Milestone

Dave Donohoe has made a host of friends during his years on the session scene, and an impressive selection of them turn up on this debut album. Niamh Parsons joins him for an a cappella duet on ‘The Briar And The Rose’, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh pens the liner notes, and other guests include Paul Kelly (with a great solo mandolin backing for Tim O’Brien’s ‘Walk Beside Me’), Mick Kinsella, Oisín MacCauley and Eamonn De Barra. Freed from the strain of trying to be heard above pub din, Dave’s voice displays a new level of subtlety and sensitivity here. The attributions could have been researched a trifle more thoroughly: for reasons too complex to go into, it’s not entirely correct to say that the “McPeake Family” authored ‘Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go’, and ‘The L & N Don’t Stop Here Anymore’ was written by the great American folksinger Jean Ritchie – not “Geene Ritchie” as the credits indicate, and certainly not Michelle Shocked as stated in the liner notes! But that’s a small quibble. This is a lovely CD.