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THE CHIEFTAINS
Further Down The Old Plank Road
Victor 82876 52897 2
"An album so nice they made it twice," says the inner sleeve of this sequel to last year's Down The Old Plank Road, a project whereby indefatiguable musical collaborator Paddy Moloney seamlessly integrated Nashville's top pickers and crooners with a bunch of cross-cultural material and the unmistakeable sound of the Chieftains. American interest was so great that the recordings extended far beyond original expectations and generated more than enough material for two albums.
Actually, it's The Nashville Sessions Part 3 if you take into account 1992's Another Country, where Moloney first explored the intrinsic musical connections between the Emerald Isle and Star-Spangled Bannerland. Further Down … continues the story in sprightly and atmospheric form, marrying Ulster ballad with country twang and minstrel tune with Celtic vibe, while Child Ballads spawn Appalachian variants and Newfoundland ditties tell their salty tales in jig time.
Where banjo dominated on volume one, resophonic guitar figures large here, underpinning lots of tracks and starring on a set of tunes by maestro Jerry Douglas. Doc Watson's furiously picked Fisherman's Hornpipe is the instrumental plateau while song plaudits go to a roistering Raggle Taggle Gypsies from Nickel Creek and the lonesome wail of Patty Loveless' Three Little Babes. Also tripping down the road with the Irish fellas are Chet Atkins, Carlene Carter, Roseanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, John Hiatt, John Prine, Ricky Scaggs and more, along with a further host of top drawer musicians (Sharon Shannon, Béla Fleck, Jeff White) tucked into the mix. Slightly less impact than volume one, to these ears, but still bags of down-home appeal.
Mel McClellan - September 2003
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Folk & Acoustic
