Irish Heartbeat by Van Morrison and The Chieftains
 

This is a discussion thread for the album Irish Heartbeat by Van Morrison and the Chieftains, recorded in 1988 :-
The album won a recent selection poll of http://www.musicbanter.com/country-f...lbum-club.html - but of course everyone is welcome to join in the debate.
Any opinions ? :)

It's a well-produced album and the instrumentals are great... Unfortunately, it didn't really surprise me much. I'm sure it'll grow on me over time, but for now... I find it a bit dull. (The Irish-centered folk thing got a bit exhausting after a few listens... sorry).

I do have a lot of respect for Morrison, though. The fact that he branched out a bit and was still making decent albums in the 80s shows he's a skilled musician...

Call it cultural bias maybe but this didn't do much for me. While musically it is a good album it left me pretty cold. I guess it's a bit of a challenge to try and take a traditional sound and make it new and exciting. They did it well but there isn't any new ground covered here which is something I look for in my musical explorations.

You summed it up much better than I did. Thank you.

I like it a lot. Music doesn't always have to challenge convention or warp boundaries to be enjoyable, sometimes you just want to kick back, give your brain some time off, and listen to something that is just... nice. This is one of those albums for me.

Well, at least it`s not all bad news for this album, and people are being polite enough to vote no lower than "OK". :laughing:

It`s true that the music stays close to traditional interpretations and maybe lacks surprises. I rather liked the no-nonsense approach in which they don`t try to make the music too pretty-sounding. For instance, they avoid the big Celtic cliché of electronically-enhanced ethereal beauty that some (female) singers go for. Instead they belt out the music as if they were a pub band, helped along by Van Morrison`s powerful voice.

For the Chieftains at least, this album was quite a turning point in their career, as they hit on the scheme of pairing themselves with various rock stars; Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful among them.

Most recently, they teamed up with Ry Cooder for the album San Patricio. As sometimes happens with folk music, there`s a story behind the song, and in this case the history is perhaps more interesting than the music: the "Saint Patricks" were a batallion of mainly Irish soldiers who deserted the USA in the Mexican-American war and went to fight for their fellow Catholics, the Mexicans. Any one who wants to read about the sad outcome of their idealistic decision can take a look here :-

Saint Patrick's Battalion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The album and subsequent collaboration is amazing, thumbs up to them.

^ Welcome to MB Jayben, and congrats on finding this old thread!
It's a great album and there are plenty of recommendations around for similar Celtic gems - or perhaps you have some of your own to share?

For anyone who hasn't heard it, here's the opening track, so why not enjoy that agreeable experience of listening and reading along?



My only grumble is that the whole album is pretty short, and this song in particular could've been stretched beyond its two and a half minutes by putting in this excellent verse as well:-

I am very sorry but this album was horrible, I was listening from youtube, I don't like The Chieftains collaborations very much, the only collaboration that I actually liked was with The Corrs.