Celtic Connections: Enjoying many happy returns

Published on Sunday 25 January 2009 19:54

As well as new faces, Celtic Connections has seen plenty of old friends join the line-up this year, giving the festival a rich mix

SATURDAY

CHARLIE McKERRON TRIO

****

RECITAL ROOM, CITY HALLS, GLASGOW

KICKING off this Saturday teatime show with a 20-minute medley, this stellar three-piece – Capercaillie's Charlie McKerron with A9 accordionist/guitarist Tim Edey and Blazin' Fiddles guitarist/singer Marc Clement – elicited as much variety, drama and multi-layered colour from the interplay between them as from the tunes themselves.

The trio's joint weight of experience means they have a vast panoply of styles and influences at their disposal, and they're clearly still relishing the creation of fresh permutations.

As well as the effervescent synergy of their ensemble jousting, each member took his individual turn in the spotlight, with the contrasting standouts of Edey's implausibly fast yet richly musical accordion composition, Baltic Crossing, and Clement's poignant rendition of Dylan's Dark Eyes just a snapshot of their collective calibre and range.

SUE WILSON

KATHY MATTEA/ DEAN OWENS

****

CITY HALLS, GLASGOW

GRAMMY-winning country singer Kathy Mattea was one of the first big US stars ever to grace Celtic Connections, building on links to Scotland already forged in her collaboration with Dougie MacLean and her involvement in the BBC's inaugural 1994 Transatlantic Sessions project.

Refreshingly down-to-earth despite the premier league Nashville credentials, she could hardly contain her delight to be back at the festival, declaring herself half-way minded to "just cancel the rest of the tour and camp out here for a week".

Her return was earned not just by bankability, though, but also by last year's album Coal, a back-to-roots project that saw Mattea explore the music of her family's native mining country.

The material – together with ultra-classy accompaniment on guitar, mandolin and double bass – foregrounded the rawer, rootsier dimensions of Mattea's style, all the better to appreciate both the blues/gospel power and nuanced expression of her justly celebrated voice.

Singer-songwriter Dean Owens's tautly poetic, Leith-brewed blend of Americana, folk and pop influences, together with the hauntingly distinctive, slow-burn intensity of his singing, made for a compelling support set, from the elegantly strung-out desolation of Blue Decemberto the Celtic-hued balladry of current album title track Whisky Hearts.

SUE WILSON

BROKEN FAMILY BAND

**

ORAN MOR, GLASGOW

IF THERE is one concerning aspect about this year's Celtic Connections programme, it's the addition of artists who display not even the most tenuous Celtic connection. Case in point: the Broken Family Band.

A dour, black-clad outfit from Cambridge whose songs about booze, drugs and love gone wrong are stuck firmly in the same key, they bestow the look of a support band.

A few years ago, the Broken Family Band's (loosely termed) alt-country leanings had the late John Peel championing their literate, blue-collar style of music. Today, however, they've mutated into a visceral Pixies pastiche, that ultimately sees the band become entangled in a mundane battle with their identity.

They could be playing indie tonight, metal tomorrow and back to alt-country by next weekend. One thing's for sure, though: they're not a Celtic-connected band by any manner of means.

BARRY GORDON

AULD LANG SYNE

***

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL

DESPITE claims of only last-minute rehearsals backstage, there was a well-drilled familiarity underscoring this concert, which brought together the cream of the Scottish folk scene under one roof to celebrate the songs of Robert Burns and mark the official start to the Year of Homecoming.

An effortlessly intuitive band composed of the usual (and very welcome) suspects, with Phil Cunningham and John McCusker leading the charge, were joined by a rolling revue of well-loved singers whose style of interpretation divided roughly down gender lines.

The fragrant lassies – Karen Matheson, Eddi Reader, Emily Smith and Karine Polwart – generally offered up pure, pleasant and pretty renditions of Burns' love songs, while the grizzled old stagers – Dick Gaughan, Michael Marra and Dougie MacLean – brought passion and personality to their selections, from Gaughan's favourite Now Westlin Winds to Marra's sparse, sincere Green Grow The Rashes, O.

