ANNIE Grace made her initial impression on the Scottish music scene as the singer (and piper) in the Iron Horse, but is also making headway as an actress. This gentle-paced solo album features her arrangements of familiar traditional songs such as Bonny At Morn, Farewell to Lochaber and Jock o’ Hazeldean, ranged alongside versions of contemporary songs, including Michael Marra’s title track and Jim Mulhern’s Magdalen Laundry. The musicians on this CD are:
ANNIE Grace made her initial impression on the Scottish music scene as the singer (and piper) in the Iron Horse, but is also making headway as an actress. This gentle-paced solo album features her arrangements of familiar traditional songs such as Bonny At Morn, Farewell to Lochaber and Jock o’ Hazeldean, ranged alongside versions of contemporary songs, including Michael Marra’s title track and Jim Mulhern’s Magdalen Laundry. She is not the most compelling or expressive of singers but it is all very pleasant and tastefully accompanied by a small but strong supporting cast that includes fiddler Gavin Marwick.
Singing, whistle playing, piping and acting - Annie Grace is accomplished at all these, but restricts herself to the first two on this solo album. The Iron Horse frontwoman brings in her old bandmate Gavin Marwick on fiddle in a select bunch of musos assembled as first-rate accompaniment to an appealing, adventurous and gently quirky take on some lovely songs. Trad standards such as ‘Jock O Hazeldean’ or ‘Bonny At Morn’ swing sweetly, and ‘Land O The Leal’ morphs outrageously but, like ‘Farewell to Lochaber’, keeps its movingly melancholic cool.
Her radical reinvention of Land o’ the Leal is a stunner...
Annie Grace was among the young Turks of the current Scottish revival with her band The Iron Horse. Her first solo album benefits from the musical experience she’s digested since, being a gem-studded collection of songs, arranged in unexpected ways. Her radical reinvention of Land o’ the Leal is a stunner while Michael Marra’s title track dances a sensuous country-waltz. Grace’s softly lambent singing, together with slick accompaniment from Aly Macrae, Aaron Jones, Gavin Marwick and Davy Cattenach make this a contender for 2004’s best-of list.
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