groundbreaking - check out selections like "Distant Land to Roam" (a Carter family tune) and "The One I Love is Gone," a song specially given to them by its writer, Bill Monroe. Other tracks include Dickens' destined-to-be-classic "Won't You Come and Sing for Me," traditional songs, more items from the pens of Monroe and A.P. Carter, and covers of the Delmores, the Louvins, and Bob Wills, all done in fine bluegrass style. Instrumentally, Gerrard's on guitar, Dickens plays bass, and their sidemen are the all-star cast of Chubby Wise or Billy Baker on fiddle, Lamar Grier on banjo, and David Grisman on mandolin.

A 24-page booklet contains notes written for this reissue by bluegrass authority Neil Rosenberg, plus fascinating reminiscences from Gerrard and Dickens of how they met, the songs, the recording sessions, and the times surrounding them.

The importance of the musical contributions of Dickens and Gerrard have been recognized by, and influenced folks like, Kate Brislin, Naomi Judd, Cathy Fink, Bob Dylan, and others. Many of the current crop of outstanding women bluegrass stars such as Alison Krauss, Laurie Lewis and Lynn Morris follow the path blazed by Hazel and Alice. And that trail started with the classic material on Pioneering Women of Bluegrass. - Al Riess (Buffalo, NY)

Known in his country as "The Lion of Zimbabwe," singer Thomas Mapfumo has forged a sound all his own over the years, and this 71-minute compilation brings us the highlights of his "Chimurenga Sound" from 1978 to 1993. Musically, chimurenga is steeped in the rhythms of the traditional mbira thumb piano, with electric guitars carrying these rhythms. Lyrically, the content of many of his songs are morality tales that speak in metaphorical terms, just like songs from Mapfumo's Shona ethnic heritage. Politically, chimurenga is the music of struggle which arose to Zimbabwe's forefront when that nation fought for independence in the 70s.

The dozen selections were penned by Mapfumo, and include material from two bands he fronted, Blacks Unlimited and The Acid Band. Instrumentation features electric guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, mbira, and sometimes a horn section and/or chorus singers. Although some borrowing from other African music styles - soukous and mbaqanga - is going on here, Mapfumo's music is not as wild and overpowering as those genres can be, but just as compelling. Highlights are the danceable "Hwahwa" ("Beer") with its horns chorus, the deliberate "Serevende" ("Without End," the cry of an orphan) with its repetitive, mesmerizing mbira/guitar lines, a faster-paced morality tale "Mhondoro" ("Ancestral Lion") with insistent, chattering guitars, and an allegorical folktale with half-sung, half-talking vocals. Good explanatory notes and summaries of the songs are included, but no translations of the lyrics. Chimurenga Forever is an excellent introduction to the work of this unique artist. - Al Riess (Buffalo, NY)

The musical career of James Chimombe began before he was out of his teens. He started out as rhythm guitarist for the Acid Band, a group which also served as a proving ground for the influential Thomas Mapfumo. This collection of greatest hits spans his most prolific decade and a half from the mid-1970s until his death of AIDS in 1990. Chimombe's style derives from such diverse sources as rumba, mbaqanga, and American country-western, but always sounds distinctly Zimbabwean. His sweet, light vocals are perfectly framed by the high, lilting guitar lines and the tastefully arranged horns. Many of the cuts here are straight Zimbabwean pop, a couple are almost pure C& W ("Kudadwashe," "Masutu"). A fun, danceable collection.

If Chimombe's music is intended to make you dance, Mapfumo's will make you think while you're dancing. His music, a roots style known as Chimurenga, has a darker, more serious sound than Chimombe's. There is less Western influence here, more drawing on African traditions. Some of the songs are traditional folk songs with themes of social commentary. Mapfumo's own compositions expound on the political situation in Zimbabwe, with a few love songs interspersed. The infectiously repeated guitar licks are pearl-like. While the light touch on the drums and the smooth horns keep us in the realm of pop music, the call-and-response vocals give the music a more traditional tribal quality appropriate to the political and social content of the songs. Any collection of African pop music should contain these two releases. - Peggy J. Latkovich(Cleveland Heights, OH)

Pressgang is another in the line of English bands who present traditional music in a rock and roll format. Their latest disc, Fire, showcases traditional and original songs backed by electric guitar, bass, and drums, with piano accordion and whistles to add a folky touches. The material includes a moody and atmospheric reading of "The Cutty Wren," a rap/punk hybrid rendition of "Hard Times of Old England," a pair of Morris tunes with electric guitar solos and heavy rhythm guitar and bass, and other modern takes on folk music. Their original songs include one on the outbreaks of madness that medieval towns suffered through psychoactive bread mold and one, called "Stain" that is a pure teen angst pop song, except that its run-of-the-mill English pop vocals are backed only by an accordion. In general, they have a similar concept as the Oysterband, but they aren't as musically refined; instead they have a punky "bash-it-out" style that has its own appeal. The best tracks on this CD, like the traditional song "Flanders," can stand up against most folk-rock acts around today, but the weaker tracks are a bore. There's a lot of room in the genre, though, and Fire has a few interesting moments. - Steve Winick (Philadelphia, PA)

And here's a few from the "Shorts" review section!