An Irish Evening: Live At The Grand Opera House, Belfast
During the early '90s, the Chieftains embarked upon a series of multigenre crossover recordings. Major pop stars were brought in as guest artists and a few had the goods, but others came across as wannabes or well-meaning if clueless PR victims. This Grammy-winning live album from 1992 features theWho's Roger Daltrey and American singerNanci Griffith. Sadly, Griffith's husky, thin-textured voice is inadequate to the demands of Irish vocal ornamentation and phrasing. Daltrey, meanwhile, sounds raucous, unidiomatic, and amateurish; plus his presence with a traditional Irish music ensemble in the middle of British-occupied Belfast seems a bit much. In any case, courting comparison with the Chieftains' own singer, Kevin Conneff, is a risky business at best. The instrumentals are typically accomplished and futureRiverdancediva Jean Butler provides charmingly percussive footwork, but the trap drummer on the last tune is glaringly out of place.--Christina Roden