On this wonderful album, Glasgow-born contemporary folk singer-songwriter Eddie Reader unites with the spirit of Robert Burns, the 19th century rural Scottish poet-ploughman, putting his truthful, heartfelt verse to her own melodies with the help of a stunning array of folk musicians and the majestic power of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Doing what Anuna did for our own lyrical poet Francis Ledwidge with their album Behind The Closed Eye, Eddie Reader acts here as an ambassador for a dead poet, whose tender cheeky words and sentiments ring true in the modern age. Writing in the generous booklet that accompanies this CD, Reader captures the enduring appeal of ‘Rabbie’ Burns: “At school I learned some of his poetry but I often thought he was for the highbrow and not the likes of me, the hardly educated council estate girl. Now I see that I was wrong and that I am precisely the person Burns wrote for. As I read more and more about him, I get the sense that he was the same as the rest of us, a spokesman for the glorious in the ordinary, the sublime in the mundane.”

The combination of orchestral and folk forms on this, Reader’s sixth solo album since her Fairground Attraction days, is a beautifully fitting way to express a poet’s sublime insight into the ordinary and everyday. Moving from love airs and laments through bawdy pub songs and traditional ballads, Eddie Reader Sings the Songs of Robert Burns is an amazing tribute to a very special poet, a father of nine who died in 1796 at 37. It’s also a brilliant showcase for the evolving powers of Eddie Reader’s street-trained three-octave voice and writing skills.