April 2006
The unity has to do with a few key performance and production qualities throughout: clear, straightforward folk-style singing with emotion appropriate to each song’s content; mixing that showcases the vocals so the lyrics are always distinct -- especially important for songs by a great poet; and polished and succinct instrumental parts, with no extended jams. The tracks were culled from a much more extensive series whose continuity must have posed quite a challenge: The Complete Songs of Robert Burns, a 12-CD archive, also from Linn Records, recorded and released between 1996 and 2002. Not having perused the entire set, I cannot say whether the consistent excellence of the performances on this album reflects their superiority to others among the total 360-plus tracks, but it is hardly conceivable that the obvious love and devotion that produced Highlands could have let any clunkers get through. One possible frustration some fellow folksingers might share with me: Burns wrote in dialect that makes so many of the songs difficult for us parochial Americans to add to our own repertoires. I look at the bright side: With a fairly homogeneous modern English sweeping the human world, this collection is a rare gem to cherish for its own inherent beauty. GO BACK TO: |
Various Artists - Robert
Burns: My Heart’s in the Highlands
