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Customer Review: The Best o' me Dawgs! Excellent from start to finish!
This is THE album tribute to the old crew of OBD. Without much exposure to the public outside of Scotland, Americans are overlooking a real gem of a CD. The change happened shortly after this CD. This CD is much more acoustic than the others. Consequently, Buzzby McMillan's mastery of the cittern as the backbone of the arrangements stands out. The cittern is a large mandolin type instruments with five courses of two strings each per note. I found the chord arrangements on all of these pieces absolutely mesmerizing. Ian Benzie's guitar and lead vocal pronunciations of Aberdeen accent lyrics stand out also. Davy Cattanach's percussion, including conga's and djembe are clear but less of the usual mix. These are the three that left the band. Johnny Hardy continues with OBD, and contributes absolutely excellent fiddle. When this group first presented their wild fiddle, Aberdeen accented lyrics and wilder than wild world percussion, they were the pioneers. The tracks start with "Twa Corbies," which translates as "two corpses with the lyrics being the conversation between two ravens about to eat dinner. The second track starts slow, but then rips through "Rip the Calico," and two other pieces. "Bonnie Earl O'Moray" starts with exquisite Cittern and group harmony. "Malcom Ferguson" returns with cittern and Renaisance style flute. The track ends with a raucous "Finbar Saunders." The Bedlam continues with the "Bedlam Boys" and "Rights of Man." "Pills of White Mercury" is a folksong put to good harmony and rhythm. "Lay Ye Doon Love" is a slow romantic piece fit for romantic slow dancing. "Barnyards of Delgaty" is a lyric story of a man who buys scrawny cattle that can't even "do it," but has no problem in that department himself with the wives of the local cattlemen. "McPherson's Rant" is the folktale of a William Wallace type Scotsman that was betrayed by a gypsy lover and hung. "Cruel Sister" is a tragic, poetic love story put to song. "Bennachie (Gin Whaur the Gaudie Rins)" is my favorite Scottish pub song that is either in Gaelic or it is late at night and everyone has had more than a few drinks. Here's to the old-Old Blind Dogs, "May the old crew tae' the bonnie, brothy brew."
Customer Review: Good
I truly like the instrumentals on this cd. The lead singer is a bit too nasal with his voice for my ears.


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