The Complete Songs Of Robert Tannahill (Volume 1)

*****

available on Brechin All Records: brechin-all-records.com
robert-tannahill-songs.com

Review by Jack Foster

For an album which promises to resurrect a 19th century poet's work, one might expect some rather stuffy, po-faced recitations - not so - Dr Fred Freeman, whose accolades already include The Complete Songs Of Robert Burns (all 12 volumes) - has brought together an eclectic mix of top flight artists from the Scottish Folk scene and beyond. The album opens and closes with two of the most heartfelt and poignant of Tannahill's songs - 'Fly We To Some Desert Isle' and 'I'll Lay Me On The Wintry Lea'. Emily Smith's performances on the album are emotionally charged and compelling stuff, whilst the Likes of Ross Kennedy and Wendy Wetherby bring to life, the more "jaunty" of Tannahill's songs, such as 'Hey Donald, How Donald' and 'Coggie Thou Heals Me'. And with the likes of Sandy Brechin, Aaron Jones, Anna Massie and Mike Vass as intstrumentalists, this is a well polished first volume and is surely one which Tannahill would have been proud of.

Hopefully this album (and it's subsequent volumes) will have the effect of bringing Robert Tannahill's writing back to the fore, as Dr Freeman says "...it's been suppressed for hundreds of years."

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