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Put your hands on the remote! browse music »Sweet Reunion by Chuck McCabe
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fave it Country Folk | Folk Blues
14 tracks | 43 minutes
Released Feb 2006
on Blah Blah Woof Woof
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- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 01:00 The Minstrel Boy lyrics BUY MP3 01:00 The Minstrel Boy lyrics "GIFT MP3" 01:00 The Minstrel Boy
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:07 Grandpa Played Softball lyrics BUY MP3 04:07 Grandpa Played Softball lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:07 Grandpa Played Softball
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:36 Gone to Utah lyrics BUY MP3 03:36 Gone to Utah lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:36 Gone to Utah
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:23 The Junk in Murphy's Yard lyrics BUY MP3 04:23 The Junk in Murphy's Yard lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:23 The Junk in Murphy's Yard
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:28 Deliver Us From Evil lyrics FREE 04:28 Deliver Us From Evil lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:28 Deliver Us From Evil
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 01:15 Reunion Hymn lyrics BUY MP3 01:15 Reunion Hymn lyrics "GIFT MP3" 01:15 Reunion Hymn
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:12 Erin the Fair (and Caledonia the Brave) lyrics BUY MP3 04:12 Erin the Fair (and Caledonia the Brave) lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:12 Erin the Fair (and Caledonia the Brave)
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 02:11 Bonifay Rag lyrics BUY MP3 02:11 Bonifay Rag lyrics "GIFT MP3" 02:11 Bonifay Rag
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 00:22 Deliver Us (reprise) lyrics BUY MP3 00:22 Deliver Us (reprise) lyrics "GIFT MP3" 00:22 Deliver Us (reprise)
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:31 Old Enemy lyrics BUY MP3 03:31 Old Enemy lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:31 Old Enemy
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:47 That's What I Like About My Baby lyrics BUY MP3 03:47 That's What I Like About My Baby lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:47 That's What I Like About My Baby
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 04:51 No Good to Me Now lyrics BUY MP3 04:51 No Good to Me Now lyrics "GIFT MP3" 04:51 No Good to Me Now
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 03:54 Sweet Reunion lyrics BUY MP3 03:54 Sweet Reunion lyrics "GIFT MP3" 03:54 Sweet Reunion
- sample lyrics "DOWNLOAD" 01:57 Reunion (reprise) lyrics BUY MP3 01:57 Reunion (reprise) lyrics "GIFT MP3" 01:57 Reunion (reprise)
Acoustic music with Southern roots and Celtic heritage: story songs with a little banjo, some great blues harp, dobro and fiddle
Bio / Background
Chuck celebrates his Southern roots and Celtic heritage in this collection of story songs. Now funny, now sad, always entertaining and often thought-provoking.
Mike Simpson, of TrueWind Music, says:
“Sweet Reunion is my favorite, of McCabe’s albums. It is visually the richest, and includes a fine picture of the singer as a youth, amidst the family that helped form him. The Point is clear: we need to go back and look again at what made us what we are - the past has given us things worth keeping.”
With a little blues and gospel, a dash of country and some stirring Celtic flavor, the instrumental work on this album is mostly acoustic, string band stuff- guitar, Dobro, banjo, bass and harmonica, all superbly played by Norton Buffalo (Steve Miller Band), Rob Ickes (Blue Highway), Brian McNeill (Battlefield Band), Myron Dove (Santana) and David Brewer (Molly’s Revenge). The stellar production by Joe Weed is worth the price alone, and the songs are among McCabe’s best.
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Rambles Review:
Sweet Reunion marks McCabe's first real flirtation with Celtic musical influences. The thought of a meat-and-potatoes American folk musician like McCabe dealing out Celtic fiddle and Scottish pipes at first seems questionable. But there's no attempt here to be another faux-Celtic musician. McCabe borrows just enough from his Irish-Scottish roots to inspire his own style. The results are an exuberant and very American synthesis.
Two songs draw most obviously from McCabe's Celtic experiment. "The Junk in Murphy's Yard" is a simply perfect song that covers art, life, death and immortality with the imagination and whimsy of a Dr. Seuss or Shel Silverstein poem. The sparkling percussion that echoes the rain of the song turns into a step-dancing rhythm or a dirge with perfect timing. "Erin the Fair (& Caledonia the Brave)" is a homage to the suffering of the Celtic immigrants who made the McCabe name and so many others into common American surnames. Pipes and whistles call out the defiance and sorrow of all those who left their homes behind to find a better future across the sea.
But no matter where McCabe comes from, he's an American boy, and Sweet Reunion has the rhythm and blues to prove it, and plenty of wild country to prove it in. "Grandpa Played Softball" and "That's What I Like About My Baby" show off McCabe's flair for celebrating the everyday, along with some surprisingly elegant rhyme schemes and outright great guitar work. "Gone to Utah" paints the vibrant colors and wide open spaces of the American Southwest in strokes of steel strings and the lingering touch of suspended chords. "Deliver Us from Evil" and "No Good to Me Now" borrow from the distant but related realms of blues and gospel, one a thunder-heavy prayer on the wickedness of life, the other a joyful, horn-backed celebration of personal growth. "Sweet Reunion" is the perfect ending to an album full of separations and brief alliances, a powerfully hopeful promise of better eternities.
McCabe is one of our great singing poets, and he does it all without any overt pretense at poetry. No straining experimental rhyme schemes, no deconstructed traditions. He just gets out there and says the important things that everyone knows, but few can put it into words. He can put those things into words; better still, he can put them into music. His guitar work is powerful, his vocals are low and pitched right into the spine; but it's that rare gift of expression that makes Sweet Reunion truly satisfy, ears, mind and soul.
by Sarah Meador
Rambles.NET
1 April 2006
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