CD Review - Blackwood Live By George O'Brien
"Blackwood Live" is a recording from the Blackwood band performance at the Irish Cultural Center on February 7th. This outstanding CD will go a long way to establish the band's reputation as one of the foremost Irish groups in Arizona.
In some ways, Blackwood is the most unusual band on the Arizona Irish scene. Most groups can be classified as either a folk/pub or as a traditional/ceili band. Folk/pub bands (including Celtic rock bands) do mostly vocals and mix in a few instrumentals. Trad/ceili bands do mostly instrumentals with a few vocals mixed in. Very few bands try to cross over and even fewer succeed.
Then there is Blackwood. Led by the vocals of Sven Henrich, Blackwood is one of the top pub bands in the area. Blackwood routinely does up-tempo drinking songs and other clap along pieces along with slower ballads. "Blackwood Live" gives a sample of these excellent vocals including "Hero Johnny", "Streets of London", "Shady Grove" and the "Queen of All Argyll".
Blackwood is a top pub band, but what makes the band unique is that it is also one of Arizona's top traditional/ceili bands.
Blackwood features Sven Henrich on the flute (made of blackwood), Jerica Leathers on fiddle, Dennis Putscher on guitar, and Kevin King on bodhran (the Irish drum). Each are outstanding individual players, but "Blackwood Live" demonstrates just how good they are as a group.
Blackwood instrumentals are build around the flute-fiddle combination. For example, track 1 starts with a slow air by the fiddle which is later joined by the flute and guitar, it then moves into an up-tempo reel which has the fiddle and guitar followed by the flute and guitar and then everyone joins in. The second track reverses the order with the flute opening joined later by the fiddle. The blending is beautiful and the energy electric. The effect is incredible.
The bodhran is less pronounced on this CD than at pub gigs, but Kevin King has a couple of fine solo riffs. Dennis Putscher on guitar accompaniment plays a big role throughout the performance, but he really shines while playing along with the vocals on "The Queen of All Argyll".
As a recording of a live performance, this CD has a small amount of background noise and some comments between pieces. Live recording is never as clean as studio work, but this was more than offset by the great energy that performing before an audience generates. But even for a studio recording, the timing and blending of the instruments was remarkable. Some of the credit for how well this recording came out goes to the sound engineer, Kyle Harris who is one of the few people in Arizona who can vote in the Grammies in the area of sound.
The extraordinary thing about "Blackwood Live" was that they had not really planned to make a CD from the recording. They just came to play, but the results were simply amazing.
Blackwood's website is www.blackwoodband.com
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