HEARTSOUNDS: Behind the Green Bushes

HeartSounds

Behind the Green Bushes

© 1997 HeartSounds (634479013638)

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Elegant Celtic music for voice, flutes, and Celtic harp

tracks

1 Scarborough Fair
2 Roving Galway Boy
3 Carolan's Concerto
4 Green Bushes
5 Sheebeg and Sheemore
6 I Wish I Were On Yonder Hill
7 George Brabazon
8 My Lagan Love
9 Morrison's Jig
10 Blow the Candles Out
11 Black Nag
12 My Dowrie's the Jewel
13 Paddy O'Rafferty
14 Haste to the Wedding
15 Salley Gardens
16 Unknown Jig / Cooley's Reel
17 Lauda
18 Bittersweet
19 The Water Is Wide

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notes

"Behind the Green Bushes" is the debut CD from HeartSounds, the Philadelphia area duo of Janet Biely and Mary Kay Mann, two classically-trained musicians who discovered a mutual love for Celtic music and never looked back.

Mary Kay Mann is the flutist, whistler, and singer, whose lovely clear soprano and lively tune-playing make this recording sparkle.

Her great-grandfather arrived on the shores of Amerikay from County Mayo, Ireland, in 1905, bringing with him a longing for the green isle that he passed down through the generations.

Celtic harpist Janet Biely is the 1998 winner of the US National Scottish Harp Championship, whose intricate, romantic style captures your heart.

Janet's ancestors were the Scots-Irish who sailed to Ireland and then to Pennsylvania for a new life.

Together, Mary Kay and Janet explore the music of Ireland, Scotland, and America, with original, lyrical arrangements of traditional songs and tunes.

This is not your Irish bar band music! It's down to Paddy O'Lafferty's for ye, if that's what you'll have, and bless you for it! No, this is Celtic music at its most beautiful - the sweeping, haunting melodies of 100-300 years past, sensitively expressed by two serious musicians who love the music and the history it represents.

"Behind the Green Bushes" will warm your heart.

reviews

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  • Behind the Green Bushes
    author: Karen Owen

    My husband and I have had several opportunities to see these ladies perform in person and they are both incredibly talented. We love this album and I'm buying it for the second time, in CD format. We've also bought it as a gift for several family members, some of whom also had the pleasure of hearing live performances, some who have only heard the album and this is a favorite with them as well. You will love their album Shule Aroon, as well as Urban Celtic and Mary Kay's album Celtic Daydreams.

  • Incredibly beautiful
    author: Anne Watson

    I'm used to Celtic music--there are Celtic performers in my family. What I'm not used to is being astonished by a performance. This CD is astonishing--incredibly beautiful.

  • delicate instrumentation and a gentle, well-polished voice
    author: Tom Knapp, Rambles - A Cultural Arts Magazine

    The band's name, HeartSounds, caused me to predict an album of wispy, sentimental, neo-Celtic new age tripe. The album's title, Behind the Green Bushes, led me to expect a bawdy, perhaps even raunchy recording of songs to make a pub wench blush. But Behind the Green Bushes by HeartSounds is neither. Rather, it's a recording of delicate instrumentation (harp, flutes and whistles) and a gentle, well-polished voice rendering a diverse collection of Celtic slow and lively traditional tunes. HeartSounds is Mary Kay Mann (flutes and whistles) and Janet Jackson Biely (Celtic harp). Mann is also the duo's vocalist, and she sings with elegance and presence. (The band occasionally slips into graceful vocal harmonies, which are executed so well I have to wonder why there aren't more of them.) The music is always soft, better suited to a parlor than a pub, but the performance is sheer pleasure to hear. The selection is largely traditional, including the likes of songs "Scarborough Fair," "Green Bushes," "My Lagan Love," "Blow the Candles Out" and "The Water is Wide," and tunes "Roving Galway Boy," "I Wish I Were on Yonder Hill," "Morrison's Jig," "Black Nag" and "Haste to the Wedding." The pair has also selected some favorites from Irish bard Turlough O'Carolan ("Carolan's Concerto," "Sheebeg and Sheemore" and "George Brabazon") and Scottish bard Robert Burns ("My Dowrie's the Jewel"). Biely also contributed one original tune to the mix, the waltz "Bittersweet," a stately and lyrical dance which fits in well with the traditional works around it. Behind the Green Bushes might not be what you expect, but it certainly delivers a worthwhile package and is worth checking out.

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