Week 2, Shane Hennessy "Marrakech"

My big worry when I started this quest was that I would find it difficult to discover new, unknown to me albums and review them in a week's period. I still have that fear. But this week, thankfully, one fell in my lap.

Shane Hennessy
Marrakech
2017

Since it was the week of St. Patrick's Day, plenty of appropriately themed posts scrolled through my twitter feed. Very few were about green beer attesting to the quality of the people I follow. But I did get some music related posts and the one that most caught my attention was a new arrangement of Riverdance for acoustic guitar by Shane Hennessy. It is very good. But I followed it down a rabbit hole and found something I liked even better.

Shane Hennessy released an album in 2017 called Marrakech. I bought it after listening to the title track exactly once. I have no regrets.

Shane is a guitarist of considerable talent and it is evident immediately. He plays with great passion and intensity. You'll swear there is more going on than just him and his guitar. He also happily blends the influences of other cultures and musical stylings in with his compositions. That is evident on numerous tracks on this album but most clearly on the opening and title tune, "Marrakech". It is just a lovely folk guitar melody steeped in the sounds of Arabia. Marrakesh is of course in Morocco, North Africa and not Arabia, but the musical tradition would seem to be similar enough that an ignorant Western such as myself can be forgiven the affront. After this is published I promise to do the research and learn how better I might have been able to refer to what I am hearing. But blogging fast and ignorant was one of the promises I made so there is no going back from that. I can only hope to learn as I go.

Tangential musings over, there is not a bad tune on this record. Effervescent is probably my least favorite only because it seems so out of step with the rest of the album but it is a lively piece with some great guitar work. Through the Woods is a beautiful Celtic inspired tune that has a number of surprises within its very relatable melody. And the album closes with the jazzy/bluesy "I'm Off Today". Just enjoy the pickings on this one.

One hopes we will be hearing more from this extremely gifted young man for years to come.

Comments

  1. Gary ScudderApril 3, 2019 at 6:48 AM

    Thanks for introducing me to this artist, Phil. I think I like Sailing to Shore the most. There's an old Persian saying which goes something like this, "Pray to God, but in the meantime keep rowing to shore."

    ReplyDelete

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