Shannon Shines from the Mountain Top
By Sean Laffey
Special to The Irish American Post

Sharon Shannon and her band are coming to America in March. Nothing surprising in that, of course. It's the month that's in it which attracts Irish bands to celebrate St. Patrick's month with the Diaspora. But there is more, her U.S. tour will be interrupted by a few days sojourn in Japan (which is mad for Irish music). Her new album, The Diamond Mountain Sessions, has gone platinum in Ireland. Tapping into the popular culture, it was a major departure for Shannon since the album includes songs from a raft of American singers.

In May, 1989, Sharon Shannon began a three-day recording session in Winkles Hotel in Kinvara...a few friends dropped by... a year's touring with the Waterboys intervened and her first album was released to critical acclaim in 1991. Now almost 10 years later, Shannon spends a fortnight in Letterfrack, a few musical friends drop by and she's out touring with her own band the Woodchoppers, déjà vu?

A philosopher's stone has touched the alchemy in her current album. It's a back to basics album: full of swinging tunes, simple arrangements and infectious fun. For the first time songs are included, guest singers are Steve Earle (Galway Girl), John Hoban (Slan Le Van) , Jackson Brown (A Man of Constant Sorrow,) not a patch on the Four Men and A Dog version on Barking Mad IMHO), The Hot House Flowers ( On the Banks of the Old Pontchartrain), John Prine and Mary Staunton (Love Love Love). From that list, you are right to guess the songs have a distinctly American flavor. The big hit song must surely be "Say You Love Me" with Dessie O'Halloran from Inish Boffin.

The tunes are as eclectic as ever, from a Carlos Nunez opener to a pair of Liz Carroll fiddle reels featuring Liz and Yvonne Kane. Shannon demonstrates her complete mastery of the box one "The Diamond Mountain," a tune composed of interlocking triplets, where she stitches in the notes seamlessly with her sister Mary (on mandolin). The old Sharon is present, too, on "The Four Jimmy's," a wall of sound that wouldn't have been out of place on "Each Little Thing."

It says on the CD, this is probably the best album of her career. For once the hyperbole is actually an understatement. Fans will love it and she will make many enthusiasts out of the casual buyers and the simply curious.
Shannon rarely performs without some guest or other. Following this album, there will surely be some attempt to bring on a few of her heroes when she tours the U.S. next month. Shannon is hardly likely to touch home ground for some time after her Stateside tour, the day I was typing this I got a call from the Falun Festival in Sweden asking me to arrange a contact for them with her manager. Will she go Nordic later this year?

The Diamond Mountain Sessions is another "tomorrow the world" album, a bit like a second coming for Sharon Shannon. It is another record to break boundaries, another milestone to establish the way point for contemporary Irish music. But as with everything, she does it with great finesse. The music is always wholesome and true and above all fun.

"It's all friends, heroes, it's just amazing for me to have been able to get everyone together. What I was trying to do was to show how well old-style traditional Irish music can be married with other styles of folk and contemporary music," Shannon said.

"You know there are no boundaries for these musicians and singers when you hear Dessie O'Halloran and John Hoban perform alongside Jackson Browne and traditional singer Mary Staunton dueting with John Prine. I'm just really happy it happened and I hope people enjoy it," she said recently at the Irish Music Magazine Awards night where she opened with long time collaborator Donal Lunny. 

Her own touring band, The Woodchoppers, is named after a Quebecois reel she picked up from La Bottine Souriante. It's a big and gusty outfit with Lloyd Byrne in charge of a full drum kit, Tony Molly on electric bass and Jim Murray on guitar. She shares melody lines with her sister Mary (banjo, mandolin and fiddle) and the two Keane sisters on fiddles. The sound is nearer to a Celtic folk than straight traditional, this distinction not being lost on the audience the last time I saw them live.

"Would ye play a bodhrán!" one wag shouted out during a polka set where the drums had obliterated Mary Shannon's banjo. In some of Shannon's numbers, there seems to be an over-simplification of the tunes to accommodate the oppressive drum beat. There are some well-known and respected players in Ireland who feel she is straying a bit too far into simplified and amplified Celtic Folk. "Losing the lovely traditional tunes she was so comfortable with," I heard one agent say of her music.

These minor criticisms aside, there is enough old stock in the live show to keep the audience on the hook: ""Bungee Jumping," "Tune for a Found Harmonium," "Rathlin Island" and a new version of "The Blackbird." Of course, there are those American flavored songs. Sharon Shannon absconded to the seaside for a huge house party with a host of famous musicians , what emerged is perhaps her most commercial and fun album to date.

It's a long way up the mountain from Joe Cooley, but it's one heck of an exhilarating ride down.

Sean Laffey is editor of Irish Music Magazine, Dublin. His web page is www.iol.ie/~didly-didly.
 
 

Sharon Shannon and her band embark on a tour of the United States and Japan through March and April. Before visiting the East Coast and then on to Fukuoka, Osaka and Tokyo, stops include: Saturday, March 3 - Memorial Hall, Racine, Wis. Monday, March 5 - Fitzgerald's, Berwyn, Ill. Tuesday, March 6 - Grammers, Cincinnati, Ohio Wednesday, March 7 - The Ark, Ann Arbor, Mich. Thursday, March 8 - Little Brothers, Columbus, Ohio Friday, March 9 TBA, Cedar Rapids, IowaA Saturday, March 10 - Coronado Theatre, Rockford, Ill. Sunday, March 11 - Cedar Cultural Centre, Minneapolis, Minn. Tuesday, March 13 Brandon Valley Perf. Arts Centre, Brandon, S.D.