Are any of you all familiar with Loreena McKennitt’s work?
I’d never heard any of it until this week. A couple at church said they’d bought this cd and did not like it, were trying to think of someone who might and of course they thought of me
Anyway, it is a cross (to me at least ) of new agey/crossed with a bit of middle eastern/indian stuff on some tracks. If you are familar with Dead Can Dance it’s a bit similar.
Anyway, what thrilled me about this Live in Paris and Toronto cd is that it has Alfred Noyes poem" The Highwayman" set to music. This has always been a favorite of mine since I first read, and studied the illustrations in Childcraft books I had as a kid. I just got back from my brother’s to retrieve the volume that had the poem .
You can do a search for her name and find the official website which has sound bits of her recordings and has a bit of The Highwayman on there.
Plus Samain, Beltane tunes, The Blacksmith(my favorite will always be Steeleye Span’s take on that one).
So if you are not so immersed in ITM that you can’t bare to infect your ears with anything else( I’ve been there too), give this a listen. Especially “The Highwayman”!
Well I tend to agree with you that they are not " amazing"- but, The Highwayman I do think is a cut above the rest. Of course I could be slanting this a bit, since it’s such a favorite poem of mine.
I’m a long-time fan of Loreena, but she sort of lost me when she almost entirely abandoned the harp. Her earlier work included a lot of traditional songs, as well as poems put to music. My favorite albums are probably “The Visit” and “To drive the cold winter away,” which is mostly just her singing and playing harp, recorded entirely in cathedrals.
Phil Ochs also did a fine version of The Highwayman, sung more as a love song than an adventure.
Possibly because I’m far from a traditionalist, I have a wide and eclectic taste in music. Loreena McKennitt’s “The Book of Secrets” has long been among my top ten or so favorite CDs. I was originally drawn to it mostly by The Highwayman because I like story songs, but over time La Serenissima (the somewhat Algerian fusion piece) has probably become my favorite even though it is just instrumental. To me, it’s almost ideal in demonstrating how a group of musicians can sometimes interact to create a whole that is far more than the sum of it’s parts.
The only song I ever heard of hers was Mummers Dance way back when on VH1 when there was a video released. I loved it. I am more into the newy agey stuff than hardcore dry IrTrad anyway.
P.S. Lorenzo, is that you in your avatar? You’re so hot with that axe, woman.
I LOVE Loreena’s music!! She says on her website that she has finished travelling through Mongolia and staying with shepherds and sharing music with them. She is due to release a new CD in 2005. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with.
I love her voice and the creativity of the arrangements in her music. It’s very emotional and haunting music, and it’s a fascinating blend of different culture’s sounds.
I too “Dig” Loreena M., as well as a similar group called ENIGMA. Both of these groups deal with the transition period between the “Old Pagan” and “New Christian” times. My Favorite cut is “Marco Polo” because I like to play my Dumbek and Tabla’s with it(oops, my “Old Hippie” is showing).
Brownja: did you know that Loreena’s “Mummers Dance” uses the unusual Hurdy-Gurdy as a primary instrument? It is combined with the mono-tone “Whit-Horn” and “Shepherds” reed pipes in several cuts. I love the sound of rare unusual instruments! Like the string drum{tambourine a’chordes}used in the “Zoom-zoom-zoom” commercial.
I like her version of Greensleeves, and I also like The Lady of Shallot. I used to listen to the album those are on about 10 years ago when I was in a very difficult relationship…I would drive around at night, my heart heavy, and listen to her music.
I never thought of the hurdy-gurdy as unusual. It’s just a dulcimer with funny strings, a rosin wheel, and. . . okay, it’s unusual. I guess it’s not all that common, but I was a little surprised when a bunch of people I thought were reasonably musically literate wondered what that thing was in the Mummers Dance video.
Andy Irvine plays it (presumably he picked it up during his years in Central Europe), and Planxty combined it with pipes on a few cuts.
Hmm- I could be wrong here, (I usually am), but if memory serves, I don’t think Loreena McKennitt’s version is the entire poem either.
I’m pretty certain she leaves out the “fourth verse” of Noyes’ poem, the one that mentions “Tim the ostler.” That verse to me, is pretty critical to the poem itself, as it seems to be he that “rats out” the Hihgway Man."
Also, isn’t there one more verse at the end of Noyes’ poem that she doesn’t sing about?
I haven’t thought about this for a long time, so I could be way off base here, and if so, sorry. Could be I just didn’t hear the song correctly. Even if I’m right, it is still a fabulous song, in my opinion.
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