Music of What Happens
Cathie Ryan sings with a tragic heart. Her flawless soprano never tightens into stiff professionalism. Instead it wraps itself around notes, wrenching experience from an age-old form. Her repertoire, while a mix of soft originals, aged traditional Irish ballads, and newer songs from songwriters she admires, tends to picture the world in difficult yet hopeful terms. Her second album features Gerry O'Beirne's compact reading of modern politics and private love, "The Lights of San Francisco," and Dick Farrelly's "We Dreamed Our Dreams," which works a haunting melody around a lyric of a lost promise of love. Seamus Egan's spotless production highlights Michael Aharon's sympathetic piano, a web of acoustic guitars, and, of course, Ryan's voice, presented most starkly in the near a cappella "Erin's Lovely Home."--Rob O'Connor