Latest CD releases reviewed.

THE COUNTRY SOUL REVUE
Testifyin' Casual Records
****

The excellent Country Got Soul compilations, 1 & 2, were the result of long-overdue raiding of the vaults for samples of this southern white/black crossover music which was current during the late 1960s and early '70s. There were many strains to this music, from the Louisiana swamp rock of Tony Joe White to the Alabama black soul of Dan Penn ("I don't know how my skin got white, but I was black - my mind was black!"). Some of the key figures, including Penn, Larry Jon Wilson, George Soule and White, went back into the studio earlier this year to record this compilation; if the voices occasionally sound a little haggard, the touch of these veteran musicians remains true - meaty, funky riffs like Junior Soul Beat sit easily alongside the classic country soul of Penn's brooding Rest of My Life and (the sole woman) Bonnie Bramlett's brass-driven Where's Eddie?

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 Joe Breen

ROBBIE OVERSON
Overdue Irish Music Mail
***

This is possibly one of the bravest collections to hit the shelves in quite a while. Robbie Overson, guitarist and composer who forged his reputation with Scullion, and has more recently been working with the Karan Casey Band, has finally made his own solo début. We've had a taster of it down through the years at live shows, where he briefly stepped into the limelight with his pensive and intricate Maguire & Patterson. This gathering of tunes opens the curtain wide on Overson's considerable writing talents. With just one (divine) tune borrowed from Dingle piper Eoin Duignan, his taste is for reflective, moody and hugely melodic capsules of music, tinted with the barest of decoration by mandolin, percussion and double bass. Late night music to still the soul.

www.irishmusicmail.com

Siobhán Long