Antone Music 2026
Grizzled Irish musicians raid American vaults for not-too-obvious rhythm-and-blues treasures to give them additional, Donegal value.
Isn’t That So
There are two ways to define someone’s artistic identity: one, by delivering original material, the other by taking other people’s works and interpreting them. The latter has its risks, however, because staying too close to the source would be as futile as straying too far from the familiar. Given the pedigree of this ensemble’s members, the listener could hardly be surprised to find that they went both ways almost at the same time, with merely six months separating the covers set “Isn’t That So” from “Saints And Sinners” which featured numbers penned especially for the performers drummer Romek Parol corralled to have fun. Except for a single piece from the repertoire of THE PIRATES he was part of on such records as "Land Of The Blind" before touring with Eric Bell and stoking the engine on THE SPELLKASTERS’ sole offering, the bulk of the album is made up of minor classics – in several cases borrowed by proxy, via the prism of somebody else’s vision – done with enviable gusto.
It’s hardly a coincidence, then, that the band chose to pick not one but two Bonnie Raitt’s cuts and masterfully changed the perspective of funky opener “Fundamental Things” and the punchy “If You Need Somebody” to render them simultaneously simmer and shimmer as Paul Cox’s husky vocals lay down tasty lines over the bedrock of Dave “Munch” More’s seductive Hammond, and Mick McCarney’s six-string licks lock into Billy Robinson’s bass. Well aware of how to create a mood, these veterans can sound restrained, while emoting with no reservations whatsoever, as their take on Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “I Wouldn’t Treat A Dog (The Way You Treated Me)” suggests in style – elegantly, if assertive, with the instrumentalists, encouraged by their leader’s sympathetic groove, reach into the depths of the song’s, and the audience’s, psyche. The combo turn John Hiatt’s “Lovers Will” into a serenade, whose piano and guitar fathom one’s despair yet leave space for optimism, and wrap Tony Joe White’s “Gonna Look Good In Blues” into a twangy wonder, whereas the Jessie Winchester-written title track, driven by the rivulets of ivories, transports a similar blues towards a sparsely impressive world of hope and let it gain an infectious momentum.
There’s fantastic call-and-response elevating THE ISLEY BROTHERS’ “Work To Do” – which promises to become a great wigout on stage – and a mighty resonance in Boz Scaggs’s “Come On Home” that’s tremulous enough to echo in one’s soul long after the platter’s dissolved in silence, befitting a band which are bound to think about their mortality. But a fabulous honky-tonk reading of B. B. King’s “Never Make Your Move Too Soon” – that should be right at home in both Ulster and Louisiana – seems vivacious, and the group’s tender-to-taut handling of Keb’ Mo’s “The Whole Enchilada” feels so effortless as to bring a thrill to it all. Still, THE PIRATES’ “Don’t Fool Around With Love” is awarded pride of place here – done in the Donegal ensemble’s style, the style defined by THE FORTUNATE FEW’s treatment of external material as much as by playing their own stuff. Pure class.
****2/3
