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Tuesday February 16, 2010

A Night With The Stars

Gwen Orel Reports From Joe's Pub, Where John Doyle And Karan Casey Played Last Week

A lot of Irish traditional musicians and fans came out last Monday night to hear John Doyle and Karan Casey play together at Joe's Pub, mainly selections from their new album, "The Exile's Return." 

Look, there's Aoife O'Donovan, there's Johnny Cuomo, there's Caitlin Warbelow...

That so many came out "on a Monday night yet!" as Casey teased the crowd, is easy to understand: they are both at the top of their game, even a little jet-lagged.

Though there was little advance publicity, and tickets were available on the day, by the time they came onstage it was standing room only - with New York musicians and fans holding their breath until they began.

If you missed the concert (which was easy to do, the pair were on a one-week intensive tour of the east coast, before Doyle flies off to join Joan Baez as her musical director in Germany; he's her musical director), don't miss the album itself; it's a keeper.

"Exile's Return" is a return to their collaboration: Doyle and Casey were founding members of the Irish-American supergroup Solas (which, in its newer lineup, just released a new album, The Turning Tide). 

Their sounds, Casey's little-girl expressive, pure voice, and Doyle's rhythmic, unmistakeable strums, helped define a new wave of Irish traditional music. 

Both have since gone on to flourishing solo careers, garnering multiple awards along the way: Doyle was just nominated for a Grammy award for his latest offering with Liz Carroll, "Double Play; Casey won a Grammy for her collaboration with Paul Winter, among many other awards. 

Her delicate, sensitive renditions have made her a return guest on Garrison Keillor's  "A Prairie Home Companion" (she guested just this past November).

"Exile's Return" is also a return to focusing on songs, their interpretation, their subtlety. 

Doyle composes and sings himself (as anyone who had the good fortune to see him play with Andy Irvine at "Masters in Collaboration at the Irish Arts Center this past September experienced), and together the two bring out every drop of emotion and power in the songs they play.

Doyle himself wrote "Exile's Return," a gorgeous, yearning song about coming home. Casey's sober rendition of songs, with her pure, Dolly Parton-ish timbre, pulls every shred of emotion from songs of emigration or yearning.

If at times their talk seemed a little punchy, through fatigue and teasing, that only made it more fun.

Casey described meeting Doyle years ago when she was working at a café; Doyle replied that Casey "organized a strike and got fired." Casey sang one of the songs from the album, "The Little Drummer Girl," calling it a "cross-dressing song" - about a woman who goes to sea dressed as a man. "It's terrible what women have to do, considering we've given birth to the whole world," Casey said, before going into the jaunty tune.   

Later Doyle called her "the hardest working woman in feminism today."

The intro to "The Bay of Biscay," a song about a ghost visiting his sweetheart, was raunchier.  Doyle said "at least it's not rise up Willie," about Willie creeping into her room, at which point Casey announced "we're only away from home two days." 

Their harmony blended beautifully.  Casey closes her eyes much of the time when singing, and moves her hands to illustrate her words. 

Her voice was in fine form, tired or not, and with the simplicity of just Doyle's mandolin or guitar (he had a new green one, eliciting more stories), the song seems even sadder than it is on the album.

Doyle's higher-energy numbers threw heat into the room.  His original "Farewell to All That," about Irishmen who fought for the British in World War I, treated as traitors by both sides, was exhilarating in its fast-picking anger, and its powerful lines about "the expendable Irish Soldier." 

Doyle is apparently working on a new CD which will feature many of his original songs, and it's long overdue, in my opinion. 

He's such a good guitar player that his other talents are sometimes played down - and it's true a solo of his guitar playing, with tunes whose names he couldn't remember, was outstanding (He's featured prominently on Shanachie's "Masters of the Irish Guitar").   Both were solos.

Casey shines on sad laments, but she's powerful on protest songs too. 

The angry, yet uplifting "The Diggers" began with powerful a capella singing, and the "Ballad of Accounting" was another high-energy rage against poverty (both are on Casey's solo album, "Songlines").

The much-too-short set finished with their jazzy version of the Scottish ballad "The False Lady," from the new album, with each trading verses.  It's a groovy arrangement (Mick Moloney calls Doyle "the groovemeister").

For encores, they sang "The Flower of Finay," a long ballad with "war, loneliness, death" in it - and a little slow for my taste.  But they left the crowd singing with the punchy, defiant Solas traditional song, "The Newry Highwayman."   It all left us wanting much more.

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