Margaret Barry – I Sang Through the Fairs (Rounder)

Ireland’s answer to the high lonesome sound, Margaret Barry was a mainstay of the English folk music scene for decades. Her songs, mostly culled from traditional Irish sources, celebrate the vibrant verities of reels, jigs and mythological parables. Familiar fare like “The Blarney Stone” and “Moses Ritoora-Li-Ay” alternate with lesser known canticles like “My Lagan Love” and “Gra Machree.” The harsh, brittle tunings of the banjo are a product of her countless years spent as a busker trying to be heard above the din of fairs and farmer’s markets. Serpentine arpeggios, often in an idiosyncratic claw hammer style, regularly twine with a voice that shears to the emotional quick of each song. Barry’s pipes can calm in lilting lullabying strains or climb in keening threnodies of sound. In either guise the effect is at once otherworldly and totally immersive, much like the music of American counterparts like Dock Boggs and Roscoe Holcomb. Exemplifying the songstress’s legacy further, a series of interview snippets intermingled amongst the songs allow Barry to expound on the origins and importance of many of her tunes. The collection is part of Rounder’s Portrait series focusing field recordings by Alan Lomax of single artists where there exists enough material for full-length discs. Others entries by Davie Stewart, Hobart Smith, Neville Marcano and Mississippi Fred McDowell are worth owning as well.