Album review: Various: The Original Transatlantic Sessions

Published on Sunday 18 October 2009 20:01

FOLK VARIOUS: THE ORIGINAL TRANSATLANTIC SESSIONS, VOL 2 WHIRLIE RECORDS, £11.74 * * *

THE Transatlantic Sessions concept dreamed up 16 years ago by film-makers Douglas Eadie and Mike Alexander has proved very successful, on television (the fourth series is on now) and in concert presentations at Celtic Connections.

This CD is the second of three drawn from that gathering in Ayrshire in 1993, and the last is due soon. The idea was to bring together singers and musicians from Scotland and the Americas in a casual but intimate setting, and allow them to do their own thing and to interact in various combinations, with Aly Bain and Jay Ungar as musical directors.

Big names abound, including Emmylou Harris, Iris Dement, the McGarrigles, Dick Gaughan, Mary Black, Guy Clark and Rufus Wainwright, who was not well known at the time, as well as a host of great instrumentalists – and it still sounds pretty good.