HOW GREEN IS MY MUSIC?

GREEN FIELDS OF AMERICA
The Green Fields of America
Compass 7-4495-2

Since its founding in 1978, The Green Fields of America been akin to the Almanac Singers in that it’s more of a guild than a permanent group. It was and remains the brainchild of Mick Moloney, who uses it to showcase established and rising Irish musical talent. The current iteration spotlights Athena Tergis (fiddles), Billy McComiskey (accordion), and Robbie O’Connell and John Doyle (guitar, vocals), with Moloney on banjo, mandolin, and vocals. Add guest musicians such as Jerry O’Sullivan and Bruce Molsky and let the celebration begin. The material mirrors the immigrant experience in it that it’s a blend of familiar and sentimental songs (“The Rambling Irishman,” “The Bonnie Irish Boy”), newly composed tunes, political songs, and mutt genres. At outstanding example of the latter is “The Glendy Burke,” a Stephen Foster song that’s a cross between John Hartford and an Irish music hall ditty. Still another is “The Catalpa,” a Fenian song whose action takes place in America, Australia, and Ireland and which borrows liberally from all three musical traditions. In like fashion the circling dancers on “The New Irish Barn Dance” would be equally at home in Connecticut or Connemara. And give a careful listen to Robbie O’Connell’s bittersweet Blasket Island farewell “The Islander’s Lament,” as well as the rollicking rendition of “Across the Western Ocean.”

For a clip of Doyle, Moloney, and Tergis click here.