CityLife

Transatlantic Sessions

By Paul Taylor

Transatlantic Sessions
Bridgewater Hall
February 2, 2010

ONE of the jewels in the crown of BBC Four has been the Transatlantic Sessions – a kind of folky United Nations, convened in a Scottish mansion where the various luminaries 'leave their ego at the door'.

The genial interplay between players from both sides of the Atlantic makes for engaging TV. It's also been a key event in Glasgow's Celtic Connections festival, and is now hitting the road for the first time.

What we have here is a musical reunion of the Celtic diaspora – positive proof that it's not that far from the back room of an Irish bar to the porch of an Appalachian mountain shack.

With 18 musicians and singers on stage, this was a constantly shifting line-up, MC'ed by Jerry Douglas, perhaps the world's finest dobro player.

Gentle humour

The musicians had come, said flute and Uilleann pipes master Michael McGoldrick, from Nashville, Scotland and Ireland.

“I got here on the Metro..three stops!” joshed the Manc, before playing a headlong flute melody which drew the biggest cheers of the first half.

Such gentle humour was in abundance, with Dan Tyminski – the singing voice of George Clooney in O Brother Where Art Thou? - musing on why all his songs are on such miserable topics, and Tim O'Brien threatening: “I'm going to play the banjo, but don't worry, it'll be over soon.”

Highlights? Fiddler Bruce Molsky deftly sawing his way through Rocky Road To Dublin and Indian Ate The Woodchuck; guitarist Russ Barenberg's lilting melody The Drummers Of England, swelling with accordion, bouzouki, dobro and pipes; Cara Dillon, fresh from winning album of the year at the BBC Radio Two Folk Awards, singing Garden Valley, a tremulous hymn of longing; Karen Matheson delivering a song in Scottish Gaelic about a mother mourning the loss of her baby girl, yet somehow managing to make us understand every word of it.

Muddying the folky Celtic waters somewhat, Jerry Douglas and Tim' OBrien delivered a storming bluegrass version of Hey Joe. And Darrell Scott gave us the stomping heavy-folk anthem, Banjo Clark, which tells of the banjo's voyage from Africa to America. But then that's a whole other musical melting pot story.

Reviewed: Wed, 03 February, 2010

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