Search - Colm O'Donnell :: Farewell to Evening Dances

If you like real Irish music, you should buy this CD

M. Polczynski | Elm Grove, Wisconsin, USA | 04/21/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"James Galway, Phil Coulter, Titanic... all nice stuff. Colm O'Donnell, on the other hand, is a "farmer, forester, shepherd and sheep dog trainer" from the Ox Mountains, Co Sligo. You might hear him in a session if you stop in at one of the local pubs. These are real people on this CD who, oh by the way, happen to be excellent musicians. But it's not the musicianship that gets you when you hear this CD, it's the authenticity of the music and the musicians. This is real Irish music. Close your eyes and you can imagine yourself in that local pub."

Might be my favorite Irish traditional CD!

Danica Wells | New York | 01/04/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's one of the most enjoyable CD's I've heard, because it's full of very musical fluting and some wonderful un-forced singing (oh, quite a bit of whistling, too). There is a HILARIOUS song about a goat that wants to grow up to be a bodhran...I laughed out loud the first few times I heard it. The air he plays on track 7 makes me cry, it's so beautiful. And I love how he doesn't rush the fast tunes. Simply beautiful piece of work.In recommending the CD to me, my friend wrote, "Colm's CD is absolutely fantastic....Colm's playing (to my ear) is some of the most "musical" of the "non-geezers", by that I mean when you listen to his CD "Farewell to evening dances" you get the distinct sense that he's not trying to bludgeon you with virtuosity, rather he's simply playing for the music, passing on his love of it." I have listened to this CD about 40 times this week and I am thoroughly impressed with its musicality."