Search - Chieftains :: Chieftains Collection: Very B.O. Claddagh Years 2

No Hype -- Just the Finest "Best of " Chieftains Collection

John Andrew Miller | New York, NY USA | 08/02/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There are several "best-of" Chieftains compilations, released on a handful of different labels, but this one is the best. This record, as well as the other Claddagh Chieftains releases, tends to get overlooked in the record store bins in favor of the the flashier Columbia and RCA discs. This is a shame, since the Chieftains did some of their purest, most exhilarating recording for Claddagh.These recordings were made long before the so-called "Celtic Revival" of the Riverdance-era, for a traditional music label who respected the music too much to march a never-ending parade of celebrity singers through the Chieftains' studio or design New Agey covers for their albums. The bare- bones production on this disc does a far better job of capturing the Chieftains' energy and inventive arrangements than the later state-of-the-art recordings. This is most apparent on "Carolan's Concerto", a tune the Chieftains have recorded several times in their career with the likes of James Galway and the Irish National Orchestra, but never as well, and to such dramatic effect, as they did here -- playing by themselves, in a quiet studio without benefit of reverb or extra musicians, elevating Carolan's simple tune to a soaring masterpiece."