Ravishing tune

BigDavy · Post by **BigDavy** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 7:08 pm

Hi MTGuru

Cara Dillon is a very nice live performer, so you can put me in Jim's camp too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCnPkkf8UV4

A clip of her singing with Óige.

Jim maybe I can convert you to the singing of her sister Mary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObbFaxvTRWw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=313jJYkZfY0

Ignore the videos, but the choice of soundtrack is good

David

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 8:12 pm

My god, she has a sister!
Is her sister married?
Oh well....

BigDavy · Post by **BigDavy** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 8:32 pm

Fraid so Jim

I fancied Deanta's flute player more though

David

chas · Post by **chas** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 8:58 pm

I still get sad sometimes knowing that Deanta are probably never gonna make any more music. I got one of Cara Dillon's albums because she sounds a little like Mary, but there's no comparison.

I also got an album by the London Lasses to get a Deirdre Havlin fix (Deanta's fluteplayer), but they're also no comparison to Deanta.

lalit · Post by **lalit** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 10:50 pm

Mary is fab.

MTGuru · Post by **MTGuru** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 3:01 am

Very interesting, guys. A few thoughts:

1) The vids of "P Stands for Paddy" pointed out by Jim and David are indeed lovely. In both, the feeling and expression come through, and Cara's voice has some depth and soul. In fact, ironically, her performance as a teenager seems more mature and nuanced than her 2006 incarnation. Which leads me to think ...

2) Whatever evil force has succeeded in turning her obvious talent in the robotic direction of the Garden Valley vid needs to be quarantined in a padded room with the Celtic Women before it's too late. I guess this is what happens when you "cross over". She'll sell many more records, but I find it kind of sad. To my taste, performing pop-ified arrangements with the Prague Philharmonic is not a big plus point on the CV for an artist with real traditional talent.

3) It's sometimes unfair to judge a performer by his or her commercialized output, whether frozen on disc or on video. This cuts both ways. Sometimes most of an artist's product is in the production, in extremis the Milli Vanilli phenomenon. But slick production values can also stifle or distort real talent, and I suspect that's the case here. In an intimate and more natural live setting, I can well imagine that Cara is a stunning performer.

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 7:26 am

Perhaps this is the difference between us.
I like the pop idiom, at least her version of it.
What you hear as robotic
I hear as expressive. I'm amazed by what
she gets out of a musical line.

Anyhow here is something else more traditional, till
the orchestra takes over.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=V-oquRLcmAM&feature=related

By the by, her husband and keyboard player,
Sam Lakeman, belongs to a triple
of brothers, Sam, Sean and Seth, all of them musicians.
What's with these people?

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:21 am

Maybe she just needs some years. With those songs you posted I can't help hearing the original (or seminal) versions in my head: She Moved
Through the Fair (McCormack), P stands for Paddy (Moynihan),
Cragie Hills (Dolores Keane). Cara Dillon seems to favor that 70s stuff which everyone will remember, but the arrangements are glossy and lusher. More Hit Factory and less Rita & Sarah, it seems. I agree with MTGu that it would be interesting to get her to sit down in a kitchen and sing.

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 4:52 pm

I wonder what you'all think of this other fiddle playing
'cross-overrer' (forgive this word, if you can)?
From Bluegrass.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GT0QFM78fpo&feature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=qn8tixOYiZ0

Anybody know if she has a sister?

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 5:32 pm

jim, it's a wonder you can ever drag yourself away from the elevator.

(Clean up on aisle four. Aisle four: clean up, please.)

djm

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 5:50 pm

Well, if they clone her, I'd like one.
You just take an egg, put in the nucleus
from one of her cells, I mean, how
difficult is that?

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:27 pm

Oh, that is lovely! She has such an "easy" voice! I wish I could ornament like that!

Redwolf

MTGuru · Post by **MTGuru** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:56 pm

jim stone wrote:Perhaps this is the difference between us.
I like the pop idiom, at least her version of it.

Sure, different tastes, no doubt. I do like some current pop and crossover, though not monolithically, and not what I'd call "Trad Lite". The term "pop music" seems problematic anyway. Like "moral majority", much of it strikes me as being neither. "Commercial mass-market sound product" may be more accurate.

In light of my reaction, you might be surprised if I disclosed my own pop credentials. But then I'd have to kill you, and they'd revoke my S.N.O.B. card.

And, yes, I enjoy Allison Krauss and her band, too, in measured doses. "Ghost in this House" can bring me to tears.

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 6:41 am

"Commercial mass-market sound product" certainly captures
a good deal of pop music, but IMO a fair amount of it
is genuine artistry, e.g. the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and
not chiefly motivated by a commercial interest in
selling a product to a mass market. Some extraordinary
artists working in this genre, IMO, motivated by an
artistic vision--which doesn't mean one has to like
what they do, of course.

alurker · Post by **alurker** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 7:45 am

Sticking with the genre:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJWRkCfq ... re=related