Goldmund: All Will Prosper (CD, Western Vinyl, November 2011)

I'm a huge fan of Goldmund's delicate and intimate piano compositions, but I was blown away by this, Keith Kenniff's take on 14 songs from the American Civil War. Combining his trademark close-mic piano playing with an unfussy acoustic guitar picking, he makes these very much his own while bringing out the best of the originals. In their standard renditions, I find Amazing Grace off-puttingly melodramatic and The Yellow Rose Of Texas irksomely jaunty: here, the former has is honestly and affectingly uplifting, while the latter is really quite sweet. Better still are the heart-wrenching Johnny Has Gone For A Soldier and the quietly catchy Who'll Save The Left... it's hard to pick out favourites here, and I'm running out of adjectives. Suffice it to say that you'd have to be a much bigger cynic than I am to come away from this without a little bit of a lump in your throat.

I was bought this from Boomkat. They call it Home Listening / Modern Classical / Ambient.

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