Strange Folk

The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 314 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Ensign Records # CDP 32 1589 2 | Country/Year: UK 1988
Genre: Folk, Rock | Style: Folk Rock, Indie Rock

…Although the arena-rock influences have been toned down, Scott's vision is no less sweeping or romantic, making even the simplest songs on Fisherman's Blues feel like epics. Nevertheless, the album is the Waterboys' warmest and most rewarding record, boasting a handful of fine songs, as well as a surprisingly successful cover of Van Morrison's breathtaking "Sweet Thing."

After a lengthy legal battle over the Wishbone Ash name with founding vocalist and bassist Martin Turner, guitar/vocalist Andy Powell, the group's only remaining original member, prevailed. As a result, his band sounds totally revitalized on Blue Horizon, WA's 22nd album. Though few punters consider it, this group was one of the great purveyors of classic arena rock's twin-guitar sound or the European sound of the Atlantic (the first was Thin Lizzy). So much so, they won an enormous following in the birthplace of such pyrotechnics, America. Few rock bands of any era have explored as many musical geographies as this lot, from hard electric blues-rock to sword-and-sorcery prog and in the 1990s, even trance!

Alan Hull's third solo album, and his last before Lindisfarne reconvened in 1979, follows firmly in the footsteps of its two predecessors, while advancing their musical outlook towards entire new pastures. Indeed, a crack band and lush production could lure you into mistaking the opening "I Wish You Well" for any number of contemporary MOR troubadours, although the self-deprecating "Anywhere Is Everywhere" quickly brings your ears back to basics, a rock & rolling singalong that finds Hull sounding as sharp and sassy as he ever did in the past… and ever would in the future. Brilliant stuff.

A master of the kora (21-string West African harp), Toumani Diabaté has brought the traditional music of his native Mali to the attention of an international audience with a series of well-received solo albums and some unlikely, but acclaimed, collaborations. Although he came from a family of musicians, Diabaté (born August 10, 1965) taught himself to play the kora at an early age, as his father, who also played the instrument, was often away touring. He developed a style of playing that, while being strongly rooted in the Malian tradition, is also open to a wide range of other influences, such as jazz and flamenco. He has subsequently sought out other musicians from around the world who are willing to experiment with him, even performing a concert in Amsterdam with a classical harpist.