Irish Music Magazine
The Baileys A Song for Ireland (Toucan Cove / Universal TC 1105) - Nov/Dec 09
This album could probably be best described as a feed of bacon and cabbage after a diet of haute cuisine. We all love to try new things and we love hearing new songs but sometimes after a few albums of all original and experimental songs and music, we long for some good old-fashioned stuff. The Baileys give us twenty lovely renditions of songs we have grown to love and cherish. In addition, they perform them with a clarity and lack of augmentation that reminds us of the richness of our folk tradition. “Arthur McBride” gets new life in that we hear the lyrics and therefore we understand the story and what a wonderful and bloody “short story” that is even if it was without the melody. The same goes for “Mountains of Mourne”. Listening to this version with all the clear enunciation we can appreciate the wit and humour of Percy French. Recalling the vintage of the song it must have appeared quite risqué when he first sang of those ladies in dresses that might be for a ball or a bath. Other old favourites given new life – without being "re-interpreted to death" – include “Spancil Hill”, “Danny Boy” and “Peggy Gordon”. This album would be an ideal one to just sit and listen to for relaxation. It would also be a good source for a repertoire for any up and coming band or singer. Nicky Rossiter
R2 Rock ‘n’ Reel Magazine
R2 Rock'n'Reel * * * Sept/Oct 09
A Song for Ireland (Toucan Cove Entertainment) www.thebaileys.ie
Many of the twenty songs on this no-frills potted history of Irish folk music have been done to death-standards like 'Homes Of Donegal'(Paul Brady), 'Rocky Road To Dublin' (The Dubliners, The Chieftains with The Rolling Stones, Damien Dempsey), 'Danny Boy' (everyone!) and 'Raglan Road'(Van Morrison, Joan Osborne). But it's The Baileys' insistence on stripping them to their core, getting close to their very root, which makes A Song for Ireland work. This is folk as it used to be played when I was a lad, folk without pretension or adornment-straight from the folkin'heart, if you like. And if the honest but rudimentary vocals don't grab you, well the songs surely will. Who wouldn't want to hear the title track, 'Black Velvet Band', The Ould Triangle' or 'Sullivan's John' again?
David Burke
FATEA Magazine UK
The Baileys
Album: A Song For Ireland
Label: Toucan Cove
Website: http://www.thebaileys.ie
One of the things I really love about Irish music is the depth to which they reflect people and places, a point "A Song for Ireland" brings home across it's twenty odd tracks. There's quite a populist selection amongst the song selection, but that's not a problem as The Baileys really do them justice, something that's absolutely essential when a song is well known as the likes of "Dirty Old Town". The arrangements are kept simple to ensure that the focus remains firmly on the songs; it's an album for relaxing and listening to, perhaps with a pint or two. Something they make very easy.
The Irish Post 7.8.09
Baileys' cream of Irish favourites
I had not heard of The Baileys before this CD landed on my desk so I was not sure what to make of it. At first glance it seemed like yet another collection of well-known and already much-recorded songs that some people would say have been done to death by so many artists - and I don't exempt myself and Malcolm Rogers from this.
If you are looking for new treatments and imaginative arrangements of these songs then you will be disappointed but then that is not what this album is about. Every time you record a well-known song there are of course the inevitable comparisons with other artists but The Baileys seem to have transcended that by going for simple, basic but tasteful arrangements and letting the lyrics and the melodies speak for themselves, and it works very well.
The album can seem quite pedestrian and one-paced at times so I kept waiting for a track to lift it but it just didn't happen. Yet there is an honesty and earnestness about this record.
There are no pretentions whatsoever. Michael Banahan's voice treats the songs with total respect, sincerity and affection as befitting the content (unlike a lot of big-time artists) and Anthony McDermott's harmonies blend perfectly which indeed is one of the strengths of the album. You just sense without being told that these guys have clocked up the miles together and know exactly what they are doing.
The guest musicians on the album are used sparingly and sensibly with Noel Carberry's uilleann pipes and whistles blending in nicely. Aoife Kelly on fiddle, Johnnie Duffy on banjo with added backing vocals from Danny Sheerin all play their part.
However a special mention must go to Paul Gurney who did a terrific job engineering and mixing the recording as well as contributing piano, bass, accordion, guitar and percussion. Engineers are far too often the unsung heroes in recording studios and rarely get the recognition they deserve. Joe Giltrap.
Netrhythms.com
The Baileys
A SONG FOR IRELAND
(Universal/Toucan Cove TC 1105)
This disc collects together 20 of the "best-known of Irish songs" - best-known and best-loved, that is, in the accepted sense and as understood by the man in the street (I'll address that caveat/distinction later.) - in sensibly unsentimental, understated and underplayed (almost to the point of seeming plain) performances by Michael Banahan and Anthony McDermott, both members of acclaimed outfit Rig The Jig, who for the purposes of this exercise (and for some reason I can't fathom) have chosen to call themselves by the unprepossessing name of The Baileys.
These are affectionate, genial, commendably polished and admirably conservative (though not especially sedate) renditions which make a virtue out of their intrinsic Irish character and its lovable honesty. There are no discernible flaws in execution and no crass misjudgements or lapses in taste, but that's as far as it goes really, for equally there's not anything much to wildly excite herein (that's not to say that many of the actual songs themselves, or the conventional alternative - the rabble-rousing rough-house-rowdy approach of the Clancys/Dubliners school - would necessarily excite me much either). Apart, that is, from an empathic take on A Song For Ireland itself and a particularly thoughtfully-turned version of The Ould Triangle. these, more than any other tracks, make it clear that this project is rather a labour of love for Michael and Anthony, who are companionably accompanied on their worthy mission by guest musicians Paul Gurney, Noel Carberry, Aoife Kelly and Johnny Duffy (on piano, bass, accordion, fiddle, banjo, uilleann pipes and whistles) in straightforward and unfussy arrangements.
Hereby refreshingly stripped of the customary layers of ages of grimy pub, club and showband sentimentality, these renditions of the songs that represent the Irish psyche together form a classy, and in the end likeable enough, tourist's-ear-view of popular Irish song, I'd say. So if you want to hear, and own for posterity, these reliable, pleasing and sufficiently definitive versions of such hoary old traditional and composed "Irish standards" as I'll Tell Me Ma, Rocky Road To Dublin, Star Of The County Down, Peggy Gordon, The Wild Rover, Sullivan's John, Mountains Of Mourne, Black Velvet Band, Rare Ould Times, Fields Of Athenry, Spancil Hill, Raglan Road and Danny Boy, together with efficient renditions of songs which have been eagerly (if contentiously) adopted by the Irish as part of their own modern tradition (Fiddler's Green, Dirty Old Town). then this generous 76-minute compendium will satisfy, to be sure.
David Kidman