The Debra Haul - Redwood Cathedral

 

2023 Charity Shop Purchases #36 -Dick Gaughan - Redwood Cathedral

We are fast approaching the end of the first Debra Haul and are now on the second albums of some of those already featured.

Dick Gaughan has already featured with his 2001 album Outlaws and Dreamers. Today is the turn of its 1998 predecessor Redwood Cathedral which is also on the Greentrax label.

In the sleevenotes Dick states that while he writes songs he regards himself primarily as an interpreter of songs and that the album is primarily a collection of songs writtern by highly skilled songwriters  and are well crafted songs which he loves and which he loves singing and exploring.Indeed of the 12 songs on the album only two are written by him

AllMusic writes that Gaughan's weathered brogue is enough to make a song memorable and that it is  clear that Gaughan has a gift for phrasing that puts the listener at ease.

As with Outlaws and Dreamers the album is a mix of folk standards and protest songs and these two incorporate both. 

Thomas Muir of Huntershill is written by Adam McNaughton in praise of the great revolutionary whose life stradled the 18th/19th centuries and who took part in the American and French revolutions before returning to Scotland and being instrumental in the agitation leading to the Weaver's Revolt.

Turn!, Turn!, Turn! (To Everything There is a Season) Pete Seeger's famous development of a theme from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes surely needs no further introduction.

Dick Gaughan - Thomas Muir of Huntershill

Dick Gaughan -Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There is a Season)