Here is a draft of how I plan to run these-- comments wanted.

In future, each review will get its own thread by artist name & (if there is room) CD title. They will always include a link back to Joe's thread "Mudcatter CDs," where he can always update any purchasing information if your link changes. So be sure you post about your CD in that thread.

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Mudcatter musicmic writes for Tune-up, a membership publication of the Philadelphia Folksong Society. Here are his February, 2002 reviews.

~Susan

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The true and everlasting tradition of folksinging is the joy of do-it-yourself artistic expression. Concerts and clubs and CDs and radio shows are great, but real folk music is made for love and sung with friends and families. It is in the home and in those parking lot jam sessions that real folk music is made. Sometimes those informal institutions get recorded and sometimes I get to recommend them to you.

Alice Flynn lives in Boyleman, MT. She loves Irish songs, the old songs that Irish women have sung in their kitchens for centuries. She sings them with the voice of a fairy, with a passion and understanding. Her singing is unaccompanied so an audience might find her music bare, even empty, but such an audience would be missing the charm and purity of real Irish music, as real as I knew when I lived in County Wicklow. Alice's taste runs to the wistful and the woeful and the wonderful. (www.aliceflynn.com)

Celtic Crossroad is a Philadelphia band whose music is forged from talent, roots and spirit. Their first CD is a joyride through the best of Irish music. They sing with gusto and they play with abandon. Their music is irresistable. Their song selection couldn't have pleased me more. (Their only non-trad number is Cyril Tawney's "Grey Funnel Line", which may be the best composed "folk" song ever written). I love this recording, I really do. So will you. (I don't know where it can be got but I will find out. I love this recording)

ShoreGrass is an old timey/bluegrassy/contra-dancey band from the Connecticut seaport town of Branford. They play at the Branford Festival, the Branford Folk Music Society's Trinity Coffeehouse and, I have no doubt, at every venue in their fair community. Their guitarist is a retired projects manager, their fiddler teaches strings at the local intermediate school, the banjo player is a manufacturing engineer who once sang lead for a folk/rock group and their bassist is a photographer who used to play with the Greenbriar Boys. They sound like every group I ever heard in the parking lot at Sunset Park, which is to say they sound terrific. Their enthusiasm is infectious, their blend is sweet, and their repertoire is varied easy listening. I gave this CD the old dishwashing test and it lasted all the way through the dinnerware, even surviving the wok, which gets done last.

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For more information on Mudcatter CDs, CLICK HERE.

For more information about the Philadelphia Folksong Society, CLICK HERE.

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ARTISTS PLEASE NOTE: If you want me to post future Mike's reviews, please help me out by making sure that I have all the same information you send Mike:
Your Mudcat name and your name as it appears on the CD,
URL to a website if available, artist profile or link to it if it is here at Mudcat,
Location of MP3's if any,
Purchasing information (and plase let me know if it is a through a link that benefits Mudcat).
If you plan on giving Mudcat a cut of any Mudcat purchases please let me know how you would like that worded.
If you are featuring the item in the auction please let me know so that, if possible, the review post and the auction post can be linked to one another.

THANKS! Oh and if you e-mail me, put the word MUDCAT in the subject line or the spam filter will decline your message!

~S~

motormice@hotmail.com

Subject line: Mudcat CD Reviews