By Earle Hitchner
SOLAS and MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER. At Tramps, NYC. May 20.
How did Sheila O’Leary acquit herself as a guest vocalist with Solas in their first concert together? The answer is easy: notably well.
With little more than two weeks of rehearsal behind her, the Kerry-born singer exhibited considerable poise and control this night, lending a lower-register expressiveness to Woody Guthrie’s "Pastures of Plenty," her initial song. When you consider that it was something of a signature number for Karan Casey, Solas’ recently departed lead singer, O’Leary’s performance was all the more gallant and laudable.
In a 40-minute opening set by Solas, she also sang "The Grey Selchie" with impressive delicacy and "My Johnny’s Gone for a Soldier," a version of the well-known "Siúil a Rún," with just the right pace and lift. What further distinguished this last song was the band’s five-part harmony — full, rich, tight. It’s possible that with Casey’s departure, Solas will rely more on hitherto hidden harmony talents.
Instrumentally, the band was at the top of their game. They began the night with a four-reel medley collectively called "The Beauty Spot." From slow and contemplative, it shifted into Mick McAuley’s nimble-fingered button accordion playing and then into some high-powered ensemble work.
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Another tune grouping, called "Patsy Tuohy’s," demonstrated the same drive, and the concluding medley of "Paddy Taylor’s/McFadden’s Handsome Daughter/The Narrowback/Frank’s Reel/Esther’s Reel" featured a round-robin of solos that brought the house down. Seamus Egan on flute, banjo, and guitar, Win Horan on fiddle, John Doyle on guitar, and McAuley on box delivered one knockout medley after another an skillfully backed O’Leary on the songs.
Princeton-born Mary Chapin Carpenter, part of a folk-tinged progressive country movement during the last decade, sang with a four-piece band that included bassist John Jennings, her longtime collaborator, and drummer Dave Mattacks of Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull repute. With seemingly inexhaustible stamina, she sang for nearly two hours straight before an adulatory audience.
On her Grammy-winning, Cajun-spiced "Down at the Twist and Shout," Carpenter brought out County Derry fiddler Frank Gallagher as a guest, and another Grammy hit for her, "I Feel Lucky," radiated with carnal good humor.
"Shut Up and Kiss Me," "I Take My Chances," and Lucinda Williams’s "Passionate Kisses" are all songs about women asserting what they want — and when and how. Even in "He Thinks He’ll Keep Her," a blistering narrative about marital complacency ending in divorce, Carpenter replaced the deflative last line of "Now she’s in the typing pool a minimum wage" with the jubilant "Now she’s in the swimming pool, sipping pink champagne."
The most poignant song of the evening was "John Doe No. 24," based on an obituary Carpenter read of a blind, deaf, and mute homeless man. The most hilarious was an encore song, "If I Were a Diva," a bull’s-eye excoriation of Mariah, Shania, and Celine, complete with tics and affectations. The other encore songs Carpenter sang — her own "Can’t Take Love for Granted," Mick Jagger’s "Party Doll," Van Morrison’s "Real Real Gone," and a brooding ballad-like rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s "Dancing in the Dark" — memorably capped the night.
For those who enjoy top-tier Irish traditional music as well as challenging country songs heavily flavored with rock and folk, run, don’t walk, to a Solas/Mary Chapin Carpenter concert between now and July 23.
May 26-June 1, 1999