Search - Niamh Parsons :: Blackbirds & Thrushes

Blackbirds & Thrushes
Niamh Parsons
Blackbirds & Thrushes
Genres: Folk, International Music, Pop
 
  •  Track Listings (12) - Disc #1

Irish songbird Niamh Parsons has built an esteemed career fronting the Celtic band Arcady and her own band, the Loose Connections, but also as a soloist with a catalog that sprawls from magnificent-days-of-yore balladry to...  more »

     
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CD Details

All Artists: Niamh Parsons
Title: Blackbirds & Thrushes
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: Green Linnet
Original Release Date: 4/27/1999
Release Date: 4/27/1999
Genres: Folk, International Music, Pop
Styles: Traditional Folk, British & Celtic Folk, Celtic, Europe, Britain & Ireland
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 048248119726

Synopsis

Amazon.com
Irish songbird Niamh Parsons has built an esteemed career fronting the Celtic band Arcady and her own band, the Loose Connections, but also as a soloist with a catalog that sprawls from magnificent-days-of-yore balladry to contemporary rockist folk. Taking flight here on the lissome and lovely Blackbirds & Thrushes, Parsons flitters and soars with her silver-water voice spinning gold from traditional tunes largely learned from other singers at the renowned Goilan singers club. Pipes, whistles, acoustic bass and guitar, and piano ring round the rosy tones of broken vibrato that make magic of simple alliterative or rhyming refrains such as "Rye fol de dol diddle dol day" or "When cockle shells make Christmas bells / Then I would lose my love for thee." Reminiscent of Sandy Denny-era Fairport Convention, the band provides sparse framework--chops so righteous as to play and sing with equal measures of abandon and restraint. Parsons wends her chords around each note, refracting the sound against warm light, bending, breaking, and infusing each note with clarity and conviction. --Paige La Grone

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CD Reviews

She sings of earth and sky
Jeff Sauer | Kentucky | 12/08/1999
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Niamh Parsons'BLACKBIRDS AND THRUSHES has become one of my favorite recordings. She breathes new life into the "celtic" music world. While I have read of comparisons with other singers, Ms. Parsons voice reminds me of a not-so-dark June Tabor.While I love and collect Ms. Tabor's recordings, I tend to listen to them in quieter, introspective times. BLACKBIRDS AND THRUSHES seems to transend moods with it spare, beautiful melodies and Niahm Parsons' voice that sings of earth and sky and life."
Lovely and Fresh
Jeff Sauer | 03/08/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Of all the celtic albums I've bought recently, this one is by far the best. Ms. Parson has an absolutely lovely voice, and it is much, much more expressive than average. Just as important, she's done a good job of choosing her songs--all of them traditional, but with a fresh feeling to them. "The Water is Wide" is almost always beautiful no matter who's performing it, but who'd have predicted that Parsons' singing could render the Irish "Fear a Bhata" (Man of the Boat)so haunting and filled with longing that it need not be translated for the meaning to come through? An excellent recording."
Folk Lovers Must Have
Scarlett Witman | Reading, PA United States | 03/19/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Niamh Parsons has a rich, mellow voice which was made to sing traditional irish folk. Some songs are very lilting and melodious and others are meditative. The Maid on the Shore creates a very vivid picture to the listener. If you like irish folk, Niamh Parsons would fit very well in your collection."