Folk and Tumble have covered the work of Mary Black, on record or live, many times over the years, and have been honoured to do so. Put very simply, Mary Black is one of the finest voices to come out of Ireland. Ever!
As Mary prepares to step away from live performance with her ‘Slán’ tour, this three-disc collection arrives as both a retrospective and a quiet victory lap. Drawn from her own personal favourites, it traces a career that has balanced intimacy with quiet grandeur, melody and consistency with emotional depth.
Her collaborations read like a roll call of folk and roots royalty, from De Dannan to Emmylou Harris, alongside the much-missed Dolores Keane, Steve Martin and Joan Baez. These moments are more than guest appearances; they are threads in a wider musical tapestry that this collection carefully gathers together.
Very few artists could display their back catalogue over 3 Discs and and 42 songs, without a dip in quality somewhere.
‘A woman’s heart’, ‘Carolina Rua’, ‘Bright Blue rose’, ‘Song for Ireland’, ‘No frontiers’, ‘Sonny’, songs that have just endured, but have become seeped into the Irish psyche.
The one new song, ‘Light of day’, addresses issues of social inequalities, matters always close to her heart, is from the pen of Shane Howard, whose songs ‘Flesh and blood’, and ‘Don’t say okay’, Mary has already previously recorded, and is a wonderful addition to her catalogue.
The ‘Slan’ tour covers all points of the country, with Belfast’s Ulster Hall playing host twice, on 29th April, and her final gig north of the border on June 7th.
It’s a chance to say farewell and go raibh maith agat to a true Irish legend.