Mellow Candle: Swaddling Songs (DERAM SDL7)

NOTE: This is a slightly longer edit of the piece as published in MOJO, sometime in the early 2000s. Since that time (in the early 2000s – I have no record of when) there have, of course, been several further reissues of Swaddling Songs, although to my mind the sound on the 1991 CD is (curiously) more luxuriant than later remasterings. An opportunity to add further unreleased demos to the most recent re-release fell through, but hopefully they'll appear on the next one along... Only Alison O'Donnell was interviewed for this piece; I later interviewed Clodagh Simmonds and crafted a more detailed version of the Mellow Candle story, which both were happy with, as a chapter in my 2004 book Irish Folk, Trad & Blues: A Secret History (Collins Press).