Randal Bays: Out of the Woods

RANDAL BAYS: OUT OF THE WOODS

Randal Bays: fiddle, guitar

A lovely album of Irish fiddle tunes by a talented American-born musician known for his recordings with Martin Hayes. Bays plays both fiddle and guitar on the CD--there are a few track of beautiful guitar fingerpicking--and performs some of his own compositions. Nothing terribly fancy, just a wonderful selection of tunes played with a lot of soul, in a style which will remind some of Kevin Burke and Martin Hayes' playing. For good reasons. Randal started playing Irish fiddle after hearing Burke in concert, and he played guitar, recorded, and toured with Hayes. But Randal's playing has its own distinctive sound. I feel I should just copy here what James Kelly wrote as an introduction, because I agree entirely with what he said so well: "Randal Bays is a musician's musician, who plays at the highest level whether on the fiddle or the guitar, and who has spent many years fine-tuning his art to produce this great recording. We all have our reasons why we like certain recordings and musicians--for some it is technical brilliance, for others it is great emotion, while others like the selection of material. This CD has all that and much more..." (James Kelly).

Rating: ***1/2

Price: $16.99