Luka Bloom

Tied to — but by no means bound by — his immaculate folkie pedigree, Dublin native Luka Bloom carved his own path by seeking his fortune in America, where he honed his skills as a triple-treat guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Luka's impulse to whoop at the beginning of "You Couldn't Have Come at a Better Time" speaks volumes; if hope is the thing with feathers, then love, Luka-style, comes factory-equipped with an Atlas V rocket. They say to get noticed, zig while others are zagging, but who would have guessed Luka would delve into the LL Cool J songbook, cutting a truly inspired — and pillow-talk-intimate — cover of "I Need Love." And converting a bad bout of tendonitis into an opportunity to set down the steel string, his hushabye ballad "Be Still Now" pulls the curtains away and reveals a poet's soul. In Next Steps, Luka travels from Ireland to Hawaii in search of the perfect cover.

Mike Scott of the Waterboys wrote "Sunny Sailor Boy," a Ulysses-like meditation on mermaids and homesickness that features Luka's sealskin smooth ooh-wah-ooh-wah in the chorus lapping gently like waves against the hull of a seafaring ship. Ever since Elvis fluttered tropical palms with his version in Blue Hawaii, "Can't Help Falling In Love" has been covered by everyone from UB40 to Michael Bublé; Bloom dials back the dramatics to uncover the song's smoldering obsession. And if any song begged for understatement, "The Water Is Wide" would have to be on the short list; with nothing more than a nylon-string guitar and a voice that catches just the tiniest bit at precisely the right moment, Luka reminds us that love is a double-edged sword that can wound as easily as protect. In Deep Cuts, Luka unpacks his pen as well as his pick.

Because Bloom is such a mesmerizing performer, it's easy to overlook the fact that, like fellow Irishmen Bono and Van Morrison, he's no slouch with the pen. In "Mary Watches Everything," Luka tiptoes into the cloistered life of a woman whose only window on the world — and maybe her only remaining rope to sanity — is her television screen. "Homeless" from the Tribe album, unreels like a grainy, gritty documentary, eavesdropping on Luka's internal dialogue about the sharp contrast between the life on the road and life on the street in modern-day Hollywood. And if ever a son paid his parents a debt of gratitude for their love and devotion, the reflective "Thank You For Bringing Me Here" is it — a wispy gauze of half-remembered images of a more innocent time.

Given that he's blessed with a best-in-show musical pedigree, movie-star good looks, and the fastest right hand of any Irish guitarist in history, it's a little bit surprising that the young Barry Moore had to follow in the footsteps of so many of his countrymen to seek his fortune across the sea. But that's exactly what he did, emerging from his legendary brother Christy's shadow, landing in Washington, D.C. and rechristening himself Luka Bloom (the "Luka" from Suzanne Vega's hit and the "Bloom" from Leopold Bloom, a character in James Joyce's Ulysses). Over the course of a dozen albums and more than 30 years of bringing crowds to their feet, Bloom has planted roots deep in the Irish tradition while deftly avoiding the trap of being mired in antiquity. Like Bob Dylan or Van Morrison, he uses the culture that he's been steeped in to shape a truly timeless vision.