Reviews

Excellent New Album from Sean Keane

Mike Harding.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/folk   9th January 2009

It was shortly after I started presenting the folk show- sometime way back in the mists of antikitty- that I got a phone call inviting me over to Galway for the launch of a new Sean Keane album. I knew Sean from his early work and was a great fan.

The launch was in the Roisin Dubh in Galway City and Sean was in terrific voice and the night was really inspirational. The man truly has a great voice - warm and yet edgy at the same time - and a way with songs that can only come from being steeped in and loving the tradition.

I played his version of the Sting song `Fields of Gold` on my programme last Wednesday ( I still think it ranks up there with Eva Cassidy`s version as a real classsic), and by serendipity, a new CD from Sean arrived a few days ago called `The Irish Scattering`. It`s a recording of a live concert performed in Galway celebrating not just the terrible Diaspora follwing the potato famine of the mid-nineteenth century, but the other journeys the Irish have made; the wandering scholar monks who kept learning alive during the Dark Ages, and the Irish soldiers like the Enniskillen Dragoons who left Ireland to fight in the bloody European Wars.

The CD is a great record of what sounds like a brilliant show - Mairtin O`Connor, Tommy Keane and Arty McGlynn are just three of twenty or so singers and musicians who worked on the production. I hope it tours over here sometime - if it does, I will of course, let you know.

Hot Press Review September 2008 - CD  `The Irish Scattering`

A History Lesson in Song

This CD is a handsome souvenir of a themed concert of Irish music staged in Galway this year and featuring a dazzling array of Ireland`s premier league musos, including Mairtin O`Connor, Tommy Keane and AArty McGlynn. Keane himself brings his empathetic voice to add pathos and sentiment as appropriate to a selection of songs that could serve as a crash course in the Irish diaspora from 500 AD. Among some familiar trad songs you also get Kieran Wade`s evocative `One Way Ticket`, and Don Stiffe`s `Grosse Ile` which records 5,500 dead on arrival in Canada.

Unlike too many singers from a trad background, Keane sings songs as if he`s fully aware of not only their lyrical intent and subject matter, but of their historic importance. This can be best sampled on `Far Away in Australia`and `Fare Thee Well Love` , the latter a touching duet with Fionnuala Deacy. The absence of artificial sentimentality brings an undercurrent of subtle power to the show, and suggests `The Irish Scattering` could travel as far as the emigrants it honours.` (Jackie Hayden)  4 Stars/5

Key Track - Grosse Ile

Irish Examiner.Review September 30th 2008 - CD `The Irish Scattering`

On this, a live recording culled from two performances at Galway`s Black Box last March, Keane and a cast of more than 20 explore the stories and songs of the Irish Diaspora.

With a core backing ensemle of Arty McGlynn, Seamie O`Dowd, Mairtin O`Connor, Rick Epping and piper Tommy Keane, the Caherlistrane man trawls through a deep well of song to celebrate and draw attention to the experiences of the Irish abroad.

Though the theme of this album is emigration, Keane also acknowledges immigration on James Gorham`s `The Shipyrds and Gdansk`, a modern tale of Polish migrants on the trail of the Celtic Tiger. Ole Belle Reed`s `High on a Mountain`, an old-timey classic, and `Shenandoah` pay tribute to those mainly Ulster migrants who settled in the Appalachians, while the superbly crafted Mairtin O`Connor instrumental, `Montserrat`, commemorates the 50,000 who were banished to the Caribbean following Cromwell`s reign of terror in the seventeenth century.

`Far Away in Australia` recognises Antipodean expatriates, and the final track, `Journey Round the Sun`, written by Kieran Wade, neatly ties up a worthy project. With `The Irish Scattering,` Sean Keane appears to have found his voice.

Deftly using his unique and unadulterated singing talent and merging it with pertinent material, he has finally achieved an elegant musical symmetry.

Gerry Quinn

The Belfast Telegraph - Review of Live Show at Whitla Hall 18th October 2008

Highlighting in both song and story the influence that the dispersed and displaced Irish peoples have had on the culture and music  of every land that they  emigrated to over the centuries, this massive project - conceived, produced and lovingly performed by Sean Keane with painstaking accuracy and respect -  is a classic and important piece of work.

Originally staged for a recording for both a CD and a DVD, the show transported seamlessly on this opening night of its inaugural tour and is certainly something that Keane could easily tour successfully to almost any country in the world for- as the piece demonstrates- the Irish are everywhere.

In its present form, the show relies on the great performances of Keane and his musicians and dancers, and on the sheer quality of the included songs and tunes, but - although not trying to be another Riverdance - could potentially develop to such commercial heights with higher production values and the right producer.

As a nod in honour and celebration of  Ireland`s millions of emigrants who have `scattered`to all corners of the world since the Middle Ages, including builders, writers, singers and musicians, soldiers, fishermen, navvies etc. the collection of songs and tunes may vary from up-tempo to ballad and from sad to joyful, but all are appropriate to the theme.

Full marks must go to Keane and his band, including Mairtin O`Connor (accordion), Tommy Keane (pipes), Sean Regan ( fiddle, backing vocals, mandola), Pat Coyne ( guitars, backing vocals), Anth Kaley ( keyboards), Jimmy Higgins (percussion), Fionnuala Deacy and Sandra Joyce (backing vocals).

While almost every item on the programme is a highlight, `Fare Thee Well Enniskillen`and `Shenandoah`had particualr significance to Ulster audiences, and Keane`s demonstration of dyddling and clicking (by fiddle player) really stood out.

Damien Murray

Older Reviews of Previous Work

`The finest singer of his generation` - Q Magazine

 ``Could you imagine anybody, anywhere in the world, having a voice like Sean Keane`s? It`s so distinctive, so Irish, so full of the West of Ireland that it might as well wear a badge. The brogue is easy and rounded, the voice honeyed, rich, thrillingly expressive and relaxed.`- The Irish Times

`Keane traverses a broad repertoire,with his background in trad and folk in happy union with various musical styles... he effortlessly blurs the lines between the genres. His distinctive voice is paramount` - Hot Press

`He is truly an awesome singer, a phenomenon` - Living Tradition.

`The non-pareil of his generation` - Rock`n Reel.

`Sean Keane, like an Irish Tony Bennett, ahs the ability to just take over a song and make it his own. His innate and awesome musicality allows his voice to transcend his traditional origins and produce stunning re-interpretations of material as diverse as Stings `Fields of Gold` or Paul McCartney`s `Blackbird``- Irish Evening Herald

`Keane can join Willie Nelson, June Tabor and Glen Campbell in that club of truly great and distinctive song interpreters` - Mojo

`A champion in the complicated art of songing unaccompanied Gaelic laments` - News of the World.

`Sean Keane has a unique and terrific style. When Ron Hellard and I wrote `No Stranger to the Rain`, we imagined it being done with the same quality of sound and feeling that Sean brings to it. He`s a real class act.`- Sonny Curtis.