MUDCAT CDs 2011 -- Wood
Produced by Barry (bradfordian)


Bring Down the Walls        4:30        Amos Jessup        
The Snows They Melt The Soonest        3:23        JHW        
Turkish Tune        7:22        John Porterfield        
Monkeys Wedding        1:29        Max Spiegel        
Agent Orange        4:14        Richenda Bridge        
The October Waltz        4:03        Steve Suffet        
08 Water and Beer TS        2:24                
Give Me the Roses, too        2:55        Laurel Woodsorrel        
The Promise Of The Sowing        3:43        Dan Schatz        
Shady Grove        2:17        Mark Clark        
John Riley        4:26        Nick Blair and wife        
Cleveland Hills        4:04        Tootler+Nick        
Let Me Breathe        4:03        Andrew McKay & Carole Etherton        
Email He Male        3:07        Yorkshire Yankee        
Wiscasset Schooner        4:43        Jacqui Morse        
Parting Glass JB        2:12                
Road To Ruin        3:45        Steve Robinson        
Die Lorelei MAG, Genie, Lorelei 4:00        Genie MAG Lorelei        
Ain't Got The Blues        4:15        Alan Moorhouse Band        

This is a really interesting CD which sparkles with brilliance from widely differing corners of the forest. Laurel's "Give Me the Rose" is a poignant tune reminiscent of Maria Muldaur's best work. Max Spiegel does a "Monkey's Wedding" which leaves you grinning at the bubbly whimsey. John Portfield's Turkish Tune makes you feel that you are wandering the casbah in Istanbul. Dan Schatz brings his beautiful voice and intricate picking in the American green song, "The Promise of the Sowing". The segue into the classic fiddle and banjo "Shady Grove" is dramatic and demonstrates the sweeping transitions from voice to voice and genre to genre that permeates the whole collection. The gentle duet on "John Riley" from the Blairs segues into a mystic fluting echo as Tootler and Nick bring out the "Cleveland Hills", a poignant modal instrumental.

Carol and Andrew dispel the mist of well-being with a beautiful rendition of the grim war song, "Let Me Breathe" which draws the listener into the very pit of the Flanders trenches. Just as he expires in agony, a jivy blues on the joys of internet flirting comes rollicking forward backed by Yorkshire Yankee's boogie woogie.

Another minute and you are lost on the rough seacoast of Maine, hearing Jacqui invoke the deathless images of the Wiscassett Schooners, only to be swept up by a beautiful harmony in three voices rendering "Parting Glass" as fairly as ever it has been done. A couple of cuts later you are swinging into some mixed up German English boogie boogie woogie declaiming "I Ain't Got The Blues". Every cut--I have not mentioned them all--does honor to the richness of the collection.

Anyway the result of this whiplash journey across the many continents of music is a delightful sense of enthusiastic potpourri and sentiment reaching across the pulsing spectrum of the whole human heart. I am proud to be a small part of this disk, and recommend it to you wholeheartedly. It's a keeper!

More to come on the other disks in this excellent collection from the sweat of Bradfordian's brow.

Regards,

Amos