now playing: Mary Black

Best of Mary Black vol 2

Mary Black is Irish, no doubt about that, and she brings both her mother's Dublin heritage and her dad's background on Rathlin Island off the coast of County Antrim to all that she does. What she does, though, is entirely her own, songs from the best of contemporary songwriters, well known and unknown.

This is a two disc set, the first a best of selection ranaging across several albums, inlcuidng songs such as Bless the Road, Still Believing, The Dimming of the Day, and Song for Ireland. The second disc is called Hidden Harvest and comprises fourteen tracks (there are sixteen on the first one) of outakes, one offs, and collaborations, among them Ring Them Bells with Joan Baez, Across the Universe with Noel Bridgeman, and Bruach na Carriage Baine with Seamus Begley, and Black on her own with Who Knows Where the Time Goes, Good Morning Heartache, and others. Compiled during a time when Black was deciding if it was time "hang up her boots" as a singer, this is an excellent retrospective, and one that will make listeners glad that the Irish musician decided to continue exploring where her musical path will lead.

I had the chance to speak with Mary Black recently, and an article from that conversation appears in the February 2007 issue of the folk and world music magazine Dirty Linen.

you may also wish to
Reflections with Mary Black
Music, Time, Memory: Mary Black
Robert Burns, Altan, and Mary Black