John Blake,Mairead Hurley and Nathan Gourley

You must learn the what?

Way back when the world was young, I had a Seamus Ennis LP on which he uttered the quote about learning the talk, then the grip, then the truckley-how (never thought of it as truckley howl), which was both incomprehensible and made perfect sense. Which brings us to John Blake, a great player and sensitive accompanist, along with Mairead Hurley and Nathan Gourley. There's not a note out of place, lovely playing on a mix of the well-known and the less-so, with cracking sleeve-notes. For example, the fact that the polka Champagne Charlie derives from a music-hall song sung at Britain's last public execution has a bizarre Wicker-Man quality to it. So, so good...