Irish Press bits

[SEAN_TWOMEY%TWOMEYS@acadamh.ucd.ie%Internet@csgi.com (SEAN TWOMEY)]

I have been meaning to pass on these bits from Irish mags so here 
they are !

Donal Lunny ( the producer of Common Ground ) , has been very active 
in promoting the album in this country . Even in the week after 
release when on tour in Hong Kong , he was doing phone interviews on 
Irish radio .The most prominent media item has been a large three 
page feature in Ireland's biggest music paper Hot Press in their 29th 
of May edition .

Liam Fay , the writer of the article comments that the album is 
"arguably the most unblemished and cohesive of the star-studded 
co-operative musical ventures which have become so ubiquitous of late 
........a strenuous contender for Irish album of the year ."

In the interview  there is much mention of Kate and the following 
passage is lifted direct off the feature :
                      .......................................

" For Lunny , the agreement of Kate Bush ,with whom he had laboured
before ( most notably on her Hounds Of Love album ), to come aboard
was crucial to the realisation of the whole undertaking . "Kate had,
via Bill Whelan, assembled a group of Irish musicians to play on a 
number of her albums," he asserts. "I know Bill developed a close 
friendship with her which is more than I've had time or opportunity 
to do. But Kate and I did have a couple of very nice phonecalls since 
we last worked together. When I rang her up about this, her interest 
was immediate. That was very gratifying. She had taken a year off 
from work of any kind and this was bang in the middle of it. she 
opened herself to several weeks' work by taking it on, maybe more 
than she bargained for. I knew she'd be good and she didn't give up 
until it was right. She's a real joy to work with. She is 
exceptionally considerate and thoughtful with people. Add to that how 
much she cares about what she does and the fact that she will not do 
something unless she feels she can give of her best. Hats off. She's 
a wonderful woman " Ms. Bush's contribution - a fiery interpretation 
of Mna na hEireann - as gaeilge ( IN IRISH - Sean ) - may well prove 
to be among the most contraversial cuts on Common Ground .
"She was very excited with the idea of singing the Irish in a way 
that Irish speakers would understand," explains Lunny. "And of 
conveying the meaning of the song through the sounds of the words. I 
helped as much as I could. She had Sean O SE's recording of Mna na 
hEireann as reference. She was as faithful to the pronunciations as 
she could possibly be. It was with characteristic care and attention 
that she approachhed it. She did not stint one bit. Of course you'll 
get people saying , `Oh ,you'd know she doesn't talk Irish straight 
off '.You wouldn't  know it straight off. I would defend her efforts 
as being totally sincere. No matter how perfect she gets it, she's 
not an Irish speaker .This may rankle with some people ."   

                 ...........................................

Indeed in another recent review Kate gets slagged ( there's always one 
!!! ) for exactly the same reasons which Lunny  suspected she might 
but this review seems to be a reactionary piece to the Hot Press 
feature :

        " There is too much hype surrounding this album, in which I 
probably originally participated, interviewing its producer Donal 
Lunny, for this newspaper. Then we had the Late Late Show special, a 
three page feature in Hot Press and claims that it is a contender for 
title of "Irish album of the year ". As a musical mix of artists who 
allegedly are equally at home in the "common ground" of rock and 
Irish music, it is, at best, richly resonant along those lines, at 
worst ,mediocre .Bono and Adam Clayton setting Tomorrow in a more 
acoustic setting than their previous recording of the song is the 
former and Kate Bush fumbling her way through Mna na hEireann, is the 
latter .Likewise, Andy Irvine's My Heart's Tonight In Ireland which is 
as clumsy as it's title , while Maire Brennan, Sharon Shannon, 
Christy Moore and Paul Brady occasionally rescue a project that was 
obviously full of good intentions but finally falls far more often 
than it soars."               JOE JACKSON - The Irish Times

        ..............................................

I can assure you that this was the only bad review I've come across 
of Kate's song and as a reasonably fluent speaker of Irish I can 
totally back up everything Donal said about the job Kate did with the 
lyrics !
Hot Press officially reviewed the album two issues after the feature 
and while it had some reservations about the project, it describes 
Kate's track as " impressive ". The Late Late Show TV special was very 
good featuring many of the artists BUT NOT KATE ! . The highlight was 
Sinead's stunning Raglan Road .

If anyone didn't get the info on the history of the track I will 
gladly forward it to them !

I will try to dig up something nice I have at home that Larry Adler said 
about Kate on SKY TV when The Man I Love came out !I'm not sure if 
anyone has it ...... it's a short but sweet quote that I didn't read 
in Homeground !

PHEW ! I am not used to typing so I'm going for a cuppa !!!!!!

SEAN : )