The delight in passing on songs by one singer to another is writ large in this immensely imaginative collection.
Mary McPartlan used her Fulbright scholarship to mine the rich seam that is Kentucky musician and song collector Jean Ritchie’s song store.
As a Fulbright scholar herself, Ritchie undertook a similar quest here in the 1950s. The real beauty here is in the transmutation of songs across the Atlantic.
McPartlan collaborates with jazz pianist Bertha Hope and the finest Irish musicians who meld Irish traditional tones with US folk, jazz and blues.
Seamie O'Dowd's fiddle is a joy on Pretty Saro, and the song most closely associated with Bess Cronin, How Can I Live (at the Top of a Mountain) is a miracle of acoustic blues-tinged guitar overlaid by McPartlan's uncluttered style. A multilayered gem.
