Irish Music Magazine Review
MARY KATHLEEN BURKE
A Song in Her Heart
Greentrax CDTRAX 321 2008
www.greentrax.com
Review by Nicky Rossiter
Born in Derry and immersed in music from a young age, Mary moved to Scotland at the age of sixteen to pursue a musical career. Like most singers she served an apprenticeship in the venues big and small and soon developed a song writing talent. This talent produced a first song, ‘My Scotsman and Thee’, that is included on this her first album release.
The CD is lovely mixture old and new material. It combines traditional with contemporary and the songs of well-known writers with her own. Opening with ‘Black is the Colour’ she gives her very distinctive treatment to a sometimes over represented song that makes it sound fresh and new.
One of my many favourites on here is ‘My True Love’. Again we may be familiar with a version by Kate Rusby but listen Ms Burke for a new rendition. Burke has a knack for finding a ‘new hook’ in the familiar. Nowhere is this more evident than on ‘A Woman’s Heart’. Even the composer Eleanor McEvoy is quoted as finding this version “truly beautiful”.
‘The Home I Left Behind’ has her taking a song familiar at wakes and weddings in Ireland of the 1950’s and bringing it very deservedly to a wider audience. Intriguingly the title track by Tim O’Connor is noted as written after reading Mary’s biography. The result is a very strong and emotional song. Bridging the heady Sixties scene and the 21st century is ‘Catch the Wind’ originally a hit for Donovan but revitalised here. It’s a pity Robbie Burns couldn’t arrange some class of posthumous royalty cheque. So many of his songs are as fresh today as when he wrote them and with singers like Burke breathing new life into ‘Ae Fond Kiss’ they will go on forever.
Longing for home is a common theme in folk music and on this album it is epitomised by ‘My Scotsman & Thee’ with the tale of longing for home, visiting home but loving someone from another land. Sung here almost three decades after it was written by a 19-year-old Burke it sounds “hot off the presses”. This is an outstanding first album, even if she waited about 30 years to burst on the scene, and I look forward to many more.
Nicky Rossiter
Irish Traditional Music is at the heart of the Irish culture and history, never as a static antiquity, the tradition is alive and vital, open to change yet conservative of its core values.
The essence of Irish Music Magazine is to reflect what is happening in Irish music in contemporary society.
From the commercial recordings of traditional tunes, and to the experimentation with other musical cultures, Irish Music Magazine keeps readers informed about upcoming tours, events and also festivals from the diverse world of Irish and Celtic acoustic music.
Irish Music Magazine, strives to inform readers and musicians alike, keeping you abreast of all major developments in the Irish Traditional Music community.
It is this vital human contact which is at the heart of the music experience and is the reason why Irish Music Magazine is the leading independent voice on Irish music in the world.
Mary Kathleen Burke.
Singer-songwriter-Guitarist-recording artist & Radio Presenter
Website Designed and maintained By Mary Kathleen Burke
Buy The Debut Album now ! " A song in her heart" online at www.greentrax.com and in all good music shops online and offline worldwide. Get yours today and support Mary's Music
