By Earle Hitchner
NO STRANGER, by Seán Keane, Grapevine 250
Caherlistrane, Co. Galway, singer Seán Keane doesn’t wear snakeskin boots, a Stetson or a string tie. But over the course of three solo albums now, he’s shown a growing predilection for country music. Though it’s popular in Ireland and America, and Keane certainly seems to enjoy singing it, his voice isn’t really suited to the inflection needed to explore what lies beneath a good country lyric that is simple, not simplistic. This new recording has at least three tracks that are unmistakably influenced by American sounds of the South, and none stands out.
The album kicks off with "A Crooked Mile," written by Mick Hanly of Moving Hearts and later Rusty Halo repute, and the acoustic guitar, harmonica, drums, and bass behind Keane’s voice produce a rather rote, line-dance rhythm. "I’m No Stranger to the Rain," a song penned by Sonny Curtis, offers electric and acoustic guitars, drums, and Tommy Hayes on percussion in a Texas shuffle of a song that falls far short of the 1988 hit single by the late Keith Whitley. And the approach to "Like I Used to Do," composed by former Hot Rize leader Tim O’Brien, limply conveys a feeling of back-porch introspection and mint-julep melancholy, despite the expert fiddling of the Nashville Bluegrass Band’s Stuart Duncan and the piquant mandolin touches of O’Brien.
Keane shows a much surer grasp of non-Irish material on Bob Dylan’s "Lay Down Your Weary Tune," which O’Brien cut on his own "Red on Blonde" solo album three years ago. Dylan based the song loosely on an untitled Scots melody, and the arrangement here mixes guitar, bass, drums, fiddle, mandolin, Johnny Óg Connolly’s button accordion, Tommy Hayes’s bodhrán, and Tommy Keane’s uilleann pipes. All of it works splendidly, too, in particular Seán Keane’s vocal, straightforward, clear, and cumulatively powerful.
Sting’s "Fields of Gold" has Nollaig Casey on fiddle, Arty McGlynn on guitar, Tommy Hayes on percussion, and Keane doubling on lead vocal and tin whistle. But this version, frankly, adds nothing to the original. (To hear a truly transcendent cover of this song, listen to the late Eva Cassidy on either "Songbird" or "Live at Blues Alley," both available on Blix Street Records.) And Keane’s attempt to immerse himself in "Killing the Blues" merely comes off as killing time musically.
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Where he blossoms is on the Irish traditional song "May Morning Dew," backed by an uncloying synth and, toward the end, a tin whistle, and "Galway," a lovely musical setting of an Oliver St. John Gogarty poem. The latter features fine harmony backup from Seán’s sister Dolores, brother Matt, and Jim Rooney, who produced the album. (A playing partner of bluegrass banjoist Bill Keith during the early 1960s, Nashville resident Rooney has authored books on folk, bluegrass, and blues.)
Seán Keane also does "Lullaby," a song he used to sing in concert with the Irish traditional band Arcady, who recorded it in 1991 with Frances Black. Co-written by country singer-songwriter Dan Seals, "Lullaby" gets a little too lush in the strings department here, but overall it’s an appealing version, capped by a fine lead vocal from Keane and subtle backup from his two siblings.
Also featuring "Like the First Time it’s Christmas Time," a Tommy Sands song celebrating the promise of peace in Northern Ireland that became a popular staple of Irish airwaves late last year, "No Stranger" is country, Irish traditional, pop, and folk wrapped in too neat a commercial package. Seán Keane has one of the most expressive, most compelling voices in Ireland today, but it is not always well served by the choices he made on this recording. One of these days, voice and material will mesh for an entire album. Then, watch out.