This was clearly not going to be the place for any radical reinterpretation of the Burns canon, although James Grant's snoozy lounge-blues rendition of The Slave's Lament stuck out for the wrong reasons.

The veteran US folk singer Odetta died shortly after her guest appearance at this concert was announced, so we can only imagine the gravity and resonance she would have brought to the proceedings.

But the ensemble channelled her spirit for an uplifting communal rendition of O Freedom, which turned out to be one of the emotional highlights of a night that played it safe but pleased the soul.

FIONA SHEPHERD

FRIDAY

EDWYN COLLINS WITH THE BLUEBELLS

*****

ABC, GLASGOW

THIS was one of Celtic Connections 2009's most inspired line-ups, with The Bluebells reforming especially to support the man whose influence they cite as their motivation for getting together in the first instance.

Edwyn Collins has, against the odds, overcome two cerebral haemorrhages suffered in 2005, to return to music. His recovery is still ongoing, but sell-out shows such as this, with the goodwill thick in the atmosphere, will be just the therapy he needs.

Opening, Bluebells singer Ken McCluskey prowled the stage camply in a corduroy suit and billowing white shirt, and the band's jaunty two times top ten hit Young At Heart sounded timelessly joyful.

The crowd whooped it up for Collins out of much more than mere charity: this was a storming performance by any standards. He was stool-bound for most of it, and his patter remains stilted, but that distinctive singing voice has remarkably survived intact.

A new post-illness tune was debuted – the Motown-y I'm Losing Sleep. The oldies were attacked fearlessly, from the scratchy white-boy funk of Rip It Up to the rattly post-punk of Blue Boy.

His band were also first-rate, especially former Aztec Camera man (and Collins's best mate) Roddy Frame, on guitar.

MALCOLM JACK

YOUSSOU N'DOUR

*****

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL

ALL power to Donald Shaw for extending the reach of Celtic Connections as far as Senegal and for enticing superstar Youssou N'Dour to Glasgow. N'Dour's well-balanced set oscillated between hit dance classics, such as Birima, Set and 7 Seconds, from his formidable back catalogue, and some impassioned praise songs from his north African-influenced Egypt and border-crossing Rokku Mi Rokka albums.

As a modern ambassador for his continent, N'Dour adopted a low-key image, leaving his band, the Etoile de Dakar ("The Dakar Star") to wear the African robes. His own casual dress only served to underlie the accessibility of his music's message, as did his singing occasional lines in English as well as Wolof, from Senegal.

With a somersaulting dancer moving in time with him, N'Dour delivered an invigorating, celebratory set, his glorious tenor voice soaring over compelling cross-cutting rhythms from sabar and tama drummers and mesmerising riffs from his guitarists.

The packed crowd responded decisively to the deep spirit of his mbalax music. It was an exhilarating performance that showed that N'Dour has crossed into the mainstream without compromise.

JAN FAIRLEY

NU-NORDIC NIGHT

***

STRATHCLYDE SUITE, GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL

CURATED by Ewan MacPherson of the Edinburgh-based Fribo, this lively showcase sought to awaken its audience to the cross-pollination and ongoing vivacity of the Nordic tradition.

Fribo's Sarah-Jane Summers accompanied Annlaug Borsheim on fiddle and Californian folk-classical cellist Barry Phillips for a liltingly graceful introduction, before UK-Scandinavian five-piece Baltic Crossing presented a Schottish set from Finland and Norway and a Finnish quadrille entitled Space Cowboy.

On guitar and nyckelharpa (part hurdy-gurdy, part violin), Ian Carr and Niklas Roswall picked up the polska tradition, including the punchy, irregular Gahn Blenk!.

Finally Fribo, augmented by Borsheim, the flute of Silje Hegg and Gaelic singer Naomi Harvey, plus Anne Sofie Linge Valdal's vocals, gave an all-too-brief taste of their eclectic sound, before a mass encore by the entire ensemble.

JAY RICHARDSON