Live From Celtic Connections 2019

Nearly a quarter of a century on and this group is still corralled by Shetland fiddler Aly Bain and his old pal, accordionist Phil Cunningham plus Dobro (resonator guitar) player Jerry Douglas. Their post-Celtic Connections tour, somewhere between a Nashville songwriters-in-the-round gathering and a trad session, has become an annual highlight for roots music fans. This year found the terrific house band, boasting the likes of John McCusker, Michael McGoldrick and Donald Shaw, joined by Nashville-based and home-grown guests ranging from ace songwriter Gretchen Peters, roots hero Tim O'Brien and bluegrass sensation Molly Tuttle to Scottish folk guitarist Paul McKenna and the golden-voiced Cara Dillon. On a recording from the tour's first night in Glasgow, the banter has been understandably excised and Dillon is only heard on backing vocals. But otherwise this seems a fairly representative, if necessarily truncated, version of the show, with the guests taking the lead on a couple of their songs each, interspersed with some blistering sets and reels.

Highlights include Gretchen Peters' brooding opener ‘Black Ribbons’, inspired by the disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and Cunningham's moving instrumental tribute to the late Irish folk pioneer Liam O'Flynn, ‘So Long Liam’, with Tuttle's rousing ‘Take the Journey’ bringing proceedings to an appropriately generous and joyful close.