Cathie Ryan - Be Like the Sea

from her "The Farthest Wave" 2005. Shanachie In many ways, Ryan personifies Irish-America, a far-flung tribe who love their country yet were born into what their immigrant forebears perceived as exile. Generations later, they still cherish the music, literature and history of their ancestral homeland. Ryan's eloquent soprano keens and soars as her context shifts between ancient peat fires, long ago Appalachian spring-times and the bittersweet romanticism of a modern singer-songwriter. Her heartbreaking duet with Galway native Sean Keane, "What Will You Do, Love?", describes the plight of a loving couple facing separation. On the final track, she breathes new life into "Home Sweet Home?", a ballad which has long and unfairly been consigned to the chestnut barrel. Accompanied by a parlor piano, squeeze-box and a lonely-sounding whistle, frosted with delicately ironic vocal dissonances, the song speaks eloquently of those who feel displaced, even on their own doorsteps. Producer/fiddler John McCusker and team are perfectly in synch with the bandleader¹s haunting vocals. --Christina Roden