Coppers & Brass

Album Review

Solo guitar arrangements of traditional Irish and Scots folk tunes will generally tend to appeal strictly to aficionados, and that's certainly the case with this album by acclaimed folksinger Dick Gaughan. He originally recorded it in 1976 and released it on the British label Topic in 1977. But even if the starkness of these arrangements virtually ensures that the disc remains in the Celtic music ghetto, those who love this type of music already will find much to enjoy. As well as being a top-flight singer, Gaughan shows himself here to be a very fine fingerstyle guitarist, delivering highly idiomatic arrangements of such tunes as "O'Keefe's Reel," "Jack Broke the Prison Door," and the lovely "Planxty Johnson." His set of 6/8 marches ("Alan MacPherson of Mosspark/The Jig of Slurs") is self-accompanied with a dry and heavy open-string drone, but on other tracks he is accompanied by a piano (a poorly recorded one, unfortunately). Strongly recommended to Celtic music fans